Wenzhou Medical University: Sixty years of medical progresses

In the 60 years since it was established, Wenzhou Medical University (WMU), located in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, has made great advances in talent training, research capacity building and medical services.

The School of Ophthalmology and Optometry at Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) has great vision in its field. Among its breakthroughs is the first proof that scleral hypoxia — a lack of oxygen in the white of the eye — can cause myopia. Their hypothesis has led to new treatments.

Growth factors (GFs) constitute a large and versatile family of signalling proteins that govern cell growth, division and survival, and therefore have great potential as therapeutics. At Wenzhou Medical University (WMU), researchers in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences are spearheading basic GF research, and the development of novel biological drugs.

Severe acute pancreatitis can be lethal and has grave potential to cause complications, harming other vital organs. At the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University (WMU), clinical faculty members have developed a comprehensive treatment system that reduces the mortality rate of this dangerous disease from 14.4% to 4.6%.

The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) is leading a digital revolution for patient access. It is among China’s first to pilot the ‘cloud hospital’ platform, which lets patients make appointments, renew prescriptions, apply for admission, among other services, all from home. Its uptake of mobile and paperless healthcare has seen it collect the highest daily settlement amount of RMB 2.1 million ($305,659) on Alipay, China’s popular online payment platform, which tops Chinese hospitals and is indicative of patient preference of such streamlined processes.

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.

Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) is a frontrunner in international collaboration. It is one of China’s first to set up joint doctoral education programmes and to offer English-language clinical medicine programmes to international students. It was one of the first in Zhejiang province to set up Confucius Institutes abroad, and ranks among Zhejiang’s top three universities for internationalization.