A new proposal from the Department of Health seeks to prevent medical graduates from acquring licenses to practice both traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine at the same time, claiming that the current system would produce doctors with insufficient expertise in either area. But some worry the policy may be unfair to TCM majors.

Taking pulse, acupuncture, and cupping are the three main diagnostic methods for Chinese doctors.

In Taiwan, for students who major in Chinese medicine and want to major in both western and Chinese medicine only had to take up one more year of education to complete the double major and become eligible for the western medical license examination.

However, to cram 8 years to finishing both education of western and Chinese medicine seems quite hasty and unrealistic.

Also, this kind of education system may also result in low medical quality.

Therefore, the Department of Health has issued an official notice to the Department of Education about revising the regulation for double majors and eligibility for license-taking in the future.

This way, the officials think, would also focus the students in learning Chinese medicine.

However, many clinics now are using a collaboration of Chinese and western medical knowledge, also, the students have the right to get the education they want.

So the Department of Education will soon have meetings with the medical education committee to revise the current status and hopefully to come up with a new and better regulation.

The new regulation may be ready by next Fall semester, along with the new rules for license examination eligibility.