It’s a curious thing, sometimes you want to get away from something. Maybe it’s the town you grew up in, or a family business. You think you know it, and are not interested. But circumstances change and find your way back to it with new eyes.
In this conversation with Thomas Leung, we trace the arc of a family deeply rooted in Chinese herbal medicine. From his great-grandfather’s shop in Guangdong, to navigating the upheaval of the Chinese revolution, to adapting a Manhattan herb store to changing demographics, Thomas brings both a practitioner's and a business owner’s sensibility to the conversation.
Listen in as we talk about the evolution of Chinese medicine in America, what it means to modernize without losing tradition, the challenge of standardizing herbal language, and the precarious state of our profession in this current moment.
This conversation is about more than herbs. It’s about responsibility, reinvention, and how the future of our medicine depends not only on practice—but on stewardship.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- Thomas’s family lineage in herbal medicine going back to his great-grandfather in China
- The early struggles of the immigrant experience and working in restaurants/garment factories
- Running an herb store as a child and the conflicted feelings about joining the family business
- His education in Western pharmacy and disillusionment with retail pharmaceutical work
- Returning to the family herb store with a vision for modernization
- The impact of NAFTA on Chinatown's garment industry and its ripple effect on the herb trade
- Adapting the business for mail-order and creating custom software to meet modern demands
- Bridging East and West through pharmacy standards, including quality control and record keeping
- Challenges in standardizing herb names and dosages across dialects and regions
- The need for more practitioners and the danger of other professions encroaching on scope of practice
- How state organizations and cooperation within the profession are key to its future
- Community outreach through herb store tours for school kids to demystify Chinese medicine
- Why small business owners must both adapt and preserve to keep the profession aliv
The clinical experience we learn in school reflects our forefathers' experience using raw herbs, not granules, tea pills, or tinctures. Therefore, if a formula isn't working, the issue might be the dosage form, rather than the formula itself.
Dr. Thomas Leung is uniquely qualified as both a licensed pharmacist and acupuncturist in New York State. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the State University of New York at Buffalo, as well as a Bachelor of Professional Studies and a Doctorate in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine.
As a fourth-generation practitioner of TCM, he has been steeped in Chinese medicine since childhood, and his background in pharmacology allows him to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine.
In addition to leading Kamwo, Dr. Leung has been a member of the Herbs Faculty at the Pacific College of Health Sciences since 2001, mentoring future TCM practitioners. Through his work at Kamwo and in education, Dr. Leung is dedicated to integrating TCM and Western medicine into modern healthcare.
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