According to the official micro display of Gannan Medical University, on May 1, Gannan Medical University held a seminar on the high-quality development of Gannan medicine and the unveiling ceremony of Gannan Medical University on the golden campus, Zhan Qimin, Chen Fen'er, Wu Tangchun, Xie Mingyong, Zhang Xu and other 5 academicians, leaders of various ministries and commissions of Jiangxi Province and colleges and universities attended the meeting, Sun Hongshan, member of the party group of Jiangxi Provincial People's Government and vice governor, and Zhan Qimin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, unveiled the "Gannan Medical University".
Source: Gannan Medical University's official WeChat
Sun Hongshan pointed out that Gannan Medical University has a long history of running a school and distinctive professional characteristics, and has an important position in the layout of higher education in the province. It is hoped that the university will take the renaming of the university as a new opportunity to accelerate the construction of a high-level applied medical university with more characteristics, connotation, influence and motivation.
It is reported that in the future, Gannan Medical University will move towards the higher goal of applying for a doctorate-granting unit and building a high-level "double first-class" university in Jiangxi Province.
According to the information on the school's official website, Gannan Medical University is located in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, a famous old revolutionary area, and is a full-time ordinary higher medical undergraduate college organized by the Jiangxi Provincial People's Government, and is also a veteran medical school, formerly known as Jiangxi Provincial Ganxian Senior Midwifery Vocational School, which was founded in 1941, and was set up as a junior college in 1958 Gannan Medical College, which was upgraded to an undergraduate college in 1988 and renamed Gannan Medical College, and was renamed Gannan Medical University with the approval of the Ministry of Education in November 2023.
Screenshot source: Gannan Medical University official website
The university has now developed into a "double first-class" construction university in Jiangxi Province, which focuses on the three major disciplines of medicine, science and engineering, cross-disciplinary integration, and has outstanding school-running characteristics and advantages. In 2013, it was approved as a master's degree awarding unit, and since 2019, it has jointly cultivated doctoral students with Soochow University and China Medical University, and in 2021, it was approved as a key construction unit for the new doctoral degree awarding right in Jiangxi Province during the "14th Five-Year Plan".
As of December 2023, the university covers a total area of 2,102.06 acres, with 2 campuses in Gold and Zhanggong, 3 directly affiliated hospitals and 8 non-directly affiliated hospitals, 15,926 full-time students, 936 full-time teachers, 4 first-level disciplines authorized for master's degrees, 6 authorized master's professional degree authorization points, and the discipline of clinical medicine has entered the top 1% of ESI global rankings.
The road to greater "big" is not all smooth sailing
From medical school to medical university, Gannan Medical College has been on the road of changing its name for many years.
In February 2020, the Ganzhou Provincial Sub-central City Construction Leading Group issued the "Ganzhou Provincial Sub-central City Construction Major Landmark Project Plan", which proposed to strive for Gannan Medical College to be renamed Gannan Medical University.
In September of the same year, Gannan Medical College held a mobilization meeting for the inspection work of the renamed university. During the same period, the Ministry of Education mentioned in its reply to Recommendation No. 1192 of the Third Session of the 13th National People's Congress that in the process of preparing the planning for the establishment of colleges and universities in Jiangxi Province, the Ministry of Education paid close attention to the issue of changing the name of Gannan Medical College to Gannan Medical University, and after expert review, it has been included in the "13th Five-Year Plan" for the establishment of colleges and universities in Jiangxi Province.
However, the Ministry of Education also pointed out at that time that there is still a gap between the current Gannan Medical College in terms of the proportion of graduate students, the number of master's graduates, the student-teacher ratio, the administrative space for teaching and scientific research, the value of scientific research instruments and equipment, and the national scientific and technological achievement award, and it does not yet have the conditions for changing its name to "university". When the conditions are ripe, it will be studied in accordance with the setting criteria and approval procedures.
It is understood that the Ministry of Education issued the "Interim Regulations on the Establishment of Ordinary Undergraduate Schools" in 2006, which put forward different standards for the establishment of "colleges" and "universities". For example, in terms of the scale of running a school, it is stipulated that the number of full-time students should be more than 5,000 for those called colleges; The number of full-time students should be more than 8,000, and the number of graduate students should not be less than 5% of the total number of full-time students.
In terms of teaching and scientific research level, it is stipulated that a university should have at least two or more projects that have won the first and second prizes at the national level or the first prize at the provincial level in the past two teaching achievement selections. In addition, four criteria should be met, including generally having at least 10 master's programs and having more than 5 master's graduates.
The Ministry of Education's "Opinions on the Establishment of Colleges and Universities during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period" (Jiao Fa [2021] No. 10) also emphasizes that "avoid greed and blind expansion, strictly grasp the conditions for colleges to change their names to universities, and strictly control the renaming of universities at the same level".
In October 2020, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education publicized the renaming of Gannan Medical College to Gannan Medical University and declared it to the Ministry of Education.
