Ye Jianzhou links Yunnan to the outside with TCM

In the office of Ye Jianzhou, vice president of Yunnan Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, files piling high on the desk are quite visible. "These files are sorted out routinely," said Ye Jianzhou, adding it is his habit to gain new knowledge on medicine and improve skills in diagnosis and treatment.

Ye Jianzhou's mom is a doctor. Influenced by the mother, both Ye and his brother chose to study medicine. The brother cures skin diseases with Western medicine, while Ye majors in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

"I used to wander in the mountains surrounding Kunming in my childhood. Back then, I had interest in herbs, thinking it would be fun being a TCM practitioner.” Recalling his naive old days, Ye Jianzhou smiled. When it comes to skin diseases, Ye said skin is the largest organ of the human body. Rich in variety and prone to recurrence, skin diseases are mostly chronic ones related to other diseases. "It’s challenging to be a dermatologist."

In spite of difficulties, Ye Jianzhou set down to it with great attention. Up to now, Ye and his colleagues have developed 15 kinds of in-hospital preparations. Yunnan TCM Hospital of Dermatology, which is headed by Ye, receives about 140,000 outpatients a year, making it a first-class skin hospital in southwest China.

Ye also led the project on "Academic Thought and Popularization of Yunnan Senior TCM Practitioners in Treating Skin Diseases". With literature review, epidemiological investigation and preparation research, the project had a systematic study on skin diseases, winning the first prize of Yunnan Award for Science and Technology Progress in 2017. 

In his TCM pursuit, Ye Jianzhou sticks to Yunnan province. When he got his MA in Beijing, many of his peers chose to work in the national capital, but he returned to Yunnan. Ye’s brother works outside China and his parents also settled abroad, but he still insists staying in Yunnan. "Since I study TCM, Yunnan, the kingdom of herbs, is the best place." Ye said. 

Ye is open-minded. In adhering to the TCM characteristics and learning form modern western medicine, he makes flexible use of local medicines and ethnic medicines in Yunnan. And Ye has regular exchanges with his family and friends abroad.

Ye also teaches at Yunnan TCM University, where students from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and others are visible. He often shares his TCM ideas with the international students. “In the joint Belt and Road pursuit, Yunnan TCM embraces new opportunities.” As a family member of overseas Chinese, Ye is trying his best to use TCM as a way for the international community to better understand China. 

"This year, TCM academician Zhang Boli won the national honorary title of 'the People's Hero', which made me feel that TCM practitioners can make a difference." During the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, Ye Jianzhou went to the front for disaster relief. During the Covid-19 outbreak, he coordinated his hospital's operation in battling the epidemic. "The Wenchuan quake and the Covid-19 pandemic strengthened my sense of love and mission as a doctor."

Now, Ye has outpatient visits weekly, and he sets work stations in central Yunnan’s Tonghai and Yuxi, providing monthly clinic services there. He said that it is his initial and unchanging wish to let more people benefit from TCM.

Reporting by Liu Ziyu (Yunnan Daily); trans-editing by Wang Shixue