[Music] like many people I was introduced to acupuncture because of a health issue of my own and I've got a really good buddy who basically badgered me he like harassed me and he says oh you're thinking of going to China well how long are you going for and I said I don't know maybe 6 months and these acupuncturist in the students seasoned acupunctur are writing in saying how much they like it and if they like that sometimes people that are more Ginger people they'll often be kind of pudgy and fluid filled as [Music] well today's show is so special because this is the first time I have someone that comes on the show that actually speaks Chinese Michael Max who is the podcaster of the whole TCM world for seven years theological if you haven't listened to this podcast oh my God where have you been so today Michael came on the show which I was so nervous because he's been doing this for a long time and uh I'm new at interviewing but we had a blast because he's so easy he makes it so simple we talked about how and why he went to China and Taiwan to to learn Chinese the difference about reading Chinese versus speaking Chinese and how one of them is so much easier than the other we also talked about how to start a podcast or why to start a podcast on TCM and the work it requires to have a podcast because he've been doing this for a long time and then we went into talking about something I've never heard before which is saam acupuncture and you are going to love this because we had a great discussion and it was very interesting I actually now want to go and learn more about um acupuncture oh yeah curiosity is the word of the day today you will see that and then we also finished by talking about the 10 key formula families which is from Dr hangang and if you've never heard of this you're going to have a little bit of more curiosity so let's do this let's Michael Max makes me relaxed it calms me why because it has had a podcast geological for over seven years so he knows what he's doing and he makes me feel so much better so I'm so so thankful that he has agreed to come on the acupro show today to share his wisdom and years of practice because he's been practicing for 25 years in the US in Missouri and he has this podcast that I absolutely think is fantastic seven years you guys like seven years every week mind blown so I'm really looking towards learning from Michael because he kind of like someone I look up to especially for podcast but also because the guy speaks Chinese and went and learned Chinese in China mind loone again so I'm so impressed by all your accomplishments so welcome welcome welcome M Michael to the show H okay I hope I can live up to this oh of course course you already did it's over you can go home thank you for having me I of course love talking about Chinese medicine that's pretty obvious I do it every dang week so I'm really happy to be here on the other side of the microphone it's really nice to have somebody else Drive I've been on your podcast and I really enjoyed our conversation I really really liked it and I'll have the links in the show notes below so if you guys missed the episode you can check it out cuz uh we had a lot of fun as well my first question is why did you get into TCM and of course like most of us it was probably not your first career so why did you jump in the TCM love bandwagon yeah okay I didn't jump in I was phenomenally cautious like many people I was introduced to acupuncture because of a health issue of my own and I've got a really good buddy who basically badgered me he like harassed me to go get some acupuncture I'm kind of an open-minded guy but like you know was just weird acupun just weird and he insisted and I finally thought great fine nothing else has worked I'll go this won't work you'll shut up we can get back to drinking beer and I can tell you for sure that the acupuncture did nothing to help the problem that I had at that time but what it did do is leave me in a state of like what the hell was that and eventually the issue that I went in with changed but before it changed I found that I was sleeping better I was digesting better I was way less irritable it was nice and I like I liked it I don't like needles but I like the experience because it helped me I just started using using it for my for my healthare if something was up I'd go see an acupuncturist and I did that for years it was great and and so I just started thinking like well hm like wonder what else could I do and somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking acupuncture and that thought just wouldn't go away and I don't know if I want to go back to school for one and can I even make a damn living with it but thought didn't go away I started reading some books my first acupuncturist handed me a copy of the the of course very famous uh web that has no Weaver by the way I'm going to do a quick shout out I had Ted captrick on the podcast so I read the book and it made no sense to me whatsoever it's like wow I I have no idea how to think about this but acupuncture was still an interest for me still just was knocking around in the back of my mind and so I talked to my first acupuncturist about it she says look it go to one of the schools you will know in 6 months if it's for you or not and if it is awesome you got a new career you're going to love it and if it turns out that it's not for you all you've done is learn a little bit more about something you're interested in either way you can't lose and I thought she's right that's right and that's what happens that's uh great advice and in the end you need that little push but at the same time you know the answer already you just needed a little bit of reassurance and someone to tell you more but you knew already in your God that you were going to go and give it a try and see what happened right so I'm glad you did I'm glad I did too so that leads me to my next question so you went back to school you