TCM Apprenticeship Center: Pioneering Guangdong's Grassroots TCM Talent Development Model to Fuel Industry Growth
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has faced a lack of public recognition in recent years, leading to its gradual withdrawal from the market. According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, China had approximately 16,000 "China Time-Honored Brands" in the early years after the founding of the People's Republic of China; this number dwindled to just over 1,600 by the 1990s, and currently stands at only 1,130, with more than 90 belonging to the TCM sector. The TCM industry is enduring the growing pains of a continuous decline.
A turning point emerged in 2015. Since then, the Chinese government has vigorously supported the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), successively issuing nearly 20 national-level policies, including the Development Plan for TCM Health Services (2015–2020), the Plan for the Protection and Development of Chinese Medicinal Materials (2015–2020), the Outline of the Strategic Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (2016–2030), and the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine. These initiatives have elevated the development of TCM to the level of national strategy, presenting the TCM industry with a significant opportunity for growth.
Amidst a confluence of favorable timing, geographic advantages, and human resources, the Guangdong Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Apprenticeship Education Research Center (hereinafter referred to as the “TCM Apprenticeship Center”) was officially established. Liang Lie, Secretary-General of the TCM Apprenticeship Center, stated, “The establishment of the Center is driven by multiple factors. First, the TCM industry made significant contributions and achieved remarkable success during the 2003 fight against SARS, yielding numerous accomplishments over the subsequent decade. This laid the foundation for the explosive growth of the TCM sector. Second, the successive issuance of policies and laws pertaining to TCM demonstrates the state’s emphasis on the industry and signals that the sector has entered a period of strategic opportunity. Finally, we identified a shortage of talent in the TCM industry and developed solutions to address it. Therefore, we established the TCM Apprenticeship Center with the aim of cultivating more TCM professionals.”
According to the "2016 Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Health and Family Planning in China" issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the total number of health personnel in China reached 11.173 million at the end of 2016, while the total number of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) health personnel was only 613,000. This highlights the scarcity of TCM talent.
Liang Lie stated, “As of 2015, the total number of licensed TCM practitioners (including assistant physicians) in Guangdong Province was less than 35,000. For a province with a population exceeding 100 million, this workforce of just over 30,000 TCM professionals was insufficient to meet the needs of the majority. There is an urgent need to replenish TCM talent in the industry.”
The establishment of the TCM Master-Apprentice Center aims to explore a training model for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners that adapts to current social and environmental contexts, thereby forging a distinctive path for TCM talent development across China.
“The scholarship of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been resplendent and magnificent for over two millennia. Yet, throughout its evolution and development, its proliferation and inheritance have never been separated from the mentorship model.” This description of mentorship education was offered by Wang Qi, a renowned National Master of TCM, in his treatise On Mentorship, underscoring the pivotal role of mentorship in the transmission of TCM knowledge.
The apprenticeship education model emphasizes mentorship, wherein mentors impart medical knowledge and clinical diagnostic skills to apprentices through verbal instruction and personal example. In this process, the mentors’ experience and specialized expertise are transmitted to apprentices through practical application, thereby facilitating the inheritance and advancement of medical arts.
Apprenticeship-based education differs significantly from higher education institutions. Liang Lie introduced, “The TCM Apprenticeship Center and TCM universities have different goals and models, each with its own unique advantages.”
First, unlike universities that prioritize Gaokao scores in their admissions, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has adopted a model characterized by lenient entry but stringent exit requirements. Starting from the recruitment stage, it selects individuals who demonstrate a firm commitment to pursuing careers in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or possess a strong interest in TCM culture. This admissions approach aims to attract a broad spectrum of elites from various sectors of society. Liang Lie stated, “In terms of training objectives, we focus on grassroots-level care, with the basic requirement being the ability to diagnose and treat common and frequently occurring diseases. We are not constrained by factors such as academic degrees, scientific research output, or professional title evaluations, thereby aligning our training with the demand for TCM services at the grassroots level.”
Previously, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) faced challenges such as the lack of standards and systematic frameworks. To address these issues, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has established a comprehensive and well-structured teaching system. Adhering to the principles of “standardized outcomes, flexible processes, and systematic foundations,” the Center has developed and refined quality standards for teaching along with a robust system for monitoring and ensuring instructional quality. Currently, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has formulated a series of administrative regulations for apprenticeship education, including the *Guangdong TCM Apprenticeship Student Teaching Plan*, the *Implementation Measures for Clinical Practice Management of TCM Apprenticeship Students*, the *Guangdong Clinical Training Standards for TCM Apprenticeship Personnel (Trial)*, and the *Administrative Measures for TCM Apprenticeship Mentors in Guangdong*. Experts have commented, “This series of mechanisms is pioneering and fills the gap in implementation standards for TCM education.”
In addition, the TCM Master-Apprentice Center has established a comprehensive TCM master-apprentice education system, encompassing renowned physician lectures, clinical apprenticeship, video-based instruction, specialized disease research, supervised learning and assessment, and targeted training. This system meets the needs of TCM practitioners at all stages and levels, as well as enthusiasts of TCM culture, in their pursuit of TCM knowledge and professional competency enhancement.
Clinical practice is the fundamental approach to passing down the experiential knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Therefore, the TCM Apprenticeship Center consolidates practical components—including basic clinical skills, specialized technical competencies, and communication skills—into its curriculum. This structured, progressive training builds students’ confidence in TCM. Unlike large-class instruction at universities, the TCM Apprenticeship Center emphasizes individualized instruction within clinical settings, integrating theory with practice to help students deepen their theoretical understanding through hands-on experience.
