It has not only made great contribution to the development of the Chinese nation but also been attracting more and more attention from the international medical field. The World Health Organization advocates the development of Chinese Medicine and calls for using Chinese Medicine to prevent and cure diseases, which have greatly helped to promote the international communication of Chinese medicine. And, nowadays, doctors in more than 140 countries and areas use Chinese medicine to prevent and cure diseases. In China, the education in traditional Chinese medicine has its characteristics in the education of medicine while the launch of higher education in Chinese medicine started more than half a century ago. And in the last decade, China has witnessed a quiet great achievement in the Chinese medicine education. With the worldwide use of Chinese medicine, increasingly importance on the education of Chinese medicine was attached by a lot of countries and the education in Chinese medicine is showing an obvious tendency to be internationalized.

I. THE DEVELOPING STATU OF CHINESE MEDICINE EDUCATION IN CHINA

A. Lawful Status of Chinese Medicine

The Chinese government sets great store by the development of Chinese Medicine Career. The Constitution of People’s Republic of China prescribes: To develop the medical career is to develop modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. It regards Chinese medicine and western medicine comparably and advocates keeping this policy for a long term. Regulation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (State Council, P.R.C.) issued in 2003 clearly points out: The country protects, supports and progresses the Chinese medicine career, which provides a lawful guarantee to the succeeding and developing of Chinese medicine. In 2007, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the People’s Republic of China and other 16 ministries and commissions jointly issued the Compendium of the Chinese Medicine Innovative developing and programming (2006-2020). This is the government’s strategy for advancing the all-aspects development of Chinese medicine and will undoubtedly succeed.

B The Basic Situation of Chinese medicine career

There are about 280,000 doctors in Chinese Medicine and Chinese Pharmacology all around the nation. According to the Abstract of Statistics of Chinese Medicine in China issued in 2005, there are 2620 Chinese medicine institutions, 309,529 hospital beds, 61,553 Chinese medicine doctors, 5286 assistant Chinese medicine doctors, 5116 Chinese medicine pharmacist and 103,819 registered nurses with 2.45 hospital beds and 1.83 Chinese medicine doctors in 10,000 persons and in Chinese medicine institutions, there are 124,876 Chinese medicine doctors and 5,312 Chinese medicine pharmacist, as well as the comparable amount of doctors in all Western Medicine hospitals. Besides, in all other clinics and community hospitals, there are also a large amount of doctors in Chinese Medicine and Chinese Pharmacology.

C. The Developing Situation in Chinese Medicine Education

In ancient China, Chinese medicine education mainly depended on the mode of family succession or prentice with few schooling. The modern higher Chinese medicine education started in 1956 when four Chinese medicine colleges were originated in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, which was the prelude to higher Chinese medicine education.

Thereafter, Nanjing has its Chinese Medicine College and after 1958, Hubei, Henan and other provinces founded their Chinese Medicine College one after the other. The nation-wide higher Chinese medicine education system was formed.

① The setup of higher Chinese medicine education system: There are 25 Undergraduate Chinese medicine colleges and 6 Associated Chinese medicine colleges in China. In some western medicine universities, they also have Chinese Medicine Colleges or have Chinese medicine specialties. The Chinese medicine colleges concentrate on the 5-year’s education for bachelor’s degree of Medicine, with specialties mainly on Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Massage, Integrated Clinical Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmacology. After 1978, the 3-year’s postgraduate education has been started and students can be awarded Master’s Degree of Medicine. Meanwhile, the 3-year’s education for Doctor’s Degree also started and students can be awarded Doctor’s Degree of Medicine.

② Numbers of the current students: In the last decade, the higher education in China grows fast. The net rate for recruitment increased from 9% in 1996 to 22% in 2006 and the current students reached 250million. At the same time, the higher education of Chinese medicine also leaps forward quickly; the enrollment of the students in higher Chinese medicine colleges and universities amounted to 2.7 million in 1999 and 9.5 million in 2005 with 8 million current students in 1999 and 30 million in 2005.

II. THE BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF HUBEI COLLEGE OF TRADITION CHINESE MEDICINE

Founded in 1958, Hubei College of Traditional Chinese Medicine is located in Wuhan City, capital of Hubei province, in central China. As early as 1958, it started undergraduate education in Traditional Chinese Medicine, while in 1978 postgraduate education, among the first such kind of universities in China. And in 1991 the cultivation program of doctorate students majoring in Traditional Chinese Medicine was launched.

