Texas College of Traditional Chinese Medicine

The clinic internship component of our curriculum, like our classroom instruction, and, indeed, our entire curriculum and approach to teaching TCM, is based on the successful model of TCM training at colleges and universities in China.  What we offer is very similar to the training practitioners in China and throughout Asia receive during their education.  By deliberately patterning ourselves after the Chinese and Asian educational models, our College is able to provide students the benefits of a first-rate TCM education without the need for them to travel to Asia.  In point of fact, so high is the quality of our curriculum and program of study that we actually have a number of students who have traveled from China, Taiwan, and other Asian nations in order to study with us.

TCTCM's clinic intern training is exceptionally thorough, with all students completing at least 350 patient treatments under the supervision of licensed acupuncturists on our faculty.  As part of their training, all students learn and practice the proper selection and use of acupuncture points and techniques, and recommend and prepare herbal formulas specifically tailored to their individual patients' conditions.  Our College places great emphasis on the integrated use of acupuncture and herbs, a focus not commonly found among acupuncture and Oriental medicine schools outside of Asia, and the practical experience students gain in our clinic augments and complements their classroom and theoretical studies.

TCTCM's curriculum has an excellent herbal training component, and our herb room provides raw herbs, granular extracts, as well as patent herbs for patient use and student review and study.   As part of our theoretical instruction, courses in the Shang Han Lun, Golden Chamber, Wen Bing Lun, and other classical TCM texts are required for all students. These master works of the classical tradition help guide and direct our students in their practice of TCM, and allow them access to the accumulated wisdom and experience of TCM's greatest thinkers.

TCTCM teaches Traditional Chinese Medicine to the exclusion of all other approaches and systems; our students do not study "Oriental medicine".  We do this because TCM possess an integrated and complete theoretical system, backed by over 5,000 years of continuous development, research, and application; the same cannot be said for "Oriental medicine," which is all too often a paint-by-numbers, watered-down, and incomplete version of TCM.  Because every major traditional healing art of Asia is directly descended from and based upon Traditional Chinese Medicine, students trained in TCM possess a better grasp of the principles and practices of all of Asia's healing arts than do those students whose education took the more eclectic or "cafeteria" style approach so commonly used outside of Asia.  By dedicating themselves to the study of this most ancient and highly-developed system of health and healing, our students are able to ensure their success as practitioners.