However, Gannan Medical College was not discouraged, and the name change was also supported by the government and other relevant departments. In November 2021, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council issued a notice that Gannan Medical College added a new master's degree authorization point for the first-level discipline of biomedical engineering, and two new master's degree authorization points for applied psychology, biology and medicine.
In April 2022, the website of the National Development and Reform Commission released the "Plan for the Construction of High-quality Development Demonstration Zone in Ganzhou Revolutionary Base Area", which mentioned that it would support the renaming of Gannan Medical College and support Gannan Normal University and Gannan Medical College to apply for doctoral degree-granting units.
In January 2023, the Jiangxi Provincial People's Government issued the "Notice on the Planning for the Establishment of Colleges and Universities during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period", taking the renaming of Gannan Medical College to Gannan Medical University as one of the planning goals; After the preliminary publicity, in December last year, the Ministry of Education sent the "Letter of the Ministry of Education on Agreeing to the Renaming of Gannan Medical College to Gannan Medical University" to the Jiangxi Provincial People's Government, agreeing that Gannan Medical College was renamed Gannan Medical University. According to the letter, Gannan Medical University is a public undergraduate level of ordinary institutions of higher learning, and the number of full-time students in the school is tentatively set at 16,000.
"It doesn't matter what the name is"
In addition to changing the name, it is also necessary to practice internal skills
In addition to Gannan Medical College, it is understood that in the past ten years, medical schools in many provinces and cities have been renamed or are promoting renaming.
For example, in April 2013, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, Guangzhou Medical College and Wenzhou Medical College were renamed Guangzhou Medical University and Wenzhou Medical University respectively. In 2015 and 2016, no less than five "new" medical universities were born, including Southwest Medical University, Guizhou Medical University, Jinzhou Medical University, Xuzhou Medical University and Guangdong Medical University.
In December 2018, with the issuance of a notice from Guizhou Province, the establishment of Zunyi Medical College was officially revoked, and Zunyi Medical University opened the road to university with a new look. The following year, Taishan Medical College and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences were integrated into Shandong First Medical University...... Last year, four medical colleges, Bengbu Medical College, Gannan Medical College, Weifang Medical College, and Hebei College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, were successfully renamed as "universities".
According to the "List of National Ordinary Colleges and Universities" released by the Ministry of Education, the People's Daily health client reporter found that there are 30 "medical schools", 26 "medical universities" and 25 "medical universities" in the list.
In addition to those that have been successfully renamed, there are still many medical schools that are struggling to move forward on the road of renaming, such as Xinxiang Medical College, Mudanjiang Medical College, Hainan Medical College, Guilin Medical College, Wannan Medical College, Shenyang Medical College, Chengde Medical College, Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities, etc.
The renaming of the medical school to the university has become a trend in China for many years. Why are many medical schools keen to change their names? What exactly does changing the name of a medical school to a medical university bring?
Not long ago, Nie Wei, director of the Hospital Management Institute of Zhengzhou University and former president of the Henan Academy of Medical Sciences, mentioned in an interview with the People's Daily health client, "After the 'college' is renamed 'university', the school will receive more academic support in terms of enrollment, government projects, courses, and faculty construction." ”
Taking Bengbu Medical University, which completed its name change at the end of last year, as an example, it is reported that after the name change, the school's attractiveness to students is stronger, and the number of applicants for the school's preliminary postgraduate examination in 2024 will be 4,207, an increase of 457 from the previous year, of which about half are candidates from outside the province.
For another example, since the original Luzhou Medical College was renamed Southwest Medical University, it has developed rapidly, not only has the score line risen in many provinces, but also successfully obtained the right to confer doctoral degrees in 2021 and was selected as a key university in Sichuan Province. One year after Taishan Medical College was upgraded to Shandong First Medical University, the university has launched 55 new national projects in scientific and technological innovation, with a funding of 41.235 million yuan, and the clinical medicine discipline ranks 12th among independent medical colleges in China and first among universities in Shandong Province.
These success stories have also strengthened the determination of some medical schools to change their names to universities. In fact, regardless of the reason for applying for a "bigger" or upgraded medical school, you cannot simply assume that "medical university" is better than "medical school" based on its name.
"It doesn't matter what the name is, what we should pay attention to is the construction of the connotation of colleges and universities, and the education department should also support the development of characteristic medical schools." According to the People's Daily health client, Nie Wei believes that there should be no congenital differences between the two, and they should be treated equally, and colleges and universities should reasonably allocate resources according to the strength of running schools, the level of discipline construction and the expertise of junior colleges.
Some people in the industry believe that the name change of universities is not as simple as changing the brand, and to achieve a qualitative leap from the outside to the inside, colleges and universities need to focus on high-quality and connotative development, so as to stand proudly in the fierce competition. In addition to striving to change their names, Chinese medical colleges and universities need to work hard to cultivate outstanding medical talents, so that the homogeneous training of Chinese doctors will become a truth.
Source: See the comprehensive public report editor of the medical community