To join, completion of at least 4 years of study at an accredited institution meeting the Association’s criteria is required. For studies completed from 2012 onwards, successful completion of all parts of the certification exam is also required. After passing the exam, membership in the Association will be granted for two years free of charge.
The Association’s activities depend on the largest possible number of active members and the financial investment that helps develop the profession and benefits all practitioners.
You can invest the cost of one or two treatments a year to remain members and support the effort.
Did you study at an institution outside of Israel and want to join the Association? You may not need to take the exam to join.
Contact us and your request will be reviewed by the Association’s Exceptions Committee.
Cypress Campus
Ryan College – was recognized until 2021.
The Ancient Chinese Medicine Study Program – Was sold until 2021.
Meirav College – Was known until 2018.
College of Complementary Medicine – Was known until 2002.
College of Complementary Medicine – Was known until 2013.
Ilma College – Was known until 2014.
Genesis College – Was known until 2002.
Dow College – Was known until 2015.
The School of Complementary Medicine of the College of Administration – was recognized until 2006.
Netanya College of Medicine from the College of Administration – in the process of recognition between the years 2020-2021
Haifa College of Medicine – Was known until 2011.
Tel Aviv College of Medicine – Was known until 2008.
East West College – Was known until 2014.
Kibbutzim Seminar College – Was known until 2014.
Dates of the next exam – Last date for registration: October 15, 2025.
The next exam:
To join the Association, practitioners are required to:
*Those who studied at a college abroad may apply to the Exceptions Committee to determine their eligibility for membership.
The National Certification Exam is based on the exam model of the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) in the USA. The exam’s purpose is to create a natural selection in the Chinese medicine market in Israel, distinguishing between practitioners with sufficient training and those without. The exam sets an appropriate professional standard for the field of Chinese medicine, and the Association works to establish it as a threshold requirement for employment in various medical institutions.
Those who completed their studies before 2010 (the date on the completion certificate) are exempt from the exam. To register, please access the registration form and enter your details.
The two-day exam includes five sections: Foundations of Chinese Medicine, Western Medicine, Acupuncture, Point Location, and Chinese Herbal Medicine. The exam is tailored to our needs in Israel and to what is taught in schools recognized by the Association. An official certification is awarded to those who pass the exam.
Graduates of Chinese medicine studies who have completed their studies at schools and colleges recognized by the Association. Candidates who took the National Certification Exam and did not pass one or more sections are required to retake the section(s) they did not pass.
The certification exams are written by the Association’s Certification Exam team, following guidelines received for the first exams in 2008 from the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation. Final score calculations for examinees are performed according to decisions made following item analyses, setting cut-off points for exam sections, and determining passing scores.
Analysis for all items in the exam by sections includes:
Item-level analysis: Percentage of correct responses, percentage of responses for each distractor, item discrimination indices. These measures allow checking whether each item functions properly psychometrically and contributes to proper and reliable discrimination of the exam as a whole. If a problem is detected in an item’s functioning (i.e., the item does not correlate with the examinees’ proficiency level, as measured by the other exam items), the item is discussed jointly with the Association’s exam team to consider its removal or change in scoring/weighting as needed.
Exam-level analysis: Score distribution, central tendency measures (average difficulty level, mean score, median), dispersion measures (standard deviation, range), internal reliability estimates, and standard error of measurement index. These data allow evaluating the overall discrimination quality of the exam and its suitability for the tested group, and are used when setting cut-off points for exam success.
Final score calculations for examinees are performed according to decisions made following item analyses, setting cut-off points for exam sections, and determining passing scores.
Some background:
The Traditional Chinese Healing Association was founded 21 years ago by a generation that built the reputation of Chinese medicine in the country. In 2021, the Association and the Israeli Chamber of Chinese Medicine merged into a unified body – The Chinese Medicine Association. The Association’s vision is to lead to regulation that will officially recognize our profession. Over the years, the Association has tried to pass legislative proposals and operate through various channels to achieve its goals and will continue to work towards regulating the profession.
Why is regulation needed?
We have all been exposed to more and more places teaching “acupuncture” in one or two semesters. The public does not know how to distinguish between a practitioner who studied for 4 years and one who studied in one of the shortened courses. Unfortunately, a practitioner who studied in a shortened program has only partial training, and the effect of treatment aimed at promoting healing and recovery will be partial at best, and in the worst case, harm may be caused to the patient. This phenomenon gives the profession a bad name.