A. Specialties: The College has been establishing a full spectrum of 5 higher education in Medicine, Science, Engineering, Management and Arts offering 26 specialties and orientations including TCM, Acupuncture and Massage, TCM Orthopedics, Pharmaceutical Engineering, Integrated Clinical Medicine of Chinese and Western Medicine, TCM Materia Medica, TCM Resources, System Medicine Engineering, TCM Diagnostics, TCM Internal Medicine, TCM Gynecology and Obstetrics, Ecsometics, TCM Nursing, Marketing, Public Administration, Information Systems and Information Technology(IT), Computer Science, Biotechnology, Foreign Languages with 22 specialties for master’s degree and 1 doctor’s degree of first-level discipline including 12 doctor’s degrees of secondary-level subjects.

B. Scope of College: At present the college, in total, has 14,500 students, including 7,681 undergraduates and associate bachelors, 1,006 postgraduates, 451 overseas and Hongkong-Macow-Taiwan students, 3,329 students in the Biochemical Engineering School, a secondary school, and 2,056 adult students (after-school students). The current staff working in the college has reached a number of 1,100, among them 570 are full time teachers, 210 have the title of Professor or Associate Professor

C. Conditions and facilities of the College: The campus covers an area of 1,610 mu(107.3 acres), including 1410 mu(94 acres) as the main campus in which 300,000 square meters of buildings has been completed out of 420,000 square meters as a total. In addition, Our college has 7 affiliated hospitals, over 30 hospitals for teaching and clinical practice, along with teaching instruments and equipment (amounts to￥60,000,000) plus 800,000 volumes of books. The basic vision for the college operation is that we will maintain the scope of education and adjust the structure of the whole curriculum reasonably to improve the quality of teaching. Furthermore, we will give priority to undergraduate education, expand moderately the postgraduate education while making more efforts to develop the education of overseas students and explore actively the after-school/further education. The goal of the college development is that we hope to establish a prestigious university in Chinese medicine and pharmacology, reaching the advanced level of its kind in China, focusing on Chinese medicine and pharmacology, with all related subjects developing harmoniously and a unique advantage in the operation of the school.

D. International Cooperation: Our college has trained over 1,000 overseas students comprising of undergraduates, postgraduate and short-term trainees from 25 different countries and regions during the past 20 years, has developed the ability to receive more than 50 groups of visiting guests for all kinds of cooperative purposes annually on an average. Additionally, we have established cooperative relationship or twin universities with more than 50 universities, academic institutions and professional organizations at diversified levels and ways from 25 countries and regions such as U-Clermontl in France, University of Portsmouth in UK, Saratov State Medical University in Russia, Daejeon University in South Korea, University of Technology in Finland, WINSTON-SALEM STATE University in US, Junior College of TCM in Spain, Texas College of TCM in USA, Canada Central College, Judo Orthopedics School in Japan, Hong Kong University as well as Taichung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan and so on besides Hanoi National University in Vietnam.

III. THE TREND OF INTERNATIONALIZATION IN CHINESE MEDICINE EDUCATION

In this contemporary era, the economic globalization has become a primary trend with an increasing number of exchanges among countries in the world in terms of economy, culture, education, health, science and technology and so on. The advanced science and technology, culture and management experience introduced and absorbed from foreign nations have greatly boosted the development of Chinese economy and society since China’s reform and opening up 30 years ago. At the same time, Chinese culture and medicine have aroused a lot of interests from many governments and peoples across the globe through bilateral economic cooperation and cultural exchanges. The trend of internationalization in Chinese medicine education is being formed with its entering the global arena.

