West China Medical Center

The stele with the words "West China Union University" inscribed on it

In 1910, five Christian missionary groups from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States founded the private university, West China Union College (Chinese: 華西協合大學).[5] Dr. O.L. Kilborn, Dr. R.G. Kilborn, and Dr. William Reginald Morse played key roles in its formation. The university's medical school was founded in 1914 and taught basic medicine and clinical medicine, biomedicine and stomatology. Three years later the school became the first to teach dentistry in China. In 1924 women were admitted to the college as a whole. Helen Yoh was the first woman to graduate medical school.

On September 23, 1933 West China Union University was registered with the Provincial Board of Education. In 1941 the East-West Cultural Agency, a foreign exchange student program for distinguished scholars and staff members, was created with the University of Cambridge and Oxford University.

Historical campus building

In 1951 the school was renamed to West China University and then to Sichuan Medical College in 1953. In 1985 the school changed its name to West China University of Medical Sciences (WCUMS; Chinese: 华西医科大学). It merged with Sichuan University in 2000 and became the West China Medical Center of Sichuan University.

West China Medical Center of Sichuan University is situated in Chengdu, in the downtown area on the banks of Jin River. As one of the top five medical schools in China, the Center consists of five colleges:[6]

• West China College of Basic and Forensic Medicine
• West China School of Medicine
• West China College of Stomatology
• West China School of Public Health
• West China School of Pharmacy

The Center offers bachelor, masters and doctorate degrees. Of more than 3,000 students, about one half of the students are in the bachelor's program and the rest are in the advanced programs.[5]

According to China's University and College Admission System, in 2012 the Center was an A level rated school and the only Cochrane Center or "evidence based medical center" in Asia. It is one of only 15 of such centers in the world. The Implementation of the project has won a national prize from the Ministry of Education.

West China Medical Center of Sichuan University has four affiliated hospitals.

• West China Hospital is the largest hospital in China and the largest single-site hospital in the world and is consistently ranked in the top three hospitals in China.[1][8][9][4] West China Hospital has 36 clinical departments, 15 medical technology departments and 25 open laboratories. In 2011, more than 3.5 million patients visited the outpatient department, 173,000 patients were discharged from inpatient departments, and more than 93,900 operations were performed.[10] There are 4,300 beds.[5] The hospital employs 6100 permanent staff of which 550 are professors or associate professors. The hospital offers 31 programs leading to doctorate degrees, doctorate programs in clinical medicine and post-doctoral programs in clinical and basic medicines. The hospital has 1 state laboratory, 2 key laboratories of the Ministry of Education, 9 key disciplines of Ministry of Education, 2 disciplines with the national "211 Project", 5 key programs of Ministry of Health, 16 key disciplines and 25 provincial level key laboratories.[11]
• West China Women's and Children's Hospital, or West China Second Hospital, has 600 beds.[5] It was founded in 1988 on the basis of Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics and the Department of Pediatrics in the West China Hospital. West China Women's and Children's Hospital is under the immediate supervision of Ministry of Health of China. The title "Baby Friendly Hospital" was awarded by the Ministry of Health and WHO. The hospital contains China Birth Defect Monitoring Center, the Prenatal Research Center and the Emergency Center for Acute Respiratory Tract Infection in Children. It was Awarded the "Top Tertiary Hospital" in 1998.[12] West China Women's and Children's Hospital's ob/gyns and pediatrics is rated as National Key Disciplines. The staff consists of 406 members of whom 61 are professors, 78 are associate professors.[12] In 2011 the hospital served 3.5 million outpatients and emergency patients and performed 22,500 surgeries and 7600 deliveries.[12]
• West China Hospital of Stomatology was founded in 1985. It is considered the cradle of modern stomatology in China. The hospital annually serves 400,000 patients in outpatients clinics and 3000 patients in inpatients wards. The hospital has a capacity of 220 dental chairs and its staff consists of 507 staff members.[13]
• No.4 West China Teaching Hospital was founded in 1917. It is the only specialized hospital for occupational diseases among all the medical universities in China.[14]

• Xia Liangcai, a noted oral medicine educator and one of the founders.

• Wuhan University
• Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

• Official website

• West China School of Medicine / West China Hospital