During China’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional Chinese medicine played a vital role. How to further promote and develop TCM has thus become a focal point of public attention. Ruan Shiwei, Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Vice Chairperson of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPPCC, and Chairman of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the China Democratic League Relevant proposals were submitted to the Congress, recommending that lessons learned from the fight against the epidemic be incorporated to accelerate the reform and development of traditional Chinese medicine.

Ruan Shiwei is also a chief physician, professor, and doctoral supervisor at Fujian Provincial People’s Hospital. His many years of clinical experience in traditional Chinese medicine have kept him deeply engaged in the reform and development of the TCM sector.

Ruan Shiwei stated that, although the cause of traditional Chinese medicine has entered a fast track of development in recent years, bottlenecks still exist in areas such as public awareness, talent cultivation, and policies and regulations.

Ruan Shiwei recommends that, to comprehensively upgrade traditional Chinese medicine, the first step is to establish robust institutional platforms by building a number of high-standard, high-level, large-scale integrated TCM–Western medicine hospitals and infectious disease hospitals across the country. On this foundation, further close integration between clinical diagnosis and treatment and research in TCM should be promoted. Multi-center, systematic studies should be conducted to optimize clinical protocols, thereby preserving the essence of TCM while upholding its core principles and fostering innovation. Moreover, well-established, optimized integrated TCM–Western medicine clinical protocols should be widely adopted across all departments in various types of hospitals.

“To advance the cause of traditional Chinese medicine, many existing policies and regulations also need to be revised and adjusted,” Ruan Shiwei believes. He argues that the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and the Drug Administration Law should be comprehensively revised in light of the unique characteristics and developmental principles of TCM, while accompanying implementing rules should be promulgated to institutionalize TCM’s mode of thinking and evaluation system, thereby fostering the further development of TCM. In addition, relevant laws and regulations such as the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases and the Regulations on Emergency Management of Public Health Emergencies should also be amended to lay a solid legal foundation for the early involvement and effective contribution of TCM in infectious disease prevention and control.

“Talent is the cornerstone of the development of traditional Chinese medicine; at present, our pool of medical professionals in this field is woefully inadequate,” Ruan Shiwei told reporters. He noted that the current ratio of Western-medicine practitioners to TCM practitioners stands at roughly 8:2. He recommended the formulation of a dedicated plan for cultivating TCM talent, systematically training TCM professionals at all levels—from research to clinical practice—and fostering multidisciplinary, integrated specialists who combine TCM with Western medicine.

At the same time, efforts should be intensified to cultivate TCM talent at the grassroots level by annually enrolling and specifically training undergraduate students in TCM programs, thereby ensuring that township health centers (community health service centers and stations) are staffed with qualified TCM professionals. Training at the grassroots level should place greater emphasis on TCM-related subjects and the promotion of appropriate TCM techniques. Furthermore, TCM knowledge should be incorporated more extensively into both retraining and standardized training programs for general practitioners, with separate assessments conducted to evaluate such knowledge.

Ruan Shiwei also emphasized the need to include more traditional Chinese medicine treatment items in the national medical insurance reimbursement catalog, so as to both promote the development of TCM and ensure that the general public has access to affordable and cost-effective care.