obviously stayed and you obviously passed the six months Mark to see if you're going to like it or not and then you decided after you did your Masters you were like okay I need to understand this better so I want to go and learn the language so tell me about how you decide to do this and specifically how hard was it to learn Mandarin because oh boy oh boy when we took Mandarin in class I found the character writing and reading was so much easier than having to speak and the pronunciations character reading and writing is easier than pronunciation and in fact you could make a study of reading Chinese not being able to speak a lick of it and be able to read Chinese pretty well enough to learn what you need to from medical books to help you in clinic that's that's completely a doable thing in fact the school that I went to they required us to take Chinese every single quarter of school like from beginning to end y'all are going to learn to read some Chinese which was terrifying for a guy from Missouri I learned to read a little bit of medical Chinese when I was in school by the time I graduated I could kind of read a little bit with the help of a dictionary a bit but you know it was a slog it wasn't great after a couple years of practice my wife at that time and I we separated divorced actually but now I'm about to lose my house I'm about to you know end a relationship and my thought was wow well huh this is kind of an opportunity isn't I could just like light out for China for a couple of months and go study me some medicine that might be a good idea good timing I ran into Andy Ellis of spring wind at a conference and I know that he knew Chinese and I know that he had lived abroad and studied in China and in Taiwan so I asked him I'm like Andy I'm thinking of going to China to study I know you've been there suggestions on where to go who to study with Andy says oh you thinking of going to China well how long are you going for and I said I don't know maybe 6 months I'm about to get divorced so it's kind of an open ticket and he says oh well in that case why don't you go to Taiwan first and you can study Mandarin for like six or nine months and then head over to China and do Chinese medicine in Chinese I'm listening I hear him say that and then it's almost this disembodied experience of watching myself think yep that's what I'm going to do and about 6 months later I'm in Tai Bay at the guu jongin the Mandarin training center in taibe learning enough Chinese so that I can maybe do medicine in Chinese I did go to Beijing yeah I was in Taiwan for about a year and a half and I had an opportunity to study with a Shang hunland doctor in Beijing and so I went to Beijing and I spent a couple years in Beijing and then I missed Taiwan so I went back to Taiwan wow so how long were you away from North America then almost four year almost five years okay wow that's really cool so here's my question so when you were there did you have the opportunity to work and make a living how did you support yourself because four years is a long time right that's right I basically supported Myself by teaching English so in the end obviously not only you you learn the language but you work in the TCM environment which now you learn the TCM language within the language which is like a double learning how did that serve you when you came back in treating your patients or in practice in general it it's helped me in that I've been able to read books even Translate some materials and be able to use that I had this idea if I could learn it in Chinese and then like you know get it in Chinese and I could explain it better in English guess what completely wrong I can speak about it really well in Chinese but trying to translate some of those Concepts into English that's much harder what I found when I'm trying to talk to people about Chinese medicine in English is I have to get a sense of how they they think and what their metaphors are and what their worldview is and you know what aspect of the medicine they're trying to understand and be able to speak to them within that scope so to speak I think concepts are hard to explain as well every culture every different languages as a way to look at things so differently so it makes it challenging so I get that completely yes and I will say this as well in some ways it's easier to think about and learn Chinese medicine in Chinese than it is in English because so many things in English you're speaking some kind of pinion sound and you know it's approximating the Chinese but you don't know what the Chinese actually means in Chinese it's often very straightforward what something is if you know the Chinese it makes it easier in some ways here's the other thing about Chinese language again you know people might be thinking oh my God it's so hard you can learn to read it not speak it that's perfectly okay if you can read it you'll get access to the Treasure House of Chinese medicine I remember when we learned how to look up characters in the dictionary right you don't think of that but you're like oh how do I look up a character in the dictionary so we had to learn that in order for us to be able to look that up and that was really cool too look I met wonderful people I had a Taiwan in particular is a wonderful one wonderful place uh the tea is delicious the people are very kind you go to restaurants make sure you're ordering in Chinese you put yourself in front of it eventually you get the hang of it your brain will rewire itself it really does it is plastic it will rewire itself are you ready to unlock the remarkable potential of a micro system that is so effective for pain disorders you cannot bypass it this is what scalp acupuncture course taught by my friend and colleague Dr Sonia tan is all about this is at your own pace and it focus on treating pain and tightness including all the types of muscular skeletal pain and injury chronic and acute as well as burning pain