Basic Medicine
The School of Basic Medical Sciences at Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) offers nine programmes for bioscience, morphology, pathogenic biology and immunology, physical functions, and forensic medicine. It has strong achievements in the following areas: hypoxia medicine, acute lung injury, and cardiovascular disease control; pathogenesis of tumour-related viruses, arthropod-borne viruses and parasitic infections; neurodegenerative diseases, nerve injury and regenerative repair; stem cell and regenerative treatment; and immunotherapy and target therapy for tumours, among others. These programmes are supported by established research centres on a variety of domains, including hypoxia medicine, pathogenic biology and immunology, neurobiology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and oncology.
In the last five years, the school has received research funding amounting to RMB 19.82 million ($2.91 million), leading to more than 230 publications, including in Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, and Biomaterials. A study on three-dimensional visualization of perforator flaps by WMU professor, Tang Maolin, has significantly improved flap design in plastic and reconstructive surgery, having benefited more than 10,000 patients. It won Tang a Shanghai Science & Technology Progress Award, and a provincial science and technology progress award.
The school, which has 139 faculty and staff, started recruiting graduate students in 1978 and now also offers doctoral degrees in basic medicine. It hosts an enormous Science Museum of the Human Body, the largest of its kind among Chinese universities, and is the science education base of the province.
Gong Yongsheng, Dean, WMU School of Basic Medical SciencesCredit: WMU
“Basic medical science is the bedrock of clinical medicine and is the premise for medical development. We hope more talented people can join us to advance basic medicine.”
Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences
WMU School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences started as Department of Laboratory Medicine in 1986. Focusing on medical technology and biology, its research programmes cover clinical laboratory diagnostics, nucleic acid molecular diagnostics and cell biology, all rated as provincial key disciplines. Its medical technology discipline has a strong reputation nationally.
Aiming to develop technologies for early and rapid diagnosis, the school’s 131 faculty and staff are committed to research on biochemistry and molecular diagnostic markers, early genetic diagnosis for critical illnesses, pathogenic organism testing, and immunology of key antigen molecules. In the last decade, the school’s researchers, including experts recruited via the national One Thousand Talents plan, have led eight national key projects, including Project 973, 102 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and 132 ministerial or provincial projects. Research results have led to 10 ministerial or provincial awards, 25 national invention patents and more than 300 papers published in journals listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI).
Research capacities of the school are also demonstrated in its Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine, provincial key laboratories on medical genetics and model biotechnology and application, along with other ministerial and provincial talent training and research innovation platforms.
Ding Chunming, Dean, WMU School of Laboratory Medicine and Life SciencesCredit: WMU
“Our research and teaching programmes bridge life science discoveries and clinical needs. With precision diagnosis, we help promote population health.”
Psychiatry and Mental Health
Co-founded in 2016 by WMU and Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Group — China’s largest private hospital group specialized in psychiatry and mental health, the School of Psychiatry sets a novel model of government-school-enterprise partnership for higher education management.
The school consists of the Department of Psychiatry, the Department of Psychology, a research and treatment centre for depression, a child mental health research institute, and a centre for art psychotherapy. With two bachelor’s programmes respectively in psychiatry and applied psychology, and an integrated programme in clinical medicine (psychiatry), the school recruits 160-plus students annually.
Offering the national key clinical specialty of psychiatry, and as a national training base for residents in psychiatry, the school supports more than 40 hospitals. It has also improved its global reputation by partnering with multiple universities and academic institutions, such as Canada’s University of Alberta, Australia’s University of Melbourne, and the United States’ Chatham University, for student exchange and teaching, research, or clinical collaboration.
Nursing
WMU School of Nursing was established in 2001, which offers both bachelor’s and master’s programmes. Integrating clinical practices, teaching, research and health management, the school is one of the most important institutes for training nurses in Zhejiang province.
The School of Nursing has a nursing experimental teaching centre, spanning 3,350 square metres. Designated as the nursing demonstration centre in Zhejiang province, the centre can provide advanced teaching facilities and a complete experimental teaching system to more than 3,000 students and teachers.
Following the mission of ‘laying a solid foundation, enhancing nursing skills, focusing on humanitarian aims and seeking innovations’, the school’s 72 professional teachers offer quality educational programmes to 2,056 students. Their goal is to cultivate caring nursing professionals, and they have produced more than 20,000 nurses. Its bachelor’s graduates all passed the national nursing licensing examination and their employment rate is over 97%.
The school has also provided volunteer services, such as teaching first-aid courses in the country for about 13 years. It is China’s fifth internationally certified training school for enterostomal therapists and a provincial training base for nurses.
Credit: ANDREW BROOKES/GETTY IMAGES
Public Health & Management
The School of Public Health & Management was established in 2016 by merging the School of Environment and Public Health and the School of Humanistic Management. The school features interdisciplinary programmes of preventive medicine and management, offering Master’s of Medical Science (preventive medicine), Master’s of Public Health (MPH) and Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) programmes.
The school, with 67 full-time teachers, houses departments of preventive medicine, environmental science, management, and law, along with Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Watershed Science and Health, an institute of environment and health risks, and a water science institute. Its preventive medicine is rated as an emerging specialty subject in Zhejiang, while the ecology, epidemiology and health statistics subjects are provincial key disciplines.
Providing social services is integral to the school’s remit. The Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Watershed Science and Health provides technical support to small and mid-sized enterprises and assists local governments with flood control and water clean-up work. Faculty of the preventive medicine department have offered training on research design and statistics to medical staff and researchers at affiliated hospitals or local centre for disease prevention and control. The management department has collaborated with government agencies, planning and evaluating research projects.
Oral Medicine
In 2002, School & Hospital of Stomatology was established, attaining an individual school and affiliated hospital status of WMC. Now, the School of Stomatology has formed a multiple-level and high-standard education system, ranging from undergraduate to master’s programme, full-time education to continuing education and domestic student education to international student education. The Hospital of Stomatology is the first provincial-level public specialized hospital as well as the largest-scale dental hospital in South Zhejiang, which undertakes oral and maxillofacial treatment, dental prevention, health care and education. It has more than 480 faculty. The Hospital of Stomatology has 6 annexes, 120 dental units and 50 hospital beds. The annual outpatient number increases each year, and in 2017 surpassed 340,000.
The School & Hospital of Stomatology takes charity to heart, conducting the Smile Programme Cleft Lip and Palate (CLP) Charity Medical Assistance Activity to provide free treatment for children with CLP from poor families, since 2009. The School & Hospital of Stomatology embraces internationalization and has established long-lasting partnerships with education and research institutions including Loma Linda University School of Dentistry, University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry and the University of Queensland.