Patient empowerment and self care, as well as, medical cost reduction possibilities have a special potential to transform medicine as it is practiced in the western world. However, the aspect of Qigong that has greatest potential to restructure medicine, as we know it, is the amazing technique of "external" Qigong. In external Qigong the practitioner or Qigong doctor does non-touch energy assessment of the patient and actually projects or conducts Qi, in a treatment mode, to the patient.

In assessment, rather than asking questions, taking pulses, observing the tongue, palpating reflexes and ordering lab tests, the practitioner uses concentration, intuition, and reading of the Qi with off the body diagnostic scanning. In treatment, the practitioner actually projects the Qi to another to have a clinical effect. Both of these techniques seem impossible and fantastic. However, research is revealing that there may be authentic, explainable and demonstrable natural laws and mechanisms in operation during these events.(7) Therapeutic Touch, an assessing and healing technique which uses an "off the body" technique called "unruffling the field" has experienced a tremendous swell of interest in the nursing community. The research of developer Delores Krieger, RN, demonstrated that in-vivo hemoglobin values were significantly effected by the administration of this energy based technique.(29)

A unique aspect of the work of China's Qigong doctors is that a number of them have developed the ability to manipulate the limbs of patients and research participants from a distance, effect changes in the physical or chemical properties of research materials with intention and cause anesthesia by pointing at certain acupuncture points.(7) Dr. Zhang Yu of the Beijing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Xi Yuan Hospital has amazed groups of American observers with his external conductance ability. It seems that participants may be hypnotized or faking, however, studies with animal subjects show similar reactions. An October 1986 article in the LA Times tells the story of the Beijing practice of Master Xun Yunkun who treats medical cases including terminal cancer and paralysis following stroke with Qi projection. Another article describes "harnessing electrical energy and projecting it across a distance to assist patients with Parkinson's disease, arthritis and other crippling diseases.

There is a tremendous wave of interest in this aspect of Qigong in the western world and a number of very respectable research organizations are currently expending substantial budgets on Qigong related projects. There is a tremendous amount of research attempting to explain these phenomenon. The American Foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Dr. Zheng Rong and Stanford physicist Professor William Tiller are doing a collaborative research project on Bio-luminescence and Qigong with a focus on satisfying the rational research model. One hundred and twenty eight research papers were presented at the First World Conference for the Academic Exchange of Medical Qigong in 1988 which was sponsored by the China Medical Association, Chinese Ministry of Health, China Qigong Research Institutes and the Beijing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and attended by representatives from 17 countries.

On one hand it is wonderful that there may be Qigong doctors with such special abilities. It would be a shame, however, if interest in such phenomena overshadowed the tremendous potential for all health seekers to move toward freedom from dependence upon health experts outside of themselves through self applied Qigong techniques.