TCM practitioners are expected to have a sense of responsibility for their patients and to provide medical care only after an adequate assessment of patients’ conditions, through good history taking and appropriate TCM clinical examinations.

If treatments are suggested or offered to a patient without such personal evaluation, the TCM practitioners must satisfy themselves that they have sufficient information available and that the patients’ best interests are always being served.

We need to move on and not solely depending on old diagnostic methods. For example, using of dipstick to do the urine analysis, stethoscope, blood pressure set, blood sugar monitoring device, pregnancy test kits, etc. Although blood taking is prohibited by TCM practitioners for any laboratory tests, they can always refer their patients to Polyclinics or General Practitioners to perform the tests.

However, having said that, some of the traditional Chinese medicine methods are still valuable for the TCM practitioners to do a more accurate diagnosis. After all TCM diagnosis methodologies have withstood the test of time and have its diagnostic values. In my opinion, practitioners should make the best of both Eastern and Western techniques to help them in performing clinical diagnosis.

The clinical evaluation of patients could be transmitted by voice, electronic or other means by a referring TCM practitioner or a registered medical practitioner. Only in exceptional or emergency circumstances should a diagnosis or treatment be offered without personal contact and without the intermediation of a referring TCM practitioner or a registered medical practitioner (MOH, 2006).

Reference

Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board. (2006)  ETHICAL CODE AND ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR TCM PRACTITIONERS. Retrieved from http://www.tcmpb.gov.sg/tcm/ on June 07, 2009

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