The National Union of Chinese Medical Doctors Association, the Taiwan Medical Association and the Taiwan Dental Association last week issued a joint statement urging the new government to ignore calls to recognize Chinese medical degrees.
The statement said that an assessment system that could verify medical degrees issued in China does not exist, adding that channels allowing Taiwanese to apply and study at Chinese medical universities are suspicious.
China’s medical education system and its required courses are not only different from Taiwan’s, but also from that of most developed nations, the statement said.
The Chinese medical education system is vastly different from the tenets of how Taiwanese institutions train medical professionals in terms of education, examination and employment, the statement said.
Medical personnel in Taiwan go through a rigorous human resources allocation program and there is a limit on internships and funding across all departments in the sector, the statement said.
“We hope that the government would continue to adhere to Article 22 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) and not recognize Chinese medical degrees to protect the rights of Taiwanese students studying medicine,” the statement said.
“Not recognizing Chinese medical degrees will also protect the staff regulations that are in place in Taiwan, as well as ensure the quality of medical services provided to Taiwanese,” it added.
Article 22 states that education degrees obtained in China — aside from people with degrees from higher-education facilities, who are defined as medical personnel according to the Medical Care Law (醫療法) — are accepted according to rules issued by the Ministry of Education and ratified by the Executive Yuan.
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