After a failed spinal traction operation, Peking University medical student Zhang Lechao was bedridden and unable to stand and walk. By chance, he came into contact with TCM Tuina, and under the tutelage of the Tuina, he regained muscle sensation. In the collision between Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, Zhang Lechao discovered that under the "metaphysical" shell of Tuina, there is an anatomical logic of millimeter-level bone reduction. After recovering, he resigned from the establishment of a tertiary hospital and founded the "Precision Tuina" studio. In the process of treating patients, he uses the anatomical map as the anchor point, abandons the method of "breaking bones with force", and explores the use of modern medical thinking to reconstruct traditional skills.

Surgery Unexpected

After traction surgery, the lower back cannot be moved, resulting in the inability to stand and walk normally

In 2017, Zhang Lechao was born in an ordinary family in Beijing. With excellent results, he was admitted to the Peking University Medical School, majoring in public health. In the eyes of his classmates, he is a typical academic bully - with excellent grades and a clear career plan. At the end of 0, he graduated and worked in a tertiary hospital in Beijing, responsible for public health affairs.

Behind this seemingly glamorous job, there are many trivial tasks: managing printer cartridges and writing tweets on the department's official account, but Zhang Lechao's profession is rarely useful. Modify the font, color, and border thickness of the Official Account tweet over and over again...... Zhang Lechao gradually lost his enthusiasm.

The turning point of fate came suddenly. In the summer of 2018, during a physical examination, Zhang Lechao was diagnosed with a herniated lumbar disc. As a medical student with a Western medical background, he chose Western medicine for treatment and performed "intravertebral traction surgery".

"My surgery didn't go well because my bones were relatively fragile and I had a compression fracture during the surgery." Zhang Lechao said that this was a semi-anesthetic operation, and he fainted in pain during the operation. When he woke up, he found that his lower back was no longer moving.

Lying on the bed, enduring the pain of "bones grinding bones", his waist was unable to exert strength, and Zhang Lechao couldn't stand or walk. What makes him even more painful is the psychological gap: his life is all taken care of by his mother, and even his mother helps scrub his body in the bath, Zhang Lechao feels that his personal dignity is shattered. He lost his financial income, which also caused a great burden on his family.

Life needs to be taken care of by his family, and the time and effect of the second operation are uncertain, Zhang Lechao's mind is filled with "what to do in the future". There is no going back to working in the hospital, he tried to make a living by teaching himself to code, design, and work part-time online as a product manager, but the income is meager.

"In the face of huge trauma, it is too late for ordinary people like me to suffer, and I can only start thinking of ways immediately." Zhang Lechao said, "My parents didn't put any pressure on me, they just wanted my body to get better." So, while trying to find a way to make money part-time, Zhang Lechao was looking for a way to recover his body, read papers on lumbar spondylosis, and ask classmates and peers. Zhang Lechao didn't expect that the turnaround came from a circle of friends.

Explore TCM Tuina

Analyze the principles of Tuina therapy from the perspective of medical students

The circle of friends was posted by Zhang Lechao before the operation, and he took a photo of himself with the text "It's finally going to be surgery". Dr. Ma, who works as a TCM massage therapist, sent him a private message: "Your problem may not require surgery. This doctor was met by Zhang Lechao when he was doing his graduation project in Malawi, Africa, and he has little contact with him. At that time, Zhang Lechao didn't care about this private message. But he was bedridden after surgery and had no more options. With a glimmer of hope, he was supported by his mother to find Ma Dafu, a folk massage therapist hiding in a residential building in Beijing.

Doctor Ma didn't say much, so he directly asked Zhang Lechao to lie down on the massage table, touched his neck and back with his hands, and made a diagnosis. Zhang Lechao remembers him saying, "Your problem is caused by the neck, and it is useless to treat the waist." Then, Dr. Ma avoided the area where Zhang Lechao had undergone surgery and began to massage.

The whole massage process only takes about 20 minutes, and what impresses Zhang Lechao is that unlike common massage therapists, Dr. Ma did not break his joints and bones. After the massage, Zhang Lechao moved his neck after sitting up, and seemed to be more flexible, and after returning home in the afternoon, he fell asleep.

After waking up, Zhang Lechao found that the muscles in his lower back began to twitch little by little, and gradually regained his strength. Although he was still skeptical of Dr. Ma's theory of meridians and osteopathy, the real changes in his body made him have to rethink "why this method works".

After Tuina treatment and rehabilitation, Zhang Lechao, who recovered his health, began to self-study relevant knowledge in order to better understand TCM Tuina, and visited many experienced old TCM doctors. In the course of his studies, he discovered that many TCM masters, despite their high skills, were unable to explain their treatments in scientific language. "They rely more on colloquial expressions and have a relatively weak understanding of human anatomy." Zhang Lechao explained, "For example, some masseurs press your neck and say that there is plaque near your neck, which is actually a stasis caused by fat accumulation on the blood vessel wall. ”

He began to dissect the Tuina process from the perspective of a medical student. Through touching, recording and analyzing, he found that the techniques of Ma Dafu and some other masseurs with a good reputation among the people are essentially to accurately adjust the position of the spinal joints to relieve nerve compression. This coincides with the principle of "bone misalignment leads to muscle compensation" in Western medical anatomy. Zhang Lechao realized that under the "metaphysical shell" of traditional massage, there was a human mechanical intelligence that had not been scientifically explained.

