Conclusion
TCM
The cultivation of clinical competency is an important pillar to be integrated into the entire TCM curriculum, and educators now face the difficulty of creating a learning environment that cultivates clinical practice skills in a highly efficient and productive manner. Simulation training with the SSP-TCMs and OSP-TCMs evidenced great benefits for enhancing clinical competency. Relative to OSP-TCMs simulation, SSP-TCM simulation was feasible, practical, and cost-effective. SSP-TCM simulation could serve as an alternative method for practicing, learning, evaluating, and testing. In the future, we want to assess the effects and differences of diverse types of SPs, like virtual standardized patients, for improvement in clinical competence among TCM medical students.