I would like to share my feelings and experiences with my patients through this web. I believe that people meet each other at a certain place and date because of fate. Good luck and fate make people appreciate, love, and trust one another. Bad luck and fate make others hate each other and forget easily. This web is written from the good fortune that has brought us together not only as patients and practitioners, but also as family and friends.

Before my daughter Angie was born, my career and my parents were the only concerns in my life. Even now, they are still my first priority. Just like Gabrielle, my dear patient and friend said, “patients are Ming’s first babies, and Angie is Ming’s second.” This is true. Since I devoted my life as a Chinese medical practitioner, that means I have to be a good doctor first, and then a good mother.

When Angie grows up, she will understand why helping people is more important than helping oneself. “Your heart fills with love, your spirit fills with happiness, and you are rich from giving,” is a famous Chinese adage.

Due to my busy work schedule, I rarely have time to talk with my patients about anything besides their treatment needs. I apologize about that to all of my patients and I also wish you and I can understand each other better through the web. I hope that you will receive information if I have not had the chance to spend enough time with you.

As Ming Qi Natural Healthcare Center enters its twelfth anniversary, I will never forget the patients who have helped me get through the difficult times and who have made every effort to help the clinic develop.

Professor Shi Yun Yan, President of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, my most respected teacher who insisted that I must become the first woman PhD. of TCM field, encouraged me to set up the best Chinese healthcare center in Manhattan. When I had only been in New York for four months, he told me “living in the basement looking up at skyscrapers,” he pushed me to make my dream a reality.

Mr. and Mrs. Cosby, who are like my parents, have taken care of my family, my daughter, and even my personal health problems. They are like my older brother and sister, giving me advice to guiding me how to practice in this new world. Mr. Cosby took me on the Regis and Kathy Lee show to demonstrate acupuncture and Chinese herbs. His explanation and understanding was much better on the show than I could have explained with my limited English. Mrs. Cosby helped me tremendously to make this website. Six years ago she was producing the movie called “Having Our Saying.” I saw her work so hard on it and it received acclaimed success. This project was possible through her dedication to the black community. I respect her so much for her contribution. I told her I have a thought about making television series or writing a book on Chinese Medicine, but my English is so poor just like a student in elementary school. She said to me, “Do it your way. People will understand you, because they need your knowledge, not your language. Go ahead and make it happen.”

Since then, I spend each night collecting information written in Chinese, translating and editing it six times. Finally I have made it happen. My first gratitude goes Mrs. Cosby for her encouragement.

My mother, a 78-year-old woman, does not have one day of formal education. Most of her life has been spent living in poor, hard-working conditions, but she is always happy with each small favor people have given her and appreciative of life’s little pleasures around her. “I hope one day I can use gas to cook instead of using firewood and coal for fuel,” she had said. This was her most luxurious wish in life. However, her biggest wish was for all her three children to be educated in college, which came true when she was 70. Surprising, her only daughter, myself, received the highest level of education, giving her great honor. She taught me to be a doctor with my heart, not only with my intellect, which has made an enormous impression to my career and also helped me set up different approach to my practice.

I remember the grand opening of Ming Qi Natural Healthcare Center; she called me from China with my entire family. This was the first and only time, she made an international call to me. She made the wish to Kwan Yin Buddha to grant me healing energy to help my patients. “Never make a wish to Kwan Yin asking for making a lot of money because you are a doctor. Money is not the first thing to think about. Helping people must be your first concern,” she said. I always remember that day and always remember to keep my promise to her.

I remember many patients who have given me trust, love, and help the same way I’ve become a good friend to them, not only as a doctor. Gabrielle Ruth, a very special woman with dancing healing magic to help patients’ physical and spiritual problems is like my sister, who has helped me in different ways to adapt into this society and to start the practice. She recommended so many patients to help my business grow and also protected me from a lot of danger and risk.

Mrs. Ita Aber supported me to get involved in political work such as supporting a bill to make Medicare accept acupuncture, and to give a speech on healing in front of the White House Integrative Medical Committee to support the acupuncture bill. She is a good friend and a second parent to me in helping me with a lot of my personal problems. I especially appreciate the love and attention she has given to my daughter Angie.

My feelings often get so involved with my patients that sometimes, I am very sad if they leave. Felix was a very kind old man. Whenever he saw me worry about something, he would always tell me tomorrow would be better. He was a psychiatrist who also analyzed handwriting, and my very first patient in Manhattan. He passed away six years ago, but I still miss him very much.

Steve, another dear friend and patient, recently passed away from lung cancer. I have had two dreams about him; once he asked me to clean his sweat, and another time I saw him riding a motorcycle. I believe that was his message to tell me I had not done enough for him while he was alive, and now he is released from suffering in paradise somewhere.

I also remember Donald Zicardi who lived upstairs in the same building as the clinic when I had just opened Manhattan office. I had barely any patients at that time, but he came in almost once a day to receive acupuncture treatment. I was so worried about my business and worried that some day I would not be able to sustain my practice. He gave me such immense support, making a golden, copper sign for my office, designing my business card, producing the advertisement and placing it in the local newspaper and mailing my business flyer using his expenses, all helped me so much to flourish my clinic in the Manhattan community. He was the first person to teach me about the important steps to starting a practice. In China, I was a very simple practitioner, never aware the business aspects aside from the medical knowledge. In my heart he was the saving straw to support me when I went through a most challenging time. When I learned he moved out, I cried so hard I felt I lost a part of my body. I will always remember that wonderful and difficult time because the challenges had made my life experience full of love, determination and thankfulness.

To the patients who started with me in the very early beginning, my heart is filled with so much thanks and appreciation. I still remember they came to see me when I treated patients with only second-hand mattress. I sewed a sheet together with my own hands to cover the mattress and used it as my first treatment mat. Four months later, my patient Fred helped me to buy several pieces of lumbar and carry it by cart walking two hours from the store to the house. We spent six hours making one treatment table, and two shelves for placing herbs. This was for the grand opening of Ming Qi Natural Healthcare Center. I will never forget the patients who came for treatment when there was makeshift equipment and no privacy. When I meet them today and recollect on the past, it is just like reading history and thinking back on how Ming Qi Natural Healthcare Center has grown.

I also thank the many patients who have introduced their friends, family, and people to see me and make the clinic grow quickly like my dear friend Rita, Dr. Lee, Anita, Gabrielle, and Ruth.

I cannot find more words to express my thanks and also would not be able to mention each of their names, but I will remember you and thank you forever. Too many thanks and grateful feelings exist between you and me. I wish you will continually help us as before to make Ming Qi Center grow. I will also devote my life to the natural healthcare field. Let us win the healthy future together. I love you all.

Sincerely,
Dr. Ming Jin