Asking -- A Tradition Chinese Medicine(TCM) practitioner wants to know about every symptom you feel. Sometimes this is a difficult task for patients who are used to seeing allopathic practitioners that do not require or ask for the same information. There is no such thing as an insignificant symptom or problem in TCM. Your TCM practitioner may ask you whether you have a tendency to feel hot or cold, whether you tend to have a certain taste in your mouth, about the quality of your sleep and digestion, about the quality of your stools and urine, whether you have a tendency toward a certain emotional state (e.g. sadness, depression, anxiety), whether you have any pain or swelling. Remember that TCM and allopathic medicine have different ideas about what is normal. In allopathic medicine, it is considered within normal limits for a woman to have strong menstrual cramps for two days during her period. In TCM, this is a significant symptom that offers the practitioner important information.
Looking -- A TCM practitioner can tell many things about a person simply by looking. A TCM practitioners looks at:

Mental Energy (Shen) -- by noting complexion, eyes, state of mind, breathing

Body -- including general body shape (that which we're born with), long-term constitutional changes (weight and shape, e.g. heavy or thin? barrel chest?), and short term changes (e.g. skin tone changes or muscle weakness)

Demeanor -- general bodily movement and movement of body parts

Hair, Face Color, Eyes, Nose, Ears, Mouth and Lips, Teeth and Gums, Limbs, Skin -- The surface of the body offers information about inner health. For instance, red eyes, dry lips, or thinning hair, all provide information. Numerous books have been written on such practices as hand diagnosis and ear diagnosis in TCM; extensive information about a patient's health history and current health can be gathered simply by examining the hands or ears. While ethnic and racial diversity means that people will have different characteristics and features, the TCM practitioner looks for what transcends the range of normal. For obvious reasons, it is best to avoid makeup when visiting a TCM practitioner.

Tongue -- An extremely important aspect of TCM diagnosis, tongue observation offers the TCM practitioner vital information. The TCM practitioner observes the color, shape, and coating of the tongue in order to learn about the patient's overall condition as well as information about digestion, circulation, general energy and more. It is best to avoid consuming anything other than water one half-an-hour before your visit with a TCM practitioner.

Nails -- Another very important tool for TCM practitioners, nail observation offers important information regarding general health condition, emotion, circulation, etc. The practitioner observes the color of the skin behind the nails, sheen, texture, quality, and the moons. If you wear nail polish, it is best to remove it before your visit.
Hearing and Smelling -- The quality of the patient's voice and breathing may offer the TCM practitioner clues. Likewise, body smells, such as breath smells, also provide information. It is best to refrain from using perfumes or colognes when visiting a TCM practitioner.
Pulse -- Perhaps the most difficult method of diagnosis in TCM, pulse diagnosis provides the practitioner with key information. Whereas, in allopathic medicine the pulse may be taken to identify its rate and whether it is weak or strong, in TCM, there are 28 different qualities that may describe a pulse. Also the pulse is taken at three different positions in both wrists and at three different levels (superficial, middle, and deep). The right side offers different information from the left and the six different positions and three different levels correspond to various areas of the body. Pulse diagnosis is an extremely intricate method of diagnosis. It is said that pulse diagnosis takes about ten years to learn.
Methods of diagnosis must be used together in order to create a whole picture of a person's health condition. As mentioned before, this idea of a health condition is very specific to TCM. In allopathic medicine, we think mainly about symptoms and diseases. For instance, an ulcer is a disease that causes the symptom of burning pain. In TCM, we must discover what the underlying condition is that causes the ulcer in the first place. If we treat the underlying condition, not only will the ulcer heal, but we will prevent the likelihood of an additional ulcer or other problems relating to the underlying condition occurring in the future. Let us consider another example. In allopathic medicine, a malignant tumor is the disease that needs to be treated. In TCM, tumors are just a symptom, thus if you remove or destroy the tumor through surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, you have not treated the underlying condition that caused the cancer in the first place. If the underlying condition is treated successfully, not only will the current symptoms resolve, but the chance of recurrence or metastases will be dramatically reduced.