According to Ding Yige, more than 70 percent of the celebrated TCM doctors in the 1940s-60s were students at his great-grandfather's school. "My father always said that a good doctor is not simply a doctor with good skills. He or she should also have a good 'heart'," he says.

Dr Ding says there were two kinds of doctors in old times - Ru Yi (Confucian doctor) and Shi Yi (generational doctor). Generational doctors referred to those coming from a long line of doctors while Confucian doctors were Confucian scholars transferred to the medical field.

"A lot of TCM doctors in the past were Confucian doctors," says Dr Ding. "They were well-educated, good at music, chess, calligraphy and painting. They learned everything fast and the most important thing was that they were good, responsible men due to the deep influence of Confucianism."

Dr Ding's great-grandfather was a typical Confucian doctor who spent most of his fortune on charitable needs and causes.

"There are no Confucian doctors today as the whole education system has changed, but we can at least preserve the medical ethics," says Dr Ding.

"Be brave, careful, knowledgeable and righteous" are the four key principles of Dr Ding's family.

"My father was strongly against treating patients in a rush. He said you have to communicate with the patient and establish a harmonious atmosphere," says Dr Ding.

The recently published "Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626-2006" by German physician Volker Scheid aroused fresh interest in the old Menghe school of TCM.

It comes as Dr Ding and some friends - interested in reviving Menghe as the home of famous TCM doctors - press ahead with plans to establish a TCM school along traditional lines there called Menghe Shuyuan (Menghe Academy).

"We want an isolated place with few distractions just like the academies in old times where we can teach students medicine and ethics in the traditional way, without the assistance of modern machines," he says.

(Shanghai Daily July 23,2008)