tingling and numbness this course contains what you need to know to start practicing scalp acupuncture immediately upon completion now this course utilizes the balanced method from Dr 10 which makes it such a very effective method listen to what people who invested in the scalp acupuncture course have said I want to thank Dr Sonia for doing an amazing job by attending your course I have learned the right technique to treat patients when it comes to balance method for acupuncture scalp I have started to treat patients using the method and have received great feedbacks already it has helped my patients body discomfort feel better it is this very easy method to perform on patients I really did enjoy learning about this system and would be interested in learning other systems best teacher I've ever had generous inner teaching and friendly very enthusiastic clear and articulate Splendid interesting sharing knowledge in a fluid way very passionate teacher animated Sonia is alive I love that definitely not a boring course I could tell you that you'll receive continuing education hours and a certificate after you pass a multiple choice quiz you have access to the course forever so you can watch it over and over at your own time because it's pre-recorded you also have a 7-Day money back guarantee because I stand behind my product and I always make sure that the teachers that I bring on my platform are the quality of teachers that I so so V for you to benefit from don't miss out on the opportunity to revolutionize your practice using this very simple yet very effective method for pain disorders go to my website aupo academy.com and click the TCM course tab on the menu bar or check out the link in the show notes below and invest in the scalp acupuncture course today you won't regret it I'm glad you did this and I think it's great that you're so you're so curious and you go and you want to meet people and you open to possibilities and ideas and I think that's what makes your podcast theological really really fascinatingly interesting because you always have different guests and you have great conversation then can go in different directions and so that's my next question why did you decide to do it how much work does it take for you to be so consistent then obviously really great now after seven years but yeah how much work and why did you want to do a podcast and where do you see the podcast going I went to one of these uh networking meetings I rarely go to them I don't like them but it it was in my neighborhood and you know I went to it I met a guy there this is in 2013 podcasting is just barely starting to happen I meet this guy and he says I podcast and I teach people to podcast so I'm having some conversation I'm saying hey look uh yeah podcast whatever I'm help me understand this I've got an acupuncture practice I've got a website I write for the website I got great SEO because I write for the website every week my phone ring all the time with people asking for an appointment why would I want to do a podcast and he said oh it's very simple the people that would listen to your podcast are not the same as the people that would read your website oh my goodness I think this guy is right what am I going to do with that and again you know the Curiosity kind of kicks in and I'm thinking I want to play with this podcasting thing I don't know what I'm going to do with it I don't need it for my business I don't want to do it for my business business and so I I've been in Missouri at this point maybe four or 5 years and I missed my friends in Seattle because we used to just hang out and go for walks or drink tea or you know whatever and gab about Chinese medicine in a very chological way and I didn't have that and I thought huh maybe I could do a podcast I could invite my friends we can draw a bone about Chinese medicine we'll do it in plain English it can be like a public service help people understand Chinese medicine podcast maybe they'll go find an acupuncturist if they need one so it it started out with that idea hang out with my friends make it accessible to the general public and maybe it'll help some people that way awesome that's what started it after a few months I got emails from acupuncturist saying how much they loved it and I'm really confused because it's very simple basic stuff for the general public and these acupuncturists and these students seasoned acupuncturist are writing in saying how much they like it and if they like that maybe they'd like a deeper dive and that was there was the beginning of geological you know why in my opinion is because you pretty much were the only one doing podcasts talking about TCM and acupuncture nobody else was I don't think there was a lot of people that that's their sole Focus there might be some people that talk about health and then they have an episode on Chinese medicinal Health great but you were the only person that did this so for us thirsty people that want to stay connected to our TCM around the world practitioners and not feel lonely like you did like I needed my buddies then it's like a great way to like hey there's other people that are talking about this I'm not the only one by myself here and I can listen to other people so I think that's why they reached out because there was nothing else so they probably like kind of keyword agun Chinese medicine and you came up and it was like oh cool we've talked about this too when I think when I was on on your show but a lot of TCM lovers and TCM rock stars like I like to call them have started podcast on acupuncture in Chinese medicine over the years but have never continued you've been so consistent and you're still around seven years later which nobody else in our industry is still doing it I haven't found it I've looked there's not many people that do this I know Michelle grassic does acupuncture marketing school she was on the podcast as well and she has been doing her podcast