A New Exploration of Cultivating Clinical Thinking in Rehabilitation Therapy from the Perspective of Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine

Abstract

Amid population aging and shifting rehabilitation concepts, society increasingly demands multidisciplinary rehabilitation professionals. Under national policies promoting integrated Chinese and Western medicine (ICWM), rehabilitation therapy education must shift from a “Chinese-Western divide” to an “integrated cultivation” model. The Rehabilitation Therapy program at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, a National First-Class Undergraduate Program, faces bottlenecks such as fragmented curricula, unidirectional teaching, disconnection from practice, and unitary assessment. Guided by “boundary-breaking” and “integration,” we systematically construct a six-dimensional ICWM rehabilitation teaching system covering philosophy, curriculum, instruction, practice, faculty, and assessment. By reshaping an integration-oriented training plan, innovating diversified teaching models, bridging stepwise clinical practice, fostering interdisciplinary faculty, and reforming competency-driven assessment, this system enhances students’ integrated clinical reasoning and practical skills. It provides a systematic, actionable pathway for educational reform in rehabilitation therapy.