English (Medical English) Undergraduate Program

　　I. About us

　　Quick facts

　　The English (Medical English) Undergraduate Program started in 2002 as a five-year Bachelor of Arts degree program (initially named Biomedical English). In the past 14 years, the program has graduated 475 students. Currently, it has more than 201 students on campus.

　　Students of the program have demonstrated mastery of English proficiency. In recent years, they have performed well in the Tests for English Majors (both Level 4 and Level 8), with triumphant passing rates of almost nearly 100% and above 94%, respectively.

　　Our Aims

　　The program aims to promote the deep convergence of the teaching and learning of languages, humanities, and healthcare. Recently, it has updated its curriculum in line with the advocacy of “integrating humanities and social sciences with the emerging field in sciences, medicine and engineering” proposed by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2018 in its "New Liberal Arts" discipline development program and in response to the new developments of the society and the world in the new epoch.

　　Our Positioning

　　The positioning of the program is to cultivate interdisciplinary talents with an international horizon that could

　　understand the culture,language and technologyof medicine and healthcare;

　　master excellent communication skills in English; 

　　serve the health diplomacy strategies of China;

　　promote cross-cultural healthcare communication;and

　　pursue further study in such areas as health humanities, the languageof medicine and healthcare, and global health.

　　Such positioning, rooted in “Healthcare”, “English” and “Humanities”, could foster top-notch, innovative, interdisciplinary talents that could meet the international health development strategies of China and the needs of society.

　　II. Our uniqueness

　　1. Multi-disciplinary and personalized education

　　(1) Customized courses on healthcare systems

　　To serve the health diplomacy strategy of the country, talents must be knowledgeable in medicine and public health. They need to understand the healthcare systems of China as well as other countries. Supported by our collaborator, the PKU China Center for Health Development Studies, instructors from the center would offer the following customized English-instructed courses:

　　COMPULSORY COURSES:

　　Introduction to Health and Public Health, and Research Methods in Health Studies .

　　ELECTIVE COURSES:

　　Hospital Management, Global Health, Health Policy, Health Statistics, and International Health Communication and Exchange and so on .

　　(2) Wide-scoped yet focused medical courses

　　The program would expect a more focused course in the core medicine courses, such as Anatomy, Embryology, Physiology, Biochemistry , and Pathology in basic medicine, as well as Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics in clinical medicine. To enrich students’ medical knowledge and allow for a macro-perspective, comprehensive understanding of medicine, the program plans to set up a series of introductory courses such as Introduction to Basic Medicine , Introduction to Clinical Medicine , and Introduction to Pharmac eutical Sciences .

　　(3) Stratified English language skill courses

　　As international communication competence requires mastery of English, the language skill courses would be constantly strengthened in the program. The English skills training of the program is characterized by: 1) The teaching of language skills is stratified. The students’ skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing would be evaluated and corresponding courses would be assigned according to their performance in evaluations.  2) The program would strengthen the construction of content-based language teaching courses related to medicine and healthcare. These courses include Vocabulary in Medicine, Medical and Healthcare Literature reading, Medical and Health Paper Writing, Medical and Healthcare Translation, and Cultures in the Health Systems .

　　2.“Problem-oriented” and “learning-oriented” medical humanities education

　　With the advantage of the multidisciplinarity at the School of Health Humanities, the program tries to break the silos of disciplines and promote the construction of a “problem-oriented” and “learning-oriented”medical humanities curriculum. To that end, it has required more credits for electives and offered many electives in medical humanities.

　　We also hope to lay a solid foundation for the cultivation of international and interdisciplinary talents through enhanced penetration of English instruction. Currently, most of the medical humanities courses are taught in English, in the future, we expect all medical humanities courses to be taught in English.

　　3.Engaging students in research

　　Having outstanding research capability is an important goal for the cultivation of students in leading universities. The program has carried out systematic research training for its students. First, through well-planned courses, training, and lectures, we teach students various research methods. Secondly, students can apply for funding from the University’s “Students’Research Project" every year. Under this project, students can propose their research topics and if approved, canget funding and supervision from experienced faculty of the school, or even other schools. Besides, students could join the faculty's project teams that interest them.

　　4.Innovation and practicum courses

　　The foundation of innovation lies in practice. Practicum courses, as the vehicle to train students’ innovation and social adaptability, are an important part of cultivating leading talents. We have built up a practicum course system that offers courses of different categories and requirements for different classesof the program to enhances students' hand-on skills and innovation ability, for example, the Classic Book Reading and Academic Conference Volunteer Service for the lower classesstudentsis  aimedat improving their humanistic literacy, communication skills, and awareness of serving the society; and the Medical Literature Translation and Pre-Graduation Internship for the upper classesfor comprehensive improvement of their interpersonal ability, knowledge application ability, and problem-solving ability before they join the workforce in society.

　　5.International perspectives

　　(1) International dual-degree programs

　　Currently, we are running the 4+1 dual degree programswith the University of Edinburgh, University College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. We also haveexchange programwith the University of California, Berkeley. We look forward to cooperating with more institutions in more diversified ways. Apart from these programs, we havesigneda memorandum of understanding on cooperation with La Trobe University of Australia for the “Internationalization at Home” project. Under this MoU, faculty of both sides would jointly offer an online course Health Humanities ; students from our program would attend classes and have discussions with La Trobe students via the Internet.

　　(2) English instruction

　　At present, all the language skill courses and most medical humanities courses (electives) have adopted English instruction.  With the English instruction of various courses to be taught soon by the PKU China Center for Health Development Studies, the program would create an immersive English environment for all the students.

　　III. Employmentability of graduates

　　Most of the graduates have attendedprestigious universities at home and abroad for further study or work in large foreign-funded enterprises or state-owned public institutions. A few students havechosen to start their own businesses. Taking the 36 students who graduated in 2018 as an example, 14 (38.9%) chose to study in graduate schools in China, 11 (30.1%) chose to do so abroad, and 9 (25.0%) chose to work with enterprises or public institutions. Most of the graduates would choose to study or work in medicine/health/healthcare-related areas. With expertise in English and knowledge in medicineand public health, they have been performing well with their work/studies, and have been well received by society.

　　Where did our graduates go?