Shen Mingli
Physician
Age 66
Sleep that breaks at three in the morning and will not close again · Long-standing digestive complaints where the tests came back normal
Read the introductionThe house
The physicians
医师
- Physicians
- Four
- Licensed in
- The People’s Republic of China
- Licensed in the US
- No — see the disclosure below
- Portraits
- Meet the team below
Four physicians write the reports at Bencao House. All four are licensed to practise Chinese medicine in the People’s Republic of China, and none is licensed in the United States. Your report carries the name of whoever wrote it, and you can ask who that will be, and what they trained in, before you pay.
The four
Four physicians, and one name on each report.
Open a profile to read each physician’s areas of focus and qualification.
Shen Zhiwei
Physician
Cycles: timing, cold in the lower abdomen, the days before · The years either side of menopause
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Zhou Yanqiu
Physician
Age 68
Heaviness: after meals, in the head, in the limbs, in wet weather · Skin that flares in summer and settles in autumn
Read the introduction
Shen Yunzhi
Physician
Age 76
People who work at night, or across time zones · Students, and long days spent in front of a screen
Read the introduction
Who reads your intake
One person, named, from the first question to the last line.
Your thirty answers and your photograph arrive as one file, and one physician takes it from there. Which one depends on what you wrote about.
Sleep, digestion and the long tail after an illness go to Shen Mingli. Cycles, cold and the years around menopause go to Shen Zhiwei. Heaviness, skin that changes with the season and a shifting appetite go to Zhou Yanqiu. Anything from someone working nights, or studying, or living across three time zones a week, goes to Shen Yunzhi.
Whoever writes it, one person owns it end to end and signs it. There is no template with your name dropped into it. There is no model generating paragraphs. There are about two hours of one physician’s attention, and then a second physician reads the draft before it is sent, which is the closest thing to a check we can honestly offer at this distance.
If you want to know who wrote yours before you buy, write and ask. We will tell you, and we will tell you what they trained in and for how long. That is not a courtesy — it is something you are entitled to, and it is set out in the disclosure further down this page.
The credential, plainly
What a Chinese licence is, and what it is not.
In China, Chinese medicine is a regulated profession with its own five-year undergraduate degree, its own national examination, and its own register. The qualification is called 执业医师 (zhíyè yīshī), a licensed practising physician, and the register is kept by the health authority where the physician practises. A physician on that register works in hospitals, writes in the medical record, and is answerable to the same authority as any other doctor in the country.
That is a real credential, and it is the only one we claim. Here is what it does not do. It carries no standing in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or Australia, or anywhere else. It does not make us your doctor. It does not entitle us to look at your body from eight thousand kilometres away and tell you what is wrong with it. And it is not the reason to trust a report — the reason to trust a report is to read one and see whether it is careful.
We say this in the open because several US states protect people in our position only when the disclosure below is given in advance and in writing. Concealing where our licence comes from would be the risk. Printing it is the protection — for you first.
You can read a complete sample report before you spend anything, and what we will not do sets out the four things we refuse, whoever asks.
Before you engage us
The written disclosure.
Six sections. Who we are, what you are buying, what we do not do, the framework we work in, the fee, and your rights. It is the same text you will be asked to tick before any money is taken, held under one version number so we can always show you which wording you were given.
Who is writing your report
Bencao House is a team of physicians licensed to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine in the People’s Republic of China. Each report is written by a named member of that team, and the name, licensing authority and years of practice of that person appear on your report.
We are not licensed by any state of the United States, and we are not medical doctors in the United States.
What you are buying
You are buying an educational written report that describes your intake answers from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, together with general wellness suggestions: everyday food choices drawn from the Chinese “food and medicine share the same origin” (药食同源) tradition, acupressure points you can press yourself, and suggestions about sleep, warmth and daily rhythm.
It is educational and general wellness information. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for care from a licensed healthcare provider in your country.
What we do not do
We do not identify, name or rule out any disease.
We do not provide, recommend, ship or sell any herbal formula, and we do not tell you to start, stop or change any medication.
We do not perform acupuncture, dry needling or any procedure involving the skin.
We never tell you to delay or avoid seeing a licensed healthcare provider.
The framework we use
Traditional Chinese Medicine reads the body as a set of patterns — relative warmth and cold, dryness and damp, movement and stagnation — observed through questions, the tongue, and daily habits. It is a two-thousand-year-old observational tradition, not a biomedical model, and its categories do not map onto Western disease names.
People find it useful mainly as a second vocabulary for describing how they feel, especially when their existing tests have come back normal.
Fee and delivery
One report is US $39, charged once. There is no subscription and no automatic renewal.
Your report is delivered by email within 48 hours of payment. If we cannot complete your report, we refund you in full.
Your rights
You may ask, at any time, who wrote your report and what their qualifications are.
You may stop using this service at any time, and you may ask us to delete the information you gave us.
You may complain to us at care@bencaohouse.com, and you may also complain to the consumer protection authority of your own state.
If something is wrong
How to complain, and who reads it.
Write to care@bencaohouse.com. It is read by one of the four physicians, never the one who wrote your report. You will get a reply from a person within three working days, and a decision within ten.
Tell us the date, the name on the report, and what is wrong with it. If the reading does not fit you, say where it stops fitting — that is the most useful sentence you can send us, and we will either rewrite the report or refund you in full. We do not require you to choose which before you write.
You may also complain to the consumer protection authority of your own state or country, and nothing here asks you to give that up. For anything that is not a complaint, the contact page has the ordinary address and what to put in it.
The physicians
Read a report before you decide who wrote it well.
US $39, one physician, 48 hours, and a name at the bottom of the page.