Chinese medicine needs its own cure

China and Taiwan's WTO accession may be good for your health. To accompany its admission to the world trade body, China has announced that students from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will be allowed to practice medicine in the mainland, prompting Taiwan to consider similar policy changes to open up its health fields.

Students of traditional Chinese medicine make up the biggest number of Taiwanese students in China's colleges. However, their Chinese degrees aren't recognized in Taiwan, putting graduates from those universities in an awkward position back home. A change in government policy might well provide more options for those who want to practice their trade in Taiwan.

Most people in the traditional Chinese medical field, however, don't believe that Taiwanese students would want to practice medicine in China due to the comparatively low pay offered by the Chinese government.

Another factor is more philosophical in nature; as China has long combined Western and Chinese medical practices and education, Taiwan has become the only place for students to study -- and patients to receive -- traditional Chinese medicine unadulterated by Western influence.

This is the result of a focus on Western medicine in Taiwan that relegated traditional practices to medical dustbins. China's approach, which allows traditional medicine practitioners access to Western drugs and equipment is unheard of in Taiwan where Chinese medicine has preserved its antiquated methods.

Tradition versus innovation

Acupuncture was introduced to Europe in the 17th century and has steadily developed there ever since. In the past 20 years in particular, it has become a widely accepted treatment due to the increased popularity of alternative therapies. The attention Western countries have given to Chinese medicine has prompted a revival of the ancient art form in Taiwan. "The current popularity of traditional Chinese medicine started in the West. ... Taiwan began paying more attention to it only later," said Kao Shang-de (高尚德), dean of the Institute of Chinese Medicine at China Medical College (中國醫藥學院).

In the past, Chinese physicians learned their trade through apprenticeship. The start of the first traditional Chinese medicine department at China Medical College 43 years ago heralded the modernization of the ancient practice by placing it in the same department with Western medicine.

Combined with this is a medical certification system which involves certain tests for those who do not possess a degree in traditional Chinese medicine, and another test for those who do. Passing either of the exams can certify someone to practice Chinese medicine. Such a system allows anyone to be a traditional Chinese physician whether he or she has professional training or not. Because of the dangers inherent in the system, the special exams are scheduled to be abolished by 2011, making traditional Chinese medical education a requirement for everyone practicing Chinese medicine in Taiwan.

Although traditional medicine education has emphasized clinical experience, graduates in the field were for a long time allowed to practice without having first gone through an internship. Only in recent years have internships become part of the curricula for Chinese medicine undergraduates.

Since the launch of National Health Insurance (全民健保) seven years ago, Chinese clinics covered by the program have begun keeping patient's records, something previously done only in hospitals practicing Western medicine. The records have since been compiled in computer databases to facilitate medical research, the weakest part of traditional medicine.