On October 26th, I was invited by a six-star luxury resort and spa company to conduct a hand diagnosis course at Hideaway Yao Noi, for its many staff members from various parts of Thailand (Bangkok, Phuket) and Vietnam. In my many years of learning and teaching hand diagnosis, this was perhaps the most rewarding and unforgettable teaching experience I have had thus far.
The resort on Yao Noi consisted of 54 individual cabins which are all built entirely with environmentally-friendly material. Each “house” had its own elaborate set of amenities, including my very own swimming pool! This resort is located in a most serene and natural environment, which was quite a pleasant break from my usual surroundings!
The students of this course are staff members from this and other resort locations across the country as well as from Vietnam. As a result, I was able to meet people from rather diverse cultures and ethnic backgrounds. My translator was a Thai naturopathic doctor of Chinese descent, while the organizer of this program was of New Guinean background. The course was taught over two days and conducted in English, with visual aids such as photos of different hands and English notes projected from a laptop. After the two-day course, other staff members acted as models for the students to apply their new knowledge. All the students attended the course with such eagerness and dedication that it was no surprise when all of them scored over 90% on the final exam!
Perhaps the biggest challenge faced during the design and presentation of this course was to develop a consistent model for recognizing the various colors on a hand, for hands across different skin tones. Among the students were Thais (light to dark Asian skin tone), Swedes (light Caucasian skin tone) , and New Guineans (darker, brownish skin tone). In order to effectively demonstrate the concept of the 5 colours to be identified on the hand, I presented the students with numerous photos of hands on my laptop, taken at different times of different people, and while I adjusted the brightness of the screen, I taught them to look for the colours on the hand relative to its skin tone. In the end, even students with little or no medical training slowly gained confidence as they began to understand the theory and method, and their diagnostic accuracy reached close to 60%. Looking back, the success of this teaching experience was due to a combination of thoughtful course preparation, the students’ sincere learning attitude, very helpful translation and excellent coordination of the program.
I feel very proud and fortunate to have had a chance to gain such a valuable experience on this little island in Thailand, among a group of ardent students and a delightful group of coordinators and fellow health practitioners. After bringing hand diagnosis to Canada and expanding the field in Hong Kong, my trip to Thailand has proved to be yet another milestone in my efforts to teach and promote hand diagnosis.
