Abstract

Background:
Conventionally, Chinese medicine students are only required to understand the functions of Chinese materia medica (CMM). However, the learning of the knowledge and skills to identify the differential quality of herbal plants in the private markets by the physical appearance and morphology is also essential. Students are unlikely to get familiar with the practical skills in current learning environment due to the time and space limitation.

Objectives:
This project aims at provides simple, concise and clear hands-on and practical skills for the students to identify the differential quality and varieties of the commonly used or easily confused Chinese herbal medicine in Hong Kong. The experience and knowledge of those traditional methods for CMM identification could also be inherited.

Methods:
We are honored to have invited Mr. HO Fat Yee, a local expert in CMM identification and herb marketing to demonstrate the practical knowledge and skills of identification of 15-20 commonly used CMM products including Ginsang, Cordyceps and Honeysuckle. The main features of each herbs and the ways of identification such as inspection and simple testing methods were covered in micro-module video clips.

Outcomes:
The project has been welcomed by the Chinese Medicine students. They found the teaching materials and assessment tools are useful for self-learning. They also expressed their willingness of using such learning materials in their study. The video clips will be launched at LMS platform (blackboard) and released according to the teaching schedule.

(The project is supported by Micro-Module Courseware Development Grant 2017-18)