Author:Wu Xia
Translated by: Zhu Tong, Wu Xia
The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 has aroused a series of medical difficulties. For example, which group of COVID-19 infected patients will finally develop bacterial pneumonia? How to identify patients with bacterial pneumonia? And how many patients will suffer from myocarditis, heart failure or arrhythmia caused by the coronavirus. To deal with such problems, on April 8th, experts from Wuhan University initiated a video conference to share the experience of treatment in COVID-19 patients with scholars from the University of Chicago, which is at the pandemic epicenter now.
American attendees in the online meeting are Prof. Renslow Sherer and Dr. Jon Lio, physican, from the University of Chicago, as well as nearly 40 doctors from Infectious Disease, Emergency and Critical Care departments. The representative leaders from Wuhan University are Prof. Tang Qizhu who is the vice president of WHU and Prof. Yu Xiangting who is the executive vice dean of the School of Medicine of WHU. During the meeting, many experts from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University shared experience and exchanged ideas over the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of COVID-19. They are Prof. Peng Zhiyong, chief physician, director of the Department of Critical Care Medicine, Prof. Wan Jing, chief physician, director of the Department of Cardiology, Dr. Liang Ke, associate professor, deputy director of the Department of Infectious Disease, Dr. Liu Bing, associate chief physician of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, and Associate Professor Fan Jingyi, chief physician, head of International Exchange Office.
Professor Tang Qizhu expressed his gratitude to the University of Chicago for its care and support to WHU, as well as showing his concern and sympathy to the UC colleagues during the COVID-19 outbreak via the webinar. Apart from this, Prof. Tang also demonstrated the great work conducted by Wuhan University in many aspects such as medical care and scientific research by making full use of interdisciplinary advantages and the resources from its affiliated hospitals.
Prof. Yu Xiangting said that limited by time and space, the gathering would be suspended, while the friendly tie of the two universities cannot be cut. In the future, WHU and UC will continue to carry out exchanges of experience in fighting against COVID-19 through various channels such as video conference to win the pandemic battle with each other’s help.
UC Professor Renslow Sherer appreciated that Wuhan University has made effective work of promptly organizing experts to share the experience of dealing with the pandemic. He believed the hospitals of University of Chicago will learn from these precious experience in terms of the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. And this kind of exchange is bound to continue in the future.
It is reported that since 2008, WHU and UC have carried out the reform of medical education and teaching. From 2009, the two universities have cultivated six sessions of graduates through the five-year Sino-American experimental class. In addition, there have been more than 300 visiting activities of exchanging teachers and students, and video conferences held regularly over 80 times. The two international conferences on medical education have been jointly held. Among the graduates of the experimental class of Sino-American medical science, 82% of them furthered their education at home and abroad, and 97% of them made a one-time pass of the National Medical Licensing Examination. The graduates searching further study in China and overseas take up 75.9% of the total. Many students continue their education at famous institutions such as Yale University Medical School, Peking Union Medical College. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, UC experts have no access to visit our university for lectures and exchanges as planned. At present, the two schools has kept close communications via different means including online video, E-mail, and WeChat.
