Tian graduated from the Beijing Medical University (now Peking University Health Science Center) in the 1960s. After obtaining his doctoral degree, he went to the United States in 1982 for a post-doctoral program.

To draw the Americans’ attention to traditional Chinese medicine, he established the Academy of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and Wildwood Acupuncture Center in Washington D.C. in 1986 to handle cases that Western doctors felt troublesome. Tian’s first patient was Mitchell B. Max, chief of the Pain and Neurosensory Mechanisms Branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who was an expert of pain research but could find no other way than relying on analgesics to handle his own neuroheadache. He came to Dr. Tian just for a try. Yet to his surprise, about 10 minutes after he was acupunctured, he fell asleep. When he woke up, he found his headache had been greatly alleviated. After a dozen or so treatments, Dr. Max was fully recovered.

During the first five years, Tian treated difficult and complicated cases of about 200 doctors. Tian was praised as “the man who creates wonders” and “the last hope.” The NIH changed its attitude towards acupuncture and approved it as a treatment for patients in 1991. Meanwhile, it invited Dr. Tian to be its clinical advisor on traditional Chinese medical acupuncture. Tian was the first traditional Chinese medicine doctor to get such an appointment.

Tom Harkin, US senator in charge of health, also played a role in witnessing Tian’s medical skills. In June 1997, Harkin’s elder brother, who was suffering an unbearable pain due to the metastasis of a thyroid gland carcinoma, was sent to the NIH for treatment. While all the Western treatments failed, Tian took over the case. Fifteen minutes after he treated the patient with acupunctures, the pain began to ease. The patient gradually relaxed and was in sound asleep half an hour later. Harkin saw for himself the magic effects of acupuncture and admired it from the bottom of his heart. Since then he has repeatedly expressed his resolute support for acupuncture.

Finally, in 1996, the US government formally approved to change acupuncture needle from experimental instrument to formal medical apparatus. Following this decision, insurance companies agreed to cover acupuncture treatment in medical insurance plans. In 1997, The NIH held an international conference to evaluate and confirm the safety and effectiveness of acupuncture. After the meeting, the US government invested more than US$10 million in clinical studies on acupuncture treatments for four major diseases, including rheumathritis and osteoarthritis.

Though the American mainstream has accepted acupuncture as a medical treatment, Tian has not stopped his pursuit. He has focused on his next target -- to make traditional Chinese medicine popular among the Americans. With the help of his wife Chen Shangqing, a graduate of Beijing Medical University, majored in pharmacology, Dr. Tian did researches on traditional Chinese herbal medicines with his own money. Two of his medicines, American Bones Tonic Capsule and American Bones Builder Capsule, both for arthritis and osteoporosis, have been put into clinical use and well accepted by both patients and doctors.

Dr. Tian is also president of the American Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine. During a recent interview with the Xinhua News Agency, he said: “Traditional Chinese medicine, which is very safe and effective, has a boundless bright future in the United States.” He noted that it is just the beginning for the Americans to accept traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Together with all the Chinese doctors in the United States, he’ll strive for furthering the research and usage of traditional Chinese medicine and let more people know its wonders.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, January 27, 2003)