This process looks like restoring an old piece of furniture, pressing back the deformed screws and nails little by little. "Strength needs to be precise, and brute force should never be used to break it, because the deviation of the bones is usually millimeters." Zhang Lechao explained that when he was massaging a patient, he only used the four actions of touching, pinching, pushing and pushing, and he demonstrated his massage method in the consultation room, pressing one hand on the patient's local vertebrae, and the thumb of the other hand pressing the bone and rubbing it up.

From patient to innovator

Founded a massage studio, abandoning the traditional massage and bone breaking

2019年10月，張樂超辭去醫院編製，在北京一棟商住兩用公寓里創辦了自己的推拿工作室。他摒棄傳統推拿“掰骨”的操作，提出“精準推拿”理念：基於解剖學定位，以毫米級精度調整關節，避免正骨的風險。工作室的宣傳圖是張樂超自己設計製作的，上面寫著“不咔咔掰的柔性正骨”。

Faded from the halo of a famous university and a tertiary hospital, Zhang Lechao said frankly: "The true meaning of medicine is to make people suffer less. With one hand, he redefined the meaning of "standing life".

The first days were not easy, the operation of the studio faced many difficulties, hidden deep in the high-rise building, and in the first month of opening, no one came. "I wanted to do a few free trials, and the flyers were all printed." Just as he was struggling to go downstairs to hand out leaflets, the first patient came to the door.

This is a financial practitioner who works in a nearby office building, because of cervical spondylosis, he went to many hospitals, but the treatment effect was not good, and he saw Zhang Lechao's promotion on social platforms during the lunch break, so he bought a "trial package" of 258 yuan. The first patient visited, and Zhang Lechao used all his skills. After the treatment, the client moved a little and left, "and the next day he called everyone in the middle of their company." Zhang Lechao recalls that he still maintains contact with the patient.

The word-of-mouth fission rapidly, and the income of Zhang Lechao's massage studio has also increased steadily. In the "leisure massage" category of social platforms, Zhang Lechao's studio rushed to the "first place in word-of-mouth" in the Dawanglu area.

The surging traffic also brought other problems: peers reported him for "impersonating Peking University students", professional anti-counterfeiters stared at the propaganda copy, and even the Peking University alumni group kicked him out, thinking that he had "lost the face of his alma mater". But Mr. Zhang's persistence gradually won recognition.

Training courses are offered

The course incorporates anatomical atlases, biomechanical analysis, and clinical cases

As a person with a formal medical education, Zhang Lechao knows that in order for TCM Tuina to gain wider recognition, it is necessary to combine traditional experience with modern medicine. Therefore, he decided to use the knowledge he had learned to systematically organize and optimize TCM massage. Through the research and analysis of a large number of cases, Zhang Lechao gradually summed up a set of massage techniques based on the principles of human anatomy. For example, when dealing with spine problems, he will determine the best point of force based on the specific bone structure, rather than simply following the traditional method. "Every movement has to be precise so that the best treatment can be achieved." Zhang Lechao said.

In 6 years, he set up a training course, the course integrates anatomical atlas, biomechanical analysis and clinical cases, students need to pass 0 months of practical assessment to graduate, Zhang Lechao's students come from all over the country, and many patients' families come to Beijing to rent a room near the studio to study. A student who used to run a beauty salon told reporters: "In the past, massage was all about feeling, but now I know that the position of each bone has a scientific basis." Today, Zhang Lechao's "precision massage" technology has become a certification project of the China Commercial Technician Association.

Today's Zhang Lechao has faded the aura of the elite of Peking University, but has found a more down-to-earth happiness. His team has only 6 people, adheres to the "small workshop model" operation, but has an annual income of more than one million. Zhang Lechao believes that his personality has also changed from before, and he is very eager to succeed after graduation, "I used to think that I wanted to make money and be famous, but now I want peace and happiness." Zhang Lechao said.

Looking back on the past, Zhang Lechao said indifferently: "The failure of the operation is a disaster and a gift. It showed me that real medicine should not be a puppet of a device manufacturer, but to alleviate the suffering of every patient. ”

At the end of the interview, he touched the scar on his waist and said, "If one day I can't press the physical decline, I hope my students can continue to pass on this method." ”

Zhang Lechao often said to the students: "In the future, AI will replace all process-based work, but the temperature and judgment of human opponents will never be replaced." In his eyes, massage is not only a technique, but also a kind of empathy for life - just like the hands of Dr. Ma when he was paralyzed, holding up not only a dislocated spine, but also a young man's broken life.

Text/Reporter Yan Xingyue

Contributors/Interviewees