Since the field of Chinese medicine is not regulated by law, there is no way to prevent such places from teaching. Therefore, the internal regulation led by the Association is important, among other things, to ensure the professional and ethical level of practitioners who did study for 4 years.
So what is the way to do this?
In addition, the Association sees importance in raising public awareness regarding practitioners who studied for 4 years and those who did not.
Larger Association = Power for Practitioners
The more practitioners the Association includes, the more power we, the practitioners who studied for 4 years, will have when regulation is decided. The more involved the Association is in regulation, the more favorable the conditions under which regulation will pass will be for us. The Ministry of Health sees us as the largest body in Israel, and as we gather more power and more practitioners join, our strength will increase vis-à-vis the authorities.
It’s worth knowing that in several European countries, there is regulation of Chinese medicine that was done without cooperation with serious practitioners, against the practitioners’ will, and as a result, most local practitioners there cannot practice at all!
Sound absurd? Unfortunately, this is the situation in several European countries, and similar attempts occur every few years, with the most recent one happening in Portugal, where the situation is still unclear. In other words, if we don’t regulate ourselves, someone else might impose regulation on us in a way that will cause enormous damage to the profession and everyone involved in it.
Beyond the regulation issue, the association currently also oversees all aspects of professional ethics, and in the last two years has placed additional emphasis on sexual harassment.
More from the association’s agenda:
Professional and business development for experienced therapists and new therapists who have graduated in recent years, through conferences, seminars, and professional supervision.
Community contribution through projects such as Dana Zur’s project providing treatments to Holocaust survivors.
Obtaining benefits for therapists, continuing education, equipment, professional insurance, and more…
Joining LAHAV – the umbrella organization for self-employed individuals.
Supporting therapists who want to move abroad or therapists who studied abroad and want to move to Israel.
Crisis management (such as during the COVID-19 pandemic) in conjunction with relevant bodies – various government ministries and more.
Those who pass the exam will be awarded a certification:
Dipl. CM (I.A.TCM)
Diplomated in Chinese Medicine (Israeli Association of TCM)
Below are PDF files for download with preparation materials for the association’s certification exam. You can download the files to your computer or mobile device and print them for convenient reading.
Graduates of Chinese medicine studies who have completed their studies at schools and colleges recognized by the association.
Everyone who registers for the exam receives an invitation email from the association’s secretariat with all the relevant details.
It greatly depends on the school and the student. Each school finishes exams at different times, and some students have additional academic obligations to the school (completing exams/papers, etc.). In principle, most schools usually finish exams by the end of August, with retakes until the third week of September, which means it usually gives at least a month until the exam on October 20th for the first part, October 27th for the second part.
It’s very important to read the Exam regulations to avoid discomfort or mistakes. The exam tests necessary knowledge and doesn’t seek excellence, so its structure is different from the exams students are familiar with from colleges. It’s advisable to go over the exam specification and understand the topics being tested. There are practice questions on the registration page, it’s worth going over them to understand the exam style and the required level of knowledge.
The exam, conducted over two days, includes five sections:
Foundations of Chinese Medicine
Western Medicine
Acupuncture
Point Location
Chinese Herbal Medicine
The exam is tailored to our needs in Israel and to what is taught in schools recognized by the association. An official certification is awarded to those who pass the exam.
The recognized schools organize joint preparation days for all schools, details will be published to all registrants and also on the association’s website. Some of the preparation days from recent years that were held on Zoom were recorded and are available on the association’s website on this page, in the “Exam Preparation Materials” section. It’s important to emphasize that the preparation days are organized by the schools and are their sole responsibility.
Candidates who took the national certification exam and did not pass one or more parts are required to retake only the specific section(s) they did not pass.
Most Chinese medicine students in Israel study at campuses in Tel Aviv. The exam is offered to students while trying to minimize costs, so that the exam fee isn’t higher. Therefore, considering all examinees, the exams are conducted in Tel Aviv.
The exam starts at 9:00 AM, but examinees are asked to arrive at least half an hour early and be ready by 8:30 AM. The estimated end time is 2:00 PM.
The exam will be held at Broshim College.
Address: Tel Aviv University Campus, 30 Haim Levanon St. corner of 1 George Wise St., Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv.
Directions by car:
Arrival by public transportation:
Egged bus lines: 271, 572, 274
Dan bus lines: 7, 13, 25, 54, 127, 24, 289, 6
Train: Get off at Tel Aviv University station, Exhibition Grounds
“Pass/Fail” results are received about a month after the exam ends.
Do you have another question that wasn’t answered? Feel free to contact us on the contact page and we’ll respond promptly.
