Collaborating for Global Health
A group of doctors and educators from the city of Chengdu in the Sichuan Province of China visited Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., on Thursday, July 14, 2011. The visitors represent the Second Affiliated Chengdu Clinical College of Chongqing Medical University.
The group met with WesternU, College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) and College of Veterinary Medicine administrators and faculty, and took a tour of campus.
Xiaolei Wang, MD, Professor and Vice President of Chongqing Medical University, said WesternU has a very good training program for medical students, and she will bring home new ideas about medical education. Her visit convinced her that China needs many more family medicine doctors, she said.
“This can solve many of the health problems in China and help cover more regions,” she said.
“I hope that the two universities can exchange more ideas and cooperate to address the global health problem.”
The visit was arranged by COMP alumnus David Ninan, DO ’99, and his colleague, Dr. Alfred Ma, CEO of Mansfield International Corp.
Also in attendance was WesternU Senior Vice President Thomas Fox, PhD; COMP Senior Executive Associate Dean Gregory McQueen, PhD; College of Veterinary Medicine Professor Malika Kachani, DVM, PhD; Director of Interprofessional Education Susan Mackintosh, DO, MPH; COMP Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Department Chair and Division Chief of Infectious Disease Andrew Pumerantz, DO, FACP; and second-year COMP student Edward Lin.
About half of China’s population sees a traditional Chinese medical doctor, which encompasses manipulative medicine, and half of the population sees a more “traditional-western” medical doctor.
“They are looking at medicine as a whole body, just like osteopathic medicine,” Ma said. “I feel that osteopathic medicine has a place in China.”
Pumerantz will be giving a talk in Beijing at the World Congress of Microbes on July 31, and will travel again to China in November for another international collaboration. WesternU is building bridges with universities in the U.S. and abroad, and these collaborations create synergy and benefit patient care, he said.
“This is an opportunity for people from WesternU to go there on a global stage and share the work being done here,” he said.
