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Background and Purpose. Traditional medicine (TM) has been widely used in China (including the Taiwan region), Korea, and Japan. The purposes of this paper are to summarize the basic data on TM systems in these three countries and to compare them in terms of overall policy, education, and insurance. Methods. Government websites, national statistics, and authoritative papers from each country were fully searched. Further data were gathered by TM experts from each country. Results. China and Korea showed similar patterns in TM systems, whereas Japan showed different patterns. In China and Korea, TM was practiced in a dual system with conventional medicine (CM), and TM education was 6-year training programs on average for TM doctors, and acupuncture, moxibustion, and cupping were completely insured. Whereas, CM was dominant in Japan, and TM was practiced by each health care worker who has received different TM education respectively, and main TM therapies were partially insured. Conclusions. TM was developed similarly or somewhat differently based on differences in cultural background and national policies in East Asia. We cautiously propose that this study could contribute to the development of TM and also be used for reference in complementary and alternative medicine systems.

No serious or severe cases such as pneumothorax, infection, or spinal cord injury were reported by the college preceptors and interns. The results indicate that serious or severe adverse events are rare in standard practice. We suggest that most severe or serious cases of adverse events caused by acupuncture reported in journals are actually cases of negligence. In the future, negligence should be discussed from the point of view of medical education and technical instruction for the therapists, and adverse reactions should be discussed from the point of view of incidence and prevention based on the result of further investigation.

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