Southwest Medical University (SWMU)is a full-time institution of higher learning in Sichuan Province. It has two campuses - Zhongshan and Chengbei, which covers more than 2000 mu. It is located in Luzhou city in Sichuan Province -- one of the Famous Chinese Historical and Cultural Cities which is at the conjunction area of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou Provinces and Chongqing Municipality.
After sixty years of development, with the growth of the People’s Republic of China and carrying forward the innovative spirits of generations of its faculty and students, SWMU is rising in reform and expanding in integration. It has developed into an important base for the personnel training and scientific recreation in Sichuan, and the health care center in the joint point of 3 provinces and 1 municipality. It has trained more than 110,000 specialized talents at different levels, most of the graduates are working in the medical and health field in Sichuan and Chongqing. They have made great contributions to the medical education and for the development of medical health care as well as the construction of the local economy.
SWMU has 4 fields disciplines for conferring Master’s degree, 7 first-class disciplines, 42 secondary disciplines, 7 units for conferring a professional degree, 1 key discipline of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and 6 provincial key disciplines. SWMU provides 26 undergraduate majors including 7 disciplines: medicine, science, management, law, engineering, literature, and education. Among which, Clinical Medicine is among the top 1% in ESI Global Ranking. SWMU has 3 superior discipline groups—Preclinical and Clinical Cardiovascular Diseases, Preclinical and Translational Medicine of Oncology, and finally Preclinical and Clinical Medicine of Integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine with Western Medicine. It forms the “Four-in-one” disciplinary characteristics in Medical Jurisprudence -- The Science of Law, Provincial Medical Jurisprudence Research Center, Journal of “Medicine and Law” and the Judicial Identification Center.
SWMU aims to cultivate high quality applied talents who are innovative and full of practical abilities by combining instructional knowledge with ability cultivation, theoretical teaching with practice, reliance on the advantages of both Chinese and western medicine, and exploring the method of training innovative talents. In 1998, SWMU passed the Evaluation of the Undergraduate Education by the Ministry of Education and was evaluated as “Qualified”, and in 2006 passed the Evaluation again and was evaluated as “Excellent”.
SWMU began to enroll international students in 1996 and was qualified to confer degree to the international students in 2003. It began its undergraduate program in Clinical Medicine in 2004, and began the post-graduate program in 2013. At present more than 300 international students studying Clinical Medicine on campus, they come from 12 countries including the U.S.A., India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Ghana. The international students who have graduated from the university have subsequently taken the License Examination in their home countries. The passing rate is 81.9%. Up to now, SWMU has trained 23 groups of short-term international students in Traditional Chinese Medicine. These students have come from Germany, Portugal, Spain and the U.S.A.
SWMU implements the strategy of “Prospering the University with Science and Technology”, insists on the guideline of “Innovation, Creation and Development”, and aims to improve the scientific research level and technological innovation ability by building up a high-level scientific research platform and excelling in technological innovation abilities, motivated by the innovation of the scientific research management system. The ability of the faculty of participating in the national high level scientific projects has been enhanced significantly, and the number of the projects aided by the National Natural Science Fund continues to increase. Meanwhile, SWMU has broken through in the National Social Science Fund, the “Program for Supporting the New Century Excellent Talents” by the Ministry of Education. SWMU is the leading university in the “Sichuan 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Cardiovascular Disease”. The Medical electrophysiology Laboratory is the key laboratory by the Ministry of Education,the Cardiovascular Research Center is a national scientific research station for post-doctoral research,and the Science and Technology Park is the second one in Sichuan Province. In recent 5 years, five of its projects have won the First Prize of Science and Technology Progress in the Sichuan Province, three of its projects have won the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award.
SWMU has 3 Class A-Grade III affiliated hospitals. It succeeded in the broken-arm re-plantation which is the first operation in China, and the allogeneic heart transplant and conjoined twins separation, both of which are the first operations in Sichuan. It has outstanding achievements in handling public health emergencies, serious disasters, international medical aid, medical treatment for poverty relief and leading the development of the medical health service.
For 65 years, SWMU has already trained and supplied more than 110,000 senior specialized personnel in various fields. The graduates have high comprehensive quality, strong practical ability and good adaptability.
During the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan, SWMU will take the strategy of the national development and Sichuan provincial economic and social development as the orientation, actively adapt to the new trend of higher education development, vigorously implement the 13th Five-Year Plan development strategy. It is firmly insisting on "One Strategic Goal, highlighting "Three Strategic Tasks" and achieving "Five Key Breakthroughs".