for quite a few years now but not as long as you so you're literally the OG of that and you inspire us to continue to be part of this group of people that love to listen to podcast and connect with other TCM people around the world so I really appreciate that so now tell me how much work it takes to do this all this fun stuff because obviously you did it for the fun in the connection not for any other reason so what did you get out of it and how much work do you put in so a couple of things for some reason I I have wanted to be persistent in this and you know it's one of these things where like you do it long enough then it's like well oh there's kind of a streak going here I want to keep that streak going little competitive nature thing there's some of that and then some is just a sense of responsibility to the listenership some years ago I I was really burnt out and I I was just like I just need a month away I'm just going to close up the shop and just like put it away for a month because I I'm toasted and I was talking with a friend of mine who used to work in radio and telling her about this and she goes oh no no no no you can't do that you cannot close up shop people are expecting you Tuesday morning I'm expecting you you got a whole bunch of people you don't know who they are but they're waiting for you on Tuesday morning you can't close up shop but here's what you can do you can pick out four of your favorite episodes that maybe people haven't listened to and you could do summer reruns you just put those up and then you can walk away right the show can go on but you don't have to be in it and I thought that's a brilliant idea and that is what I did not for four weeks I did it for six actually it was such a great idea some are reruns I remember those when I was a kid yeah so some of it is a sense of responsibility and some of it is it's also a business so one of the great things about doing a very Niche podcast like chological is you can get sponsorship and and that's actually what that's primarily what powers the podcast I also have memberships and I also have donations and and that's also very very helpful I mean without the people that have memberships and donations it would be a much harder lift so it's also a business it generates some revenue and that's a big piece of what makes it possible it is true if you've done like a 100 episode who has gone back to the number one not many people will listen to the episode number one from a 100 right so of course you could totally do that it makes so much sense so it's repurposing all this great content that so many people have even listened to yet when I first started the podcast in January 2024 my thing was I have to have at least eight episodes done ready to go before I even start that way I don't feel overwhelmed and I don't feel like oh my gosh I got to come with an episode for next week what am I going to do and I'm busy or I'm sick or something happened or you know we had to do something and we had to go away or on holiday how am I going to do this everything has to be in place at least eight weeks ahead then that way I can breath and I don't have to worry and I can enjoy the whole process exactly yes that I think that's exactly it you get that momentum going and once you've got the momentum now you've got some slack if something comes up and and and you can't work on it this week no big deal you can put some extra work in later you're you're some thank you for sharing the whole behind the scene I guess of uh geological and again we'll put the links in the show note you have to go and check out the show if you haven't yet I listen to podcast like when I'm communing driving when I clean when I cook if I'm all alone in the house there's always someone teaching me something in the background now I know that's what you do but you also have a practice and one of the thing I wanted to ask you because I don't know much about it and I don't know many people who practice it but you do Sam acupuncture s a m acupuncture which is Korean acupuncture so can you explain how different it is from Chinese acupuncture I would love for you to share with us great I love talking about this so I believe it's pronounced saam I learned about saam in part because of the podcast I met Toby Daly s is an interesting method it it's named after a monk a a Buddhist monk who what 400 years ago had a Enlightenment of sorts basically what came out of that was a sense of diagnosing but beyond that theam acupuncture system organizes the organs the yin-yang relationships differently than we were taught in school so in school we learned about like lung and large intestine or yinyang pairs or we learn that lung and spleen are like arm and leg tie in we learn that kind of thing we learn those sort of correspondences the thing that's fascinating to me about saam is it uh for example will link the lung with the stomach the spleen with the large intestine so the spleen and the large intestine because the spleen is all in charge of digestion and every time we have loose tools we're like oh spin deficiency but really loose tools comes from the large intestine area both the lung and the stomach can cheery Bell right like coughing and nausea and vomiting so maybe it's an esophagus thing but that's all I can correlate it with there's other course respondes for example heart is linked not with the kidney but with the urinary bladder now the heart bladder is a really interesting correspondence because when you think about heart you've got shaen which is fire you've got heart which is a fire organ so that's like the hottest organ of the body and then you look at the urinary bladder it's tyong that's corresponding with cold the deep water of the north and it is a water organ so that's cold so urinary bladder is the coldest organ system in the body so you've got the ultimate hot of the body paired with the ultimate cold of the body so I'm not going to get into all