Acupuncture manipulation skills are the core of acupuncture therapy.Traditional acupuncture skills evaluation is based on experts' subjective assessment which is deficient in reliability and validity.Certain progresses on the quantitative research on acupuncture skills have been made in China

while there is still a long way to go before the formation of the consummate standardization evaluation system on acupuncture skills.Actually

quantitative appraisal on surgical skills has been developed for a long time in Europe and North America.Since acupuncture could be considered as a kind of skills of minimally invasive surgery because small wounds would be generated by needles

the theories and methods in surgical quantitative appraisal could be utilized.For instance

scales could be designed to evaluate the operation modes in acupuncture skills and precise instruments could be used in the measurement of acupuncture skills.Then standard databases on common acupuncture manipulations would be built.Moreover

in terms of the characteristics of acupuncture skills

high-fidelity simulators should be designed or standardized patients should be trained for the assessment of "Deqi"(arrival of qi)feelings.Thereby

an appropriate standardization evaluation system for acupuncture skills would be created gradually.