At the Tibetan Medicine Committee's annual conference in August, Harvard University's Janet Gyatso expressed her amazement and optimism about the development of Tibetan medicine.

 

Vincanne Adams, from UCSF School of Medicine, said the biggest challenge is exposing Western medics to Tibetan medical theory, which is very hard to explain in a Western context.

 

More should be done to promote Tibetan medicine on the international stage and to attract students to this branch of medicine, she added.

 

Tawni Tidwell, a PhD candidate at the anthropology department of Emory University, said Tibetan medicine is not only concerned with the body but also the mind, which "is needed in the world [today]."

 

"Tibetan medicine has treatments for afflictions that western medicine does not understand," he said.

 

"As more new and complicated diseases emerge that Western medicine cannot treat -- chronic diseases particularly -- Tibetan medicine could take a [leading] role," Kloos said.