China Rural Doctors TCM Training Program

Our Mission

A large portion of China’s population lives in rural areas, yet many residents in remote villages lack adequate medical care. The Rural Doctors Program trains rural doctors in both traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine and make much-needed improvements to village health stations.

The Need

There are 622,000 village health stations in rural areas. However, most of them lack resources and staff expertise to provide a modern standard of care. Only 26% of their doctors are fully qualified, and the stations often lack the supplies and technology to diagnose and treat patients.

The Solution

The Rural Doctor TCM Training Program, launched in 2021, aims to equip rural doctors across China with knowledge of TCM and western medicine to increase the diagnosis and treatment options available to doctors while reducing the risk of rural families returning to poverty due to illness.

Our Impact

Since its launch, Give2Asia has raised USD $1,046,807.04 and disbursed USD $759,973.37 with CFFPD. The program has been carried out in 6 cities/counties/districts and trained 1,945 rural TCM doctors, among them, over 1,166 have been trained, a further 779 are currently receiving training.

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Program Details

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is uniquely trusted in rural areas. In addition to providing healing benefits, this initiative builds trust between doctors and local communities, while helping to preserve traditional practices and wisdom. This program aims to provide 1-year online TCM training sessions for rural doctors, totaling 112 learning hours. It adopts digital technologies, cooperates with national-level TCM experts, and engages TCM student volunteers to help rural doctors develop their TCM diagnosis and treatment competencies to further support the rural population in China in accessing proper medical care with affordable costs and good efficacy. It will cost US$470 (3,200 yuan) to train each rural doctor, and $176,000 (RMB 1.2 million yuan) could help expand this project to a new county/city, supporting about 380 rural doctors to receive TCM training.

Program Updates

2023: On September 19, 2023, a virtual kick-off meeting was held to announce the official launch of the program in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, with over 400 participants in attendance. The training in Zhangzhou will empower 396 rural doctors to improve their TCM knowledge as well as diagnostic and treatment capabilities.

Through interviews, roundtable discussions, and visits, the program team met with trainees in Qianjiang District, Chongqing in July 2023 and visited the Qianjiang TCM Hospital and the TCM Department of the local community health center, culminating the following key findings:

Chinese traditional medicine is very popular in Qianjiang as the medicines are affordable and the treatments are effective.
The local Health Commission and the Qianjiang TCM Hospital were very supportive and encouraged the local TCM doctors to participate in the training.
The program outcomes exceeded expectations. The training was largely recognized by the trainees, and all interviewed trainees said they had learned a lot through the training and improved their TCM knowledge & prescription skills.
Many trainees have started to apply their knowledge and specific TCM descriptions taught by the program in their daily work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them used specific descriptions for exogenous colds to treat COVID-19-infected people and got great treatment effects.
Trainees also expressed their gratitude to the strict training management. Volunteers were very responsible for urging them to finish assignments, which helped them consolidate knowledge.

How to Donate

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About Give2Asia

Give2Asia is a trusted partner for international philanthropy and the leader in donor-advised giving to the Asia-Pacific. Our mission is to strengthen communities in Asia by making cross-border giving easier and more effective. Since 2001, Give2Asia has facilitated more than US$535 million of charitable grants across 30+ countries.

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