Clinical Reasoning in Kampo Education for Teaching Kampo Beginners

Japanese traditional (Kampo) medicine has its own theories that are quite different from those of Western medicine. For many students and medical doctors, mastering it is a painstaking task. We examined the similarities in clinical reasoning between Western and Kampo medicine, and developed an easy-to-understand method to teach Kampo theories enabling physicians to make accurate diagnoses and choose suitable Kampo formulae.

We developed a teaching method for Kampo medicine along clinical reasoning for beginners and evaluate its availability and effectiveness in an actual team-based learning class.

A Kampo diagnostic procedure similar to that in Western medicine was developed. In this method, some Kampo formulae, are chosen according to the chief complaint, concomitant symptoms, characteristics, and distribution and exacerbation factors. Subsequently, from a point of view of the chosen Kampo formulae, patients' signs and symptoms are matched to find the most suitable formula. Students chose the same suitable formula among 6 groups and gained confidence to choose the correct Kampo formulae.

A new Kampo educational method was developed that raises students' and physicians' confidence in making diagnoses and prescribing Kampo medicines.