Today Acupuncture

Are now offered to foreigners in major cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai. The emphasis is on clinical practice because previous training is assumed.

On such a course, approximately 30 per cent of the teaching concerns orthodox clinical sciences (such as anatomy, physiology and pathology).

The seriousness with which acupuncture is now regarded is indicated in this lengthy training, and the status of an acupuncturist is the same as that of a doctor trained in Western medicine.

Today acupuncture is used far more extensively in China than in the West, in a hospital-based system with facilities for in- as well as out-patients, and for treating acute as well as chronic cases.

The national policy is to pursue both systems side by side with extensive clinical research. Patients have the choice of both Western or traditional Chinese medicine and evidently seem to benefit from both.

This idea of extending choice to the patient may well spread to other countries in the future.