Dali, Dada, Daoism

Who decided that Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine were separate to begin with? I hear about the duty we have to merge the differing forms of medicine and have to wonder where and when someone decided that they were separate. Merriam-Webster defines medicine as  "the science and art dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease". Isn't that what each of us is trying to do? Which form of medicine we practice is like asking an artist which movement they belong to. Cubism may look different from Impressionism but they are both art, they are both equally valid, they both require use of medium and a surface to put it on - they have the same components with the same end. In medical school, they teach us not to speak ill of our colleagues yet somehow it seems to only apply to practitioners of Western medicine. How dare we diminish any form of medicine? People seem to be attached to their school like a religion believing in their gods and forsaking all others. As with religion, I find it short-sighted to not consider all religions, all philosophies, all arts to be intersecting and co-existing, perhaps even exactly the same with different names - meant to confuse us and keep us from realizing the full potential that medicine or spirituality or art and transcendence are meant to bring. Imagine - JUST IMAGINE what we could do with all the tools of all forms of medicine at our disposal?! What good could we do, how many people could we heal? What disservice do we do our patients by being closed-minded to the possibilities? If there is something that could help my patient and I fail to provide it, have I not done them harm? 

"Autumn Story" by Jose Roosevelt