China needs half a million traditional doctors
September 14th, 2011 - 8:22 pm ICT by IANSBeijing, Sep 14 (IANS) China needs over half a million professionals trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) over the next five years, a government report has revealed.
Traditional Chinese medicine is an ancient medical system that takes a deep understanding of the laws and patterns of nature and applies them to the human body.
The report, released by the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine — a bureau under the health ministry, said that about 517,600 more TCM personnel are needed for the country’s hospitals, community healthcare centres and rural clinics, Xinhua reported.
TCM is a complete medical system that has been practised for over 5,000 years. At the heart of TCM is the tenet that the root cause of illnesses, not their symptoms, must be treated.
The report also highlighted major problems, such as TCM resource imbalances among the country’s different regions and lack of TCM service institutions and workers in rural areas.
The report, based on a national investigation of the basic situation of TCM development, says China now has about over 500,000 TCM workers and about 21 percent of the country’s qualified medical staff have TCM service qualifications.
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Tags: chinese medicine, community healthcare, different regions, government report, half a million, health ministry, human body, medical staff, medical system, national investigation, next five years, root cause, rural areas, service institutions, state administration, tcm, tenet, traditional chinese medicine, traditional doctors, xinhua