the pairs here but suffice it to say that the S system arranges the organs in a different way it's a very powerful way of looking at physiology the way the five phases work and it's all integrated in there together so so number one organ correspondences they're different they're powerful they'll change how you think about things and it's super helpful in the clinic now the second thing is the needling is it's very simple I think all of us have heard about the for needle technique because we don't have the Diagnostics that are behind it theam acupuncture Diagnostics will help you use that for needle technique in extremely powerful ways spleen en llarge intestine let's start with that because it it's also as simple to understand as heart and urinary bladder so spleen tiin tiin is associated with dampness spleen associated with dampness the spleen is the dampest organ in the body if you need to bring some moisture into the system tonify the spleen tonify the spleen meaning make more dampness now in TCM when we say tonify the spleen this is the difference between saam and TCM when we say tonify the spleen and TCM we're actually saying dry the spleen when you think about any points that you would use when you think about any herbs that you would use to TCM tonify the spleen you're actually drying the spleen essentially you're tonifying the large intestine to take the dampness how of this plain large intestine is Yang Ming a healthy Yang Ming is dry and it's cool you can't really get more dry than the large intestine organ because it's metal and it's Yang Ming metal is dry Yang Ming is dry spleen is tiin it's damp you have ultimate damp counterbalanced with ultimate Dry with the lung in particular you'll often see people that are um they're overweight they often carry some extra weight that's a sign of dampness they'll be damp on the inside but they'll have really dry skin people with an excess of lung energy excess of lung shei often they'll have very very dry skin the the stomach types they're dry on the inside and wet on the outside that means they'll be skinny people with like greasy skin you'll often see this constitutionally so if you need to move flu fluids from the inside to the outside you would tonify the stomach to to draw the fluid from the interior out to the exterior likewise if you need to move the fluid inward then you K tonify the lung so now to put the stomach with the long I'm like well why not keep it with the spleen because it's kind of opposite as well like the stomach goes down the spleen goes up the Spen gets affected by dampness the the stomach gets affected by dryness and heat while the Speen gets affected by called the so opposite perfect opposition in my view but that's why I love those different ways of looking at things because it opens your your world to different way of treating patients too which is always awesome when you look at the Chinese clock you got lung large intestine stomach spleen right you got that got that quartet in there the lung is tiin so that it has an aspect of it that's about moisture but it's also metal so an aspect of it that's about dryness so it's mixed it gets a little confusing cuz it's mixed I think one of the things that makes it also so uniquely powerful is with the traditional like lung large intestine both of those channels are on the arm with saam you've got a leg Meridian you've got an arm Meridian one's Yin one's Yang so you're getting this really dynamic play of the entire body being involved because you've got top and bottom and because you got this interplay of Yin andong I like that actually I do like the yin Yin Yong not being on the same limb being opposite limb because it is opposite so you're covering the whole body that I really like I think that's just a a great way to look at it you made me think really deeply when you said well long is metal metal is dryness however long is is in charge of water and and damp and water metabolism specifically of the upper Jou so I'm like wait a minute you're right and I never thought about it I'm like oh yeah this is why I love to listen to other ways of looking at agunu or Chinese medicine from different perspective or like the Korean way because years ago when I was in school I learned Korean hand therapy and I really enjoyed it I appreciate you sharing that because this was completely new to me the S acupuncture now I know how to pronounce it what does s means I think it's the name of the monk oh that was his name okay that was the name of the monk yeah and then I had one more question can you explain a little bit what is the 10 key formula families the 10 key formula families that book's been out for a while so Dr hang hang is somebody that I came across when I was in China is where I was living in Beijing friend of mine handed me uh shal aong 10 key formula families in in Chinese medicine cuz I was working on my Chinese still and it's funny cuz when I first started reading this book I thought man my Chinese is still really terrible because I'm clearly not getting this stuff because I've never heard anything like this before and then I realized actually my Chinese was good enough I was understanding it and there was nothing like this in English so Dr hang who is a teacher and a practitioner in naning he came up with this idea and he got some of it from his time in living in Japan he looks at different herbs and formulas herbs in particular as as having a kind of I want to say personality personality may not it that doesn't quite cover it but it it's a piece of it but in essence there are different herbs that match different people for example when you think of gager as in gager Tong we know that it's this herb that helps with stabilizing the exterior and so wager kinds of people they're often kind of thin they'll often have delicate skin they often have moist skin because they sweat easily they are extremely sensitive to drafts you can always tell a gager person