How to choose a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Sanya

1. Licence and legal status

The first thing to check is whether the clinic holds a state licence to practise traditional Chinese medicine. In China this licence is issued separately from general medical practice, so it is a specific and verifiable document rather than a general 'we are a hospital' claim.

Ask to see it. A legitimate clinic produces it without hesitation. Ask which legal entity operates it and whether it appears in the official register of medical institutions.

2. Doctor qualifications

In TCM it is customary to state the university where the doctor trained and the years of practice. For a serious specialist, ten years is a reasonable baseline.

• The TCM university the doctor graduated from (Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, and similar)
• Years of clinical practice — from 10 years is normal for a serious specialist
• Whether the doctor holds a title such as senior physician or associate chief physician

3. Pulse diagnosis

This is the key method of TCM. A genuine practitioner takes the pulse, inspects the tongue, and asks detailed questions about sleep, digestion, temperature preference and energy levels.

A proper first consultation should take no less than 20–30 minutes. If the 'examination' takes five minutes and procedures are proposed immediately, the diagnosis was never performed.

4. Range of procedures

A good TCM clinic offers considerably more than acupuncture. A full range includes:

A clinic offering only acupuncture is not necessarily bad — but you should know in advance whether the treatment you need is available, because building a programme around one method rarely serves a complex complaint.

• Acupuncture
• TuiNa massage
• Moxibustion
• Cupping / vacuum therapy
• Gua sha
• Herbal therapy with individually composed formulations
• Acupressure with the needle-knife

5. Safety and hygiene

Non-negotiable standards:

• Needles are single-use only
• The sterile package is opened in front of the patient
• The needle guide and the skin are disinfected before insertion
• Used needles go into a sharps container immediately, never back into the tray
• Cupping and gua sha tools are disinfected between patients
• Herbal formulations are prepared from identifiable, dated product

6. Language support

For Russian visitors this is critical: the clinic must provide a Russian-speaking interpreter at every consultation. Without one you cannot describe symptoms accurately, you cannot understand the doctor's reasoning, and you cannot give informed consent to a plan you have not understood.

• Accurately describe symptoms and their history
• Understand the proposed programme and its risks
• Report changes during the course in time
• Understand what the doctor is doing during each session

7. Prices and transparency

A good clinic provides a written price list before treatment begins. Prices should be clear about: the cost of the consultation; the price of each individual procedure; how many sessions the programme includes; what the programme price includes and what it does not; and the price of accommodation and flights, which are normally separate.

If the total is only available verbally, after you have already chosen a package, treat that as a warning sign.

8. What to watch out for

Red flags:

• Promises of '100% cure' or a 'guaranteed result' — this violates both Chinese and Russian advertising law for medical services
• Pressure to pay the full package before the first consultation
• A clinic without a visible licence, or one where the treating 'doctor' turns out to be a masseur
• A five-minute 'examination' followed by an immediate programme proposal
• Needles that are not opened in front of you
• A price list that exists only as a promise

How the fenix-sanyamed medical centre is organised

Our centre has operated since 2007. In that time we have obtained a state TCM licence, built a team of eight physicians with more than 40 years of experience each, and settled into four locations across the bays of Sanya.

Every consultation is conducted in Russian with an interpreter present. Every programme begins with a pulse diagnosis, and the plan is adjusted during the course as your condition changes. Prices are published before you arrive. The initial consultation, the airport transfer and the Russian-speaking coordinator are included in the programme price.