A. A great deal of Overseas Students coming to china to learn Traditional Chinese Medicine Since 1950s, many medicine-related personnel from some other countries and regions began to study Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in China. Since 1978, with the adoption of China’s reform and opening up as well as the medical mode transforming from biomedicine mode to biology—psychology—social medicine, there has been a growing number of foreign medicine-related staff coming to China and pursuing education of TCM. In recent years, the number of overseas students learning TCM in China ranks first among all the specialties concerning natural sciences. Approved by Ministry of Education of People’s Republic of China, over 20 TCM universities are entitled to accept overseas students, 12 TCM universities to accept overseas Chinese, HongKong-Macow-Taiwan students to learn Chinese Medicine. At present, there are about 5000 overseas students studying in Chinese medical universities. Our college is one of the first approved universities qualified to accept overseas students and it ranks one of the top five Chinese TCM universities for the capability to recruit such students at present. Since 1986, when it started to enroll the foreign and Hongkong-Macow-Taiwan students, the college has successively established such organizations as the Foreign Affairs Department, Overseas Education School and Hongkong-Macao-Taiwan Office, which serves as a relatively independent facility, providing overseas students with both the teaching and the affiliated facilities. Up to now, the Overseas Education School has 451 students from 15 different countries and regions and the new campus being constructed from the year 2004 now illustrates itself with perfect harmony of traditional and modern style of architecture at the South-Door of Wuhan city. And the new buildings of the Overseas Education School, comprising of accommodation, canteen rooms, entertainment rooms, gymnasium, conference rooms and offices, provide the overseas students with the first-class studying and living condition.

Overseas students can choose all specialties in the college, while the most attractive ones are TCM, Acupuncture and Massage, TCM Orthopedics, Integrated Clinical Medicine of Chinese and Western Medicine, Nursing, TCM Pharmacology, Food Nutrition and Test, Biomedicine and Marketing. The curriculum consists mainly of Public Basic Courses, Basic Specialty Courses and Specialty Courses. The teaching materials are unified standard books for all TCM universities regulated by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. Our goal of overseas education is to cultivate excellent higher talents to meet the demand of international TCM market with Chinese, English and Bilingual as the teaching media. The education plan emphasizes on the cultivation of overseas students’ capabilities in practice .We adopt N+N mode or 2-university combined mode(Chinese language training first in one foreign country + Specialties’ training in our college ). With the full use of the new campus and new buildings of Overseas Education School, the study and living condition of overseas students are entirely guaranteed and improved. At the same time, our entertainment and sports grounds also help them to have a colorful spare time. We also make efforts on organizing uprising, healthy and colorful activities, such as annual spring outing, autumn outing, social investigation, provincial or university art performance and sports competition, and friendship activities, so as to promote their all-round qualities.

“It is always a pleasure to greet a friend from afar”. Hubei

College of TCM warmly welcomes friends from all over the world for exchanging, studying and cooperating.

B. Overseas TCM Education is developing

After 1970s, quite a good deal of foreign countries began to start the TCM education all over the world. Initially most of the education emphasized on the education of acupuncture and later expanded to other fields of TCM.

In Asia, Japan established Meiji University of Oriental Medicine in 1983 with specialty of Acupuncture in undergraduate and postgraduate education; in Korea, Chinese acupuncture education is mainly carried by Korean Medical Universities with a 6-year’s education for bachelor’s degree; and in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, some of the universities also have TCM and acupuncture courses.

In Europe, quite many universities set up TCM and Acupuncture courses for degrees or for diplomas, such as MIDDLESEX University in England, University of East London, University Paris 13 in France, University Claude Bernard Lyon, Witten/Herderke University in France, the Second Medical School of Roma University, the Medical School of Netherlands University and Barcelona University in Spain, as well as some private acupuncture schools in these countries.

In America, there are over 30 TCM and acupuncture universities in the United States, such as American College of TCM, US TCM and Western Medicine University, International College of TCM etc. Over 30 states recognize TCM and Chinese Herb the legal status and changed TCM from the former “Alternative Medicine” to “integral Medicine”. In Brazil 6 universities, such as Sainted Paul Medical University, Federal Fluminense University, set up acupuncture courses while in Canada there are also some TCM acupuncture schools.

In Australia, Victoria State published Bill of TCM Registration to guarantee the legal status of TCM. Four public universities, such as Victoria University, RMIT University, provide formal TCM higher education. Meanwhile, another 10 private colleges also offer TCM education.

All in all, TCM education has called the attention of the governments and NGO in many countries and the trend of the internationalization of TCM education has been formed. As to promote the international Chinese Medicine education to develop virtuously, World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies set up Chinese Medicine Education Committee. Although currently the international Chinese Medicine education is developing fast, there are still some problems, such as the compile of teaching materials, the level of the teaching staff, the set-up of the curriculums, the clinical practice and assessment and standards for the qualities of talents and so on, need to be modified and improved. Anyway, the international Chinese Medicine education definitely will advance further and contribute more to human beings.