when they walk in your office cuz it's middle of summer and they've got a scarf on because the air conditioning bothers them so the idea behind tanky formul the families is to understand that there are certain people that resonate with a particular herb and it's generally a good place to start with them so again if somebody looks and acts and has gager like symptoms I'm probably not going to start them with a formula that has chai who or mahang or something like that I'm going to start them with quer because the idea is that you want to look at the the person and their unique strengths and weaknesses you want to look at the symptomology that they're having and then you want to look at their physical Constitution and if all those match up then that herb and that formula family will likely be safe and effective the reason that I like this so much is that it's a kind of shorthand again it it's not something that you would use all the time for everyone but it's a really helpful screen in the beginning it's like do they fall into one of these oh they do fall into one of these okay this is a great place to start because the idea is that you can just rule out a lot of formulas that might not be helpful you don't have to think about 15 different formulas you might only have to think about three it's interesting because when you look at Food walnuts look like a brain so they're great for your brain different food are great for different area because the way they look and I found that the 10 key formula of Dr Juan H are a little bit like this it's like you're looking at the herb itself and its property and the way it looks like and then you look at the person and you match them kind of like you match the Walnut to the brain for people that don't do herbs uh grer don't quote me on my pronunciation because unlike M Michael I don't speak Chinese but grer is cinnamon and when you see a cinnamon stick you can see it's thin it's long right so it kind of matches a bit the person so for people that have never done this can you share another one let's sayi because I know ranii is part of it which is a tragulus what's AI person would be like yeah so hangi people they tend to be really fluid filled and and hangi helps with fluid the fluid metabolism you could also see sometimes people that are more Ginger people they'll often be kind of pudgy and fluid filled as well so the quane person versus the ginger person let's say Shan Jong what's the difference if they're both full of fluid how do you know which one to use more quany or swagless for versus the ginger the shanan person the ginger people are going to be colder because Ginger warms you up and you're going to see more sweating with the Hang Chi people because of of the chi deficiency that's there as well I think it's just so fascinating to look at herbs and because not every person that goes to TCM School learns all the herbs but they're so valuable and they have such a beautiful way to be and such a strength in TCM that is often not used for everybody because I know in some countries they can't use them at all they're not allowed anyway like in the UK I would say too with ten key Dr Hong Hong's work it's helpful but make sure that you've got your basics down for your herbs and formulas because if you don't have those basic building blocks and then I think reading tanky formul families and the new book then these books are really helpful because they will help you clarify and find the basics that you've already got Chinese herbs is you really need to understand them and to to have a strong base to understand how they work together how they interact how you form a formula how do you custom everything and what each herb strength and what they need in order to be able to be the best for each patients I appreciate the reminder we went in different direction which I really appreciate any final thoughts or anything you would like like to share before we go on our way for the beautiful day that it is because now it's springtime yeah no I thank you for having me it's always fun to talk about the medicine that that engages our curiosity so much and uh I love what you're doing but you help to make it so learnable and accessible takes a long long time to really get this stuff and we have to come at it again and again and again from different perspectives and just just kind of keep tripping away at it it's much like learning a language just have to be persistent so thanks for all the work that you're doing and thanks for having me on it's it's really been a blast this is why I love to have the movers the Shakers and you're definitely one of those movers and shakers in our industry so thank you very much Miss You Michel thank you so much for spending your time with me today I truly hope you benefited from this episode and I would love for you to share it with a friend that may benefit from it as well follow the show leave a review and if you want more go to my website acpro academy.com I have tons of resources there with treatment protocols case study free courses and so much more and connect with me on all social media at aupo Academy I'm on YouTube Instagram Facebook X Pinterest and L in Tik Tok and no matter what keep rocking it using DCM please listen to the disclaimer because the acupro show podcast and material shared through acupro Academy which is a subdivision of Natural Health sense Incorporated are designed solely for educational and entertainment purposes the utilization of information from this podcast or any Associated material is at the user's discretion and risk this content is now meant to replace the guidance of an acupuncturist chines medicine doctor medical doctor physician or any qualified professional nor is it a substitute for proper diagnosis or treatment users are strongly advised not to ignore or postpone seeking medical advice for any existing medical condition with their health care professional regarding any health concerns