Program overview
TCM Diagnostics is a core foundational course in traditional Chinese medicine. Simply put, it teaches you how to assess a person's health issues by looking, listening, asking, and feeling (inspection, auscultation & olfaction, inquiry, and palpation). At the graduate level, you'll dive deeper—studying the modern scientific principles behind tongue and pulse diagnosis, researching objective standards for syndromes, and even using AI to assist in analyzing tongue and pulse images. Core courses include *Monographs on TCM Diagnostics*, *Research on Tongue and Pulse Diagnosis*, *System of Pattern Differentiation and Treatment*, and *TCM Clinical Thinking*. If you enjoy observing details, excel at logical reasoning, and are interested in TCM culture, this major is a great fit. Chinese universities offer unique advantages—Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, have national key disciplines. Their labs combine traditional diagnostic training with modern instruments like tongue and pulse analyzers, helping you turn classic experience into quantifiable data.