Shanghai medical school deepens collaboration with French universities

China and France are enhancing their academic communications and international medical collaboration, and a local medical school reached agreement with two French universities to expand student exchanges during a recent Sino-France education development forum in Paris.

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine signed separate agreements with Université Paris Cité and Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 to enhance the scale of cooperation by adding staff numbers and extending the exchange periods.

The Shanghai medical school will add basic courses, expand mid- and long-term clinical internships, and accept more long-term scientific research students, hoping to at least double the number of French medical students in the coming three years, according to Jiang Fan, a school official.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University started cooperation and exchanges with France in the early 20th century. The Sino-France medical exchange started at the Aurora University School of Medicine, a predecessor of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and many of China's leading experts such as Dr Wang Zhenyi, the father of the induction and differentiation of leukemia cells, are graduates of the school.

The school set up Guangci Hospital (the current Ruijin Hospital), which is also China's first affiliated hospital to feature French teaching.

The school opened its first medical class with French teaching in 1964, when China and France established diplomatic relations. Thus far, the class has graduated nearly 1,000 excellent students.

In 2018, the school teamed up with five top medical schools in France to set up the Sino-French Joint Medical College. By 2023, the school had sent 333 Chinese medical students to France to study and France sends 30 student to Shanghai for summer training annually.

The two sides also work together to study medical issues and carry out joint research.