The College of Oriental Medicine trains Oriental Medicine Practitioners, that is all the modalities of Oriental Medicine are taught as they are meant to be practised, in an integrated fashion: Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Tuina Massage, Chinese Nutrition, Tai Chi and Qi Gong (the last two as personal development to add balance and focus to your personal practice) – this means that not only do our students get full value for money in their courses, but also having graduated they are able to provide integrated treatment modalities which makes for a more complete and effective treatments for the client.
Integrated teaching of all Oriental Medicine modalities not only serves to quickly develop the aspiring practitioner’s identity as a whole practitioner, but also students find that understanding the different modalities in unison further deepens the understanding of each modality individually.
All programmes are balanced with many biomedical clinical modules, allowing the student and graduate to develop their practice with a deeper understanding of the condition being presented in a western medicine context, and allowing personal development of “integrated medicine practice”. The development of this skill allows the graduate not only to interface appropriately with western medicine practitioners when in private practice, but also allows the graduate to seamlessly operate in any integrated medicine practice opportunities that may arise in a western medicine setting.
All clinic hours are delivered within the programme - between 400 and 500 hours depending on programme selection, are delivered in a Polyclinic setting within the College of Oriental Medicine, under expert supervision of faculty who are and have also been concurrently practising in their own clinics for many years. The combined clinic experience of the clinic faculty amounts to over 40 years in international experience in private practice – in Ireland, the UK, Australia and the USA. Different members of faculty also have their own areas of speciality e.g. complicated infertility, addictions, severe mental health, endocrinology, cardiology, complicated and/or severe internal medicine cases incorporating polypharmacy, severe musculoskeletal etc. Also, students get a wide range of exposure to different styles of treatment from the different expertise of faculty e.g. TCM, Five Element, Scalp, Auricular, and Electro Acupuncture, TCM Chinese Herbal Medicine Prescriptionology, Shan Han Lun herbal treatments, raw herb and tincture preparation etc. Students get exposure to treating very complicated cases early on in their careers, and access to the necessary advice and training to achieve success in such cases, which allows students to be fully confident in their ability to practice with very difficult cases on graduation, skills which are invaluable for sustaining and developing early private practice.
The College of Oriental Medicine is fully transparent and accountable for the contact hours delivered in their programmes, not only in their marketing and literature, but also in the provision of individual detailed transcripts showing all contact hours, in lecture and in clinic, broken down to each and every module taken within the course, and the hours and grades allocated to each module upon graduation. This gives graduates the ability to transfer their learning and obtain full prior credit in further studies at university level internationally e.g. the UK and the USA, for Masters Degrees and beyond.
All courses are the College of Oriental Medicine meet international accreditation core curriculum requirements for membership of overseas regulatory bodies, e.g. the BAcC, RCHM, EHTPA (UK), and ACAOM (USA).
Oriental Medicine training at The College of Oriental Medicine from TCM Diploma through to TCM Honours delivers 100+ modules over a total of 5 years in a part-time format, equivalent to 20+ modules per year. All lecture modules are already prewritten, and delivered to the student in pdf format, with most being over 100 pages in length – which allows students to pre-read the lecture before delivery, allows the student to concentrate on the lecture rather than note taking, and also allows the lecturer to overlay the text with private practice experience to deepen the students understanding.
The College of Oriental Medicine has Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine Degree Level programmes as well as a TCM Honours programme, which delivers a “3 in 1” package – Acupuncture Degree Level, Chinese Herbal Medicine Degree Level, and TCM Honours Degree Level.
