Abstract
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an important component of China’s medical system. How to educate TCM practitioners in China, therefore, has become a crucial issue. To contribute to this issue, the current research identified the competency model of TCM practitioners in China and developed an evaluation for TCM students. We combined Bloom’s taxonomy with our model construction to examine the current TCM practitioners’ requirements. Following the protocol of developing a measurement, we interviewed 20 TCM practitioners, conducted two rounds of surveys in China ( n = 220/ n = 489), ran exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and examined the correlation between the measurement and self-rated outcomes. The evaluation tool of TCM students consists of five factors: modern medical knowledge and skills, TCM medical knowledge and skills, professional ethics, communication and cooperation skills, and clinical practices. The reliability and validity of our evaluation tool were testified. Our work may contribute to TCM education in China.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is currently flourishing on the health markets all around the world (Hsu, 2008)
As our focus is on TCM students who will work at hospitals in China, based on previous literature and interviews on Chinese TCM practitioners, we assume that the TCM practitioners’ core competencies fall in the following five domains: modern medical knowledge and skills, TCM knowledge and skills, professional ethics, communication and cooperation skills, and clinical practice
We suggest that the definition of TCM practitioners’ professional ethics is being responsible to their occupational task, abiding to relevant laws and regulations, and meeting moral standard set by society
Summary
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is currently flourishing on the health markets all around the world (Hsu, 2008). As our focus is on TCM students who will work at hospitals in China, based on previous literature and interviews on Chinese TCM practitioners, we assume that the TCM practitioners’ core competencies fall in the following five domains: modern medical knowledge and skills, TCM knowledge and skills, professional ethics, communication and cooperation skills, and clinical practice. Many countries have started to establish their own clinical practice guidelines, for example, Clinical Practice Guidelines in the United States (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health, 2017) and Clinical Practice Guidelines in China (Lai & Hou, 2015) Inspired by these guidelines, we examined the comprehensive practical ability of TCM practitioners, for instance, in self-promotion, treatment of specific diseases, adaptability to organizations, and so on.
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