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Young sinsehs complete course combining traditional Chinese and Western practices
 GROWING up, Miss Chew Siew Tiang dealt with her childhood colds not by visiting a doctor, but via the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) route.
It worked every time, strengthening her belief in the 5,000-year-old tradition and piquing her interest in it. So it was not surprising that when it came to choosing a course of study at university, the 24-year-old, who has always had a passion for health care, opted for a double degree in biomedical sciences and Chinese medicine at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Miss Chew is among the 59 modern sinsehs whose love for both TCM and hard sciences such as physiology and anatomy saw them emerge as the pioneer batch of graduates from this programme.
The TCM programme takes five years and students graduate with both a Bachelor of Science in biomedical sciences from NTU and a Bachelor of Medicine (Chinese medicine) from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM).
The first-of-its-kind programme was the brainchild of Professor James Tam, who wanted to bridge the gap between Western and Eastern medicine.
“When I first brought up the idea, my colleagues thought I was insane. Most of them are trained in the Western sciences, and did not see how it could be paired with the teaching of TCM,” said Prof Tam, the programme’s director and formerly dean of NTU’s school of biological sciences. His dream was to educate a new breed of TCM physicians.
“These new graduates understand both the West and the East. They know two sciences – the old science from China, and the new science from the West,” he said.
The programme is selective – only one out of every 10 applicants is admitted – and there are no plans to expand the intake from its current cap of 60 students. The students spend their first three years studying biomedical science at NTU, which is where they learn physiology, anatomy and other fundamentals of Western medical science. The final two years are spent at BUCM in China, where courses on TCM are conducted in Chinese, and students complete a one-year clinical attachment.
Graduates will become Chinese physicians, and work at TCM clinics in Singapore. Already, the programme has caught the eye of Eu Yan Sang International, the Asian TCM giant, which began offering scholarships to the programme’s students for their final two years of study. These students will work at Eu Yan Sang’s clinics upon graduation.
Miss Chew said the double degree would increase her legitimacy in the eyes of Singaporeans. “Many people don’t trust TCM practitioners because they think we don’t know what’s out there.
But when they see we have both Eastern and Western medical knowledge, I think people will be more willing to trust us,” she said.
Miss Chew, who will be working with Eu Yan Sang once she passes the Singapore TCM Practitioner Board examinations in October, said she feels that TCM has an edge over Western medicine in many instances.
“TCM is very personalised and different medicines can be given for the same ailment, depending on the patient’s symptoms, pulse, tongue, digestion, and how they look,” she said.
Prof Tam expects the starting monthly salariesfor the new graduates to be around $3,000.
He said they are basically doctors, although they are not allowed to be called doctors in Singapore.
“It’s different in other places like Hong Kong – there, a Chinese physician can give a medical certificate to exempt someone from work,” he said.
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