Recently, the Ministry of Education officially approved WMU to carry out the reform pilot of laboratory physician training work and set up a pilot laboratory physician training program with the training mode of "clinical medicine undergraduate program + clinical laboratory diagnostics professional master’s degree program" for the training of high-level laboratory medicine talents. WMU is one of the five pilot universities approved for reform, along with China Medical University, Chongqing Medical University, Peking University, and Sichuan University.

The pilot program will start its enrollment this autumn. After completing the five-year clinical medicine undergraduate program, outstanding graduates will be exempted from the entrance examination to take the clinical laboratory diagnostics professional master’s degree program.  The undergraduate and master’s degree programs are integrated to establish the core knowledge system combining clinical medicine and laboratory medicine. The two tracks of the clinical laboratory diagnostics professional master’s training and the laboratory medicine resident standardized training are conducted in parallel to cultivate "clinicians who understand laboratory medicine" and train high-level inter-disciplinary talents of laboratory medicine.

In the face of the global outbreak of COVID-19, the clinical application of individualized precision testing projects, and the demand for epidemic prevention in public health events, there is an increasing shortage of talents with a background in clinical and laboratory medicine and a dramatically growing demand for high-level laboratory medicine talents. High-level laboratory physicians will provide a firm guarantee for the improvement of the clinical diagnosis and treatment quality, and put forward requirements for the integration of clinical medicine and laboratory medicine.  The pilot program will fully integrate the teaching of laboratory and clinical medicine, build a bridge of communication between clinical medicine and laboratory medicine, combine medical practices with theories, and equip students with professional knowledge and practical ability in both clinical and laboratory medicine, which meets the current urgent need for high-level laboratory medicine talents.

Both the clinical medicine program and the medical laboratory technology program of WMU are national construction sites of first-class undergraduate programs, with a sound and integrated talent training system for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral education. The affiliated hospitals of WMU, with strong discipline strength, are all tertiary grade A hospitals and national standardized training bases for residents. The integration of clinical laboratory diagnostics professional master’s education and the resident standardized training for laboratory physicians has witnessed four years’ graduates, all of whom are equipped with good teaching, practice, and training abilities in clinical laboratory diagnostics and work at tertiary hospitals. In the recent five years, about 65% of clinical medical students who were exempted from examinations for postgraduate studies have been admitted into first-class universities and colleges. The passing rate of clinical medical students in the examination for licensed physicians is consistently ranked top 10 in China, and the medical laboratory technology program has been among the best in China. WMU’s being one of the five pilot units is a full recognition for its quality of medical personnel training.

After 36 years of development, the laboratory medicine program at WMU has a solid professional base. In the past five years, the ranking of this program has remained top 5% in China. It is recognized as a five-star program in terms of school-running. The university provides a primary category discipline PhD program in medical technology and secondary category discipline PhD and master’s degree programs in clinical laboratory diagnostics. It has set up a post-doctoral scientific research mobile station under the primary category discipline of clinical medicine. A complete high-level talent training system covering undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral education has been established. It features two provincial or ministerial key laboratories, namely, the Key Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine of the Ministry of Education and the Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics. Among its faculty, there are 10 teachers selected in state-level talent projects, 37 in provincial projects, and 5 teaching and research teams in provincial or ministerial projects. Eight teachers have won national teaching competition awards, and 16 have won honorary titles such as Provincial Teaching Masters. The program offers 3 national courses, 14 provincial courses, 1 national experimental teaching project, and 2 provincial experimental teaching projects. The faculty has contributed to more than 50 national planning textbooks published by the People’s Medical Publishing House and the Higher Education Press as chief editors or co-editors.

Text translated by Wang Mengjia and reviewed by Sun You.