Arriving in the ’90s, the worldwide trend of longing for naturalism and popularity of complementary and alternative medicine in America has caused traditional Oriental Medicine and medicinal plants markets to develop rapidly. And China has been pursuing the globalization policy of Chinese medicine by the initiation of the society of traditional Chinese medicine. Under this situation, it is a time for us to think about in a serious manner whether existing organization and system of Oriental medicine and the department of Oriental medicine at the schools in Korea reflects reality or whether we should turn it to some different direction.
The purpose of this research is to compare the educational systems in relation to the traditional medicine between Korea and China, and to seek and look into its implication, and also to make a contribution to further developments and changes of direction for Oriental medicine education in Korea.
1. I investigated carefully the educational system of the colleges of traditional Chinese medicine, and results from this survey revealed that the academic institutions for the medicinal training in China consists of varied systems, such as 7-year program for medicinal training linking with master degree course, 6-year program, 5-year program (more than 90%), 4-year program, and so on, so then China has been raising the specialists in their traditional medicine arena through those varied academic programs. Such an educational system as the department of Chinese medicine in order to educate and produce specialists or pharmacists specializing in traditional Chinese medicine is operated only by Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in terms of 7-year academic program for medicinal major that linked with master degree course, and the rest of schools run 5-year program or 4-year program (more than 90%). And other human resources required for cultivation of medicinal plants and manufacturing herbal medicines are mostly trained at 3-year course colleges or 2-year course vocational schools.
2. In connection with traditional Chinese medicine, there are a variety of departments in the schools in China other than Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology: i.e. Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Tuina, Preclinical Medicine, Pharmaceuticals, Materials of Medicine, Phrenology and Law, Languages and Literature, etc. Therefore, these programs constitute multi academic system and also an appropriate educational base that fits in varied needs of market. Particularly, the university having 7-year program emphasize, English proficiency so that it can be considered that this academic program is a specialized course in order to achieve globalization of Chinese medicine.
3. In Korea, there are only 11 Oriental medicine schools with 6-year program which have been established by the private foundations and 3 departments of Oriental medicine at 4-year university. Therefore, we need to establish varied departments related to branches of our traditional medicine like China.
4. It is necessary to establish varied new departments related to Oriental Medicine that will be able to take a professional role in the course of pursuing the strategic goals such as scientification, globalization, standardization of Oriental Medicine, also that will meet needs of the world alternative and complementary medicine and herbal medicine markets. In order to achieve such strategic goals, we need to organize an academic system that will be different from existing systems and programs, also we are required to research further on the educational and training programs.
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