Traditional Medicine in Asia

should be sequential and progressive, and
specific learning objectives should be
derived from the competencies required for
more effective and efficient performance. 6
Here, there are greater opportunities than
with basic-level programmes to pursue
multi-professional or team-and-problemoriented
approaches to education.
Since the purpose of continuing
education is enhanced job performance in
the health services, it must be associated
with other factors that contribute to high
levels of staff morale and productivity.
Continuing education is, therefore, not only
a part of the training component of human
resource development, but of human
resources management as well. In China
these aspects are reasonably wellarticulated
in the continuing education of
traditional medicine practitioners. It
requires cooperation between the trainers
and the health service managers.
Orientation of medical students
and practitioners in traditional
medicine
In order to foster and generate an
atmosphere of cooperation between the
practitioners of modern and traditional
medicine, one requirement would be to
orientate the students and practitioners of
Western medicine in traditional medicine.
This should therefore be taken up as a
parallel activity. In India, for example, it is
now compulsory for medical students to
have a certain number of hours of
instruction dedicated to traditional
medicine. This is a good start and, later, it
may be possible to incorporate some
assessments also into this. It would be
desirable to similarly orientate the
practitioners of Western medicine in
traditional medicine, but this would be a
much more difficult exercise as there would
be few available ways of generating interest
Development of training programmes for traditional medicine
among them in this subject. It would be
easier when, and if, the two systems are
available to the community in some
integrated or coordinated manner so that
the practitioners communicate regularly
with each other.
Conclusion
Many years have passed since the World
Health Assembly first urged interested
governments to give adequate importance
to the utilization of their traditional systems
of medicine with appropriate regulations
as suited to their national health system
(Resolution WHA30.49). So far no clear
picture as to how this was to be implemented
in many countries has evolved and
many public health administrators look on
traditional medicine with continued
cynicism. Without a proper understanding
at Government level of the issues involved
and the creation of an informed body of
opinion on the subject among the health
profession and the public, there will be no
significant move to utilize traditional
medicine in national health systems.
One tends to speak as if the traditional
forms of medicine and their practitioners
are each homogeneous entities. It is,
however, important to distinguish between
the “formalized” traditional systems of
medicine, such as Ayurveda, Unani, and
Chinese traditional medicine and the
practice of those practitioners who are
recognized by their communities as being
competent to provide health care. These
practitioners serve a long apprenticeship
and their knowledge is handed down from
generation to generation, mainly by word
of mouth.
There are also various types of healers
whose practices are based on spiritual or
moral convictions and others more difficult
to define but who, nevertheless, are
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