uri.edu: A Simulator to Practice An Imaginary TCM Diagnostic

here, a University of Rhode Island announcement that's a little more naive than my post title:

001. at uri.edu, we're told in "URI Biomedical Engineering Students Create Wrist Pulse Simulator to Diagnose Illnesses" (2018-03-26):

"University of Rhode Island engineering students want to take your pulse 28 different ways [...with] a silicone wrist that simulates the 28 pulse patterns used in traditional Chinese medicine to diagnose various diseases [...]";

hmmm. 28. Like studying the qualities of zombies and pixies, because one can imagine anything.

"Ian Kanterman, Mackenzie Mitchell and Jake Morris will present the 'Wrist Pulse Simulator' to the Undergraduate Design Competition of the Northeast Bioengineering Conference March 28 at Drexel University in Philadelphia. 'This project reminds us that science and medicine are universal,' Kanterman says, 'but done in various ways' [...] Mitchell, of Coventry, who will graduate this spring with degrees in biomedical engineering and German in the International Engineering Program, says the project fits her career goal. She hopes to become a naturopathic doctor, blending natural medicine with conventional diagnosis and treatment";

actually, the heart of TCM is prescientific, metaphysical, and anecdotal.  Doesn't sound like actual medicine, which is an applied science, to me.  And, of course, 'naturopathy blends.'  But, is wine blended with mud potable? 

"most are familiar with the Western way: a health care worker places two fingers on a patient’s wrist to measure one thing: heart rate. In traditional Chinese medicine, pulse diagnosis using three fingers with different compression pressures is a more developed process, a tool practitioners use to detect diseases, like liver failure [...]";

there is no KINDS of scientific WAYS in the sense of 'it's all science in kind even when it's not science because ways are equal.'  TCM is not a kind of science.  And, actually, there are a couple more qualities other than pulse rate that actual medicine uses pulse for, including rhythm and volume.

"Ying Sun, professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, says the idea for the capstone project came from Dr. Mona Boudreaux, a veterinarian in Illinois and sister of URI engineering professor G. Faye Boudreaux-Bartels. Boudreaux uses traditional Chinese medicine to treat animals and told her sister about the difficulty of detecting pulse patterns, even in animals [...]";

oh, my.  And I'd say, the imaginary can be very difficult to measure even in actual animals.

"the simulator [...] will give specialists the credibility they need to regulate and even popularize a practice that is growing as people seek more natural ways to diagnose and treat illnesses [...]";

reminds me of that Pokemon phone game.  Posed as zoology. Reality plus the projected / augmented figmentatious.  Is that credible as useful, in terms of what's REAL? Oh the company that "natural" keeps...