China visit shares medical good practice

China visit shares information on medical good practice

University of Wolverhampton Reader, Dr Ruoling Chen, visited three medical universities in China recently to share information on medical research and teaching practice – and the visit went a long way towards cementing a relationship between the two countries' universities.

As a principal investigator, Dr Chen has led and conducted a number of national and international research projects in public health, including a large cohort study of older people’s health in China supported by UK grants. In his role he leads a research group of post-doctoral and senior researchers to work on important topics in epidemiology and global health, such as dementia risk factors and care.

During his visit, he met with presidents, vice-presidents and other relevant staff at the Schools of Public Health at Guangzhou Medical University, Guangdong Medical University and Anhui Medical University to discuss partnership working and research collaborations.

Dr Chen said:  “During my visit I gave a number of seminars about the University of Wolverhampton’s teaching strengths and major research areas as well as giving an overview of studying in the UK.  Chinese students are already choosing to come to Wolverhampton to study for Bachelor of Science degrees and Masters programmes and we are working on an exciting exchange programme whereby some of our students may benefit from visiting the medical universities in China.‌

“I also explored opportunities for a unique collaboration between Wolverhampton and Chinese medical universities for research into health and end of life care in older people – an issue which is currently very topical in the UK with an ageing population and a health and social care system which needs radical improvement. It was a really exciting time to visit - both our economies are experiencing growth and we are both faced with associated skills challenges which can be addressed through collaboration and partnership approaches to teaching and learning.”

During his visit,  Professor Jia-ji Wang, President of the Guangdong Province Family Doctor Association and Co-Chairman of the Chinese Society of General Practice in the Chinese Medical Association, invited Dr Chen to speak at the International Conference of General Practice and Family Medicine held in Guangdong. As a keynote speaker, Dr Chen lectured on GP education and training, the NHS system and patients’ benefit research in the UK.

Professor Wang, who is also Dean of School of Public Health at Guangzhou Medical University, said: “We were really pleased to welcome Dr Chen to China.  Our primary care staff can learn a lot from current UK practice and experience especially considering the patient’s first consultation for illness, if not life threatening, are the doctors who are working in the community on the front line.

“As our GP’s system is currently still being established in some places at the moment, we need to consider how we build our electronic datasets for future population-based health research, which could follow the UK General Practice Research Database(GPRD) and the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD).  Dr Chen’s visit to the Chinese medical universities will increase our collaborations in the future for partnership working, including promoting students and staff exchanges and health research programmes.”

Picture Caption: Dr Chen speaking at conference and at one of the universities he visited.

ENDS

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Date Issued: 22^nd December 2015