For example, the TCM Apprenticeship Center centralizes instruction in Chinese herbal medicine identification, TCM diagnostics, and acupuncture and tuina at secondary-level TCM hospitals. This approach leverages the advantages of these hospitals, including an ample supply of preceptors and well-equipped diagnostic and treatment facilities, to deliver systematic, specialized training. Primary-level community health centers serve as key practical training bases for trainees. The more flexible schedules of preceptors in these settings facilitate clinical observation and follow-up by trainees, while also providing abundant case material from the local population. This enables trainees to apply and consolidate the knowledge acquired at secondary-level hospitals.
It is worth noting that, compared with formal higher education in TCM institutions, the apprenticeship model of TCM education is more conducive to cultivating clinically oriented TCM practitioners. This model offers advantages such as a shorter training cycle, lower financial investment, and minimal disruption to professional work. Data indicate that TCM practitioners trained through apprenticeship programs exhibit higher rates of herbal medicine utilization and greater clinical efficacy, playing a significant role in the inheritance and development of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
After several years of exploration, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has established a sound educational system for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) apprenticeships. Liang Lie introduced, “The TCM Apprenticeship Center conducted in-depth research and fully incorporated practical experiences from higher education and TCM apprenticeship training, ultimately developing a ‘3+1’ apprenticeship cultivation model.”
“3” refers to the three core modules of “apprenticeship learning, theoretical study, and clinical practice.” This involves systematic training in fundamental TCM theory, internal herbal medicine, and external therapeutic techniques through weekly lectures by renowned TCM practitioners, regular clinical apprenticeships with mentors, and periodic specialized clinical skills training, thereby transforming students without a prior TCM background into competent clinical TCM practitioners. “1” denotes pre-examination training for the apprenticeship completion assessment and the TCM Physician Qualification Examination, with the primary objective of ensuring successful passage of these exams.
Liang Lie introduced, “Currently, the TCM Apprenticeship Center draws its students primarily from four groups. The first category comprises physicians or TCM practitioners working in primary healthcare institutions; the second includes pharmacists employed by pharmacies and similar establishments; the third consists of enthusiasts of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM); and the fourth encompasses professionals in the health and wellness sector.” To date, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has recruited nearly 1,000 trainees.
Regarding mentors, the TCM Mentorship Center has recruited over 800 associate chief physicians and above from nearly 100 TCM medical institutions across 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province to form its mentor team. Meanwhile, it has engaged nearly 100 National Masters of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nationally Renowned TCM Practitioners, and Provincially Renowned TCM Practitioners to constitute the center’s high-level advisory council.
Liang Lie introduced, “The mentor team encompasses experts in various specialties of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), including internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, and acupuncture and rehabilitation—areas where TCM demonstrates particular strengths. We implement specialized management for these experts by establishing three leadership groups: the Theoretical Teaching Leadership Group, the Clinical Practice Leadership Group, and the Assessment and Evaluation Leadership Group. Each group is headed by a leading TCM expert from our expert pool who possesses outstanding teaching experience, clinical expertise, and managerial capabilities. These leaders are responsible for overseeing their respective domains, guiding experts in conducting teaching research, providing clinical supervision, and managing assessment processes.”
In this way, the expert database provides each student with a wide range of options. Building on this foundation, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has designed a mutual preference matching mechanism for mentors and apprentices, ensuring that both parties can find satisfactory matches. “This innovative matching mechanism represents a significant breakthrough in traditional apprenticeship education, substantially improving the efficiency of subsequent communication and services provided by the TCM Apprenticeship Center.”
Clinical practice is the core advantage of apprenticeship-based education. Therefore, since 2017, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has gradually initiated communications with the TCM departments of nearly 20 general hospitals, including Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Second Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University, and the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, to jointly establish clinical practice teaching bases. Currently, the TCM Apprenticeship Center has established a three-tier clinical practice teaching base system comprising “general hospitals, secondary hospitals, and community health service centers.”
Meanwhile, the TCM Mentorship Center has established more than 20 clinical practice teaching leadership groups, focusing on clinical preceptorship for difficult and complex conditions such as tumors, cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases, and kidney diseases, as well as common disorders including spinal conditions (e.g., cervical and lumbar spondylosis), gynecological diseases, and pediatric diseases. “To accumulate clinical practical experience, we have successively published books compiling experts’ clinical case records, aiming to promote the academic standardization of TCM therapeutic efficacy.”
According to reports, in 2020, the “Shicheng TCM Clinic,” a standardized clinical practice teaching base of the TCM Apprenticeship Center, was officially put into operation. In developing this clinic, the Center has synthesized and enhanced its years of operational experience from clinical practice teaching bases at various levels. It aims to further overcome the conservative limitations of traditional apprenticeship education, characterized by the isolated transmission of family-specific techniques, by establishing a “group mentors guiding group apprentices” system and offering more diverse opportunities for mentored learning. Liang Lie stated, “The Shicheng TCM Clinic will focus on inheriting the clinical experience of renowned senior TCM practitioners, cultivating young TCM professionals, and promoting the academic rigor of TCM clinical efficacy, striving to achieve a standardized service loop for TCM healthcare services.”
The TCM Mentorship Center remains committed to cultivating grassroots traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners, contributing to the decentralization of healthcare resources and laying a talent foundation for the explosive growth of TCM. We look forward to an exciting future!