On January 5, the Ministry of Education issued a notice to formulate and release the "Guidelines for Guiding Majors in Serving Health and Health Industry Talent Training", setting up five guiding majors for cultivating new medical talents for reference by relevant colleges and universities when adding new medical majors.
The five majors are: medical devices and equipment engineering, geriatric medicine and health, health and medical security, pharmaceutical economics and management, and biomedical data science.
What does the establishment of a new major mean? What changes will it bring to the training of medical talents? What are the expectations and demands of schools, teachers and students? The reporter conducted an interview on this.
What's new? "Cross-integration" is a common feature
Many experts believe that the addition of the five majors is to meet the country's major needs and serve the new development trend of health undertakings and health industry. Their common characteristics are highlighted as "cross-integration".
"The newly established majors are oriented by scientific and technological development and occupational needs, and carry out talent training through deepening the educational reform of the cross-integration of medical engineering, medical science, and medical arts. The practical significance of serving people's health is very clear." Le Jiang, deputy director of the School of Basic Medicine of Wuhan University, said, "The market size of my country's general health industry is huge, and the industry is iterating and upgrading rapidly. Today, with an aging population and personalized medical service needs, society urgently needs to cultivate more complex medicine. Talent. Medical device and equipment engineering and biomedical data science are strategic emerging majors that are urgently needed by the country. There is currently a shortage of professional talents; as the number of patients with chronic diseases and degenerative diseases continues to expand, the demand for comprehensive talents in geriatric medicine and health, health and medical security, pharmaceutical economics and management will also continue to increase. The new majors are closely aligned with the development of the industry and scientifically determine the development needs of the industry. "
Zhao Shikui, a professor at the School of Public Administration at Beihang University, believes that the five newly established majors "comply with the new development trend of informatization, digitization, and intelligence in the health cause and health industry, and promote the deep integration and organic connection of the education chain with the talent chain, industry chain, and innovation chain." It not only clarifies the training goals in knowledge, theory, technology, ability, etc., but also clarifies the specific industry fields for talent training.
From the perspective of curriculum, the five newly established majors all belong to "cross-integration": the medical device and equipment engineering major belongs to the intersection of medicine and engineering, the biomedical data science belongs to the intersection of medical science and science, and the geriatric medicine and health, health and medical security, and pharmaceutical economics and management belong to the intersection of medical science and liberal arts. "The new majors fully reflect the strategic direction of facing the world's technological frontiers, facing the main economic battlefield, facing the country's major needs, and facing people's lives and health. The career development prospects are worth looking forward to," Le Jiang said.
How to proceed? Avoid “plattering” of professional training
Having been engaged in geriatric medicine for many years, Liu Meilin, chief physician of the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Peking University First Hospital, is very concerned about the cultivation of geriatric medicine talents.
"Because common diseases such as cardiovascular disease, tumors, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, and geriatric syndromes in the elderly are multi-layered, multiple drugs are used in combination, and contradictions in diagnosis and treatment are prominent. Therefore, we must pay attention to the construction of new systems such as preventive health care, medical services, health management, integrated medical and nursing care, rehabilitation nursing, and long-term care, and pay attention to the cultivation of cross-functional talents. "Liu Meilin is full of expectations for the new geriatric medicine and health major, "Geriatric medicine and health is the science of studying the health of the elderly, involving the physiology, psychology, medical support, social security and maintenance of the elderly. The design of the curriculum is very important. It is recommended to fully consider the needs of the elderly and cultivate truly applicable geriatric medicine professionals for the society. "
Sun Zhipeng, a graduate of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, found that the main curriculum design of these new majors is very different from the traditional Chinese medicine internal medicine major he studied: "Many new majors also incorporate engineering, science and management, and the content is broader than those related to pure medical majors."
Experts mentioned that in recent years, the medical major in my country's universities has undergone a series of adjustments. As of 2022, a new round of revision of the professional catalog of medical disciplines has been completed. Initially, it included six first-level disciplines: basic medicine, clinical medicine, public health and preventive medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine, and pharmacy. Later, five first-level disciplines were added: stomatology, traditional Chinese medicine, special medicine, medical technology, and nursing.
"The establishment of introductory majors this time expands the space for dynamic adjustment of disciplines and majors, and is a major innovation in the management of the catalog of disciplines and majors." Zhao Shikui introduced.
Regarding how to implement the new majors and what matters need to be paid attention to, Zhao Shikui said that the subject majors and training models of universities are the product of long-term accumulation and have strong historical inertia. Dynamic adjustments are bound to be constrained by the local interests and traditional concepts of universities, departments, and teachers.
"In terms of main disciplines, medical device and equipment engineering majors include basic medicine, clinical medicine, medical physics, biology, and engineering; geriatric medicine and health include clinical medicine, pharmacy, psychology, and materials science… These five guiding majors all include more than three main disciplines, and there are many 'large-span' crossovers. It is necessary to break the traditional single discipline and single college (study). The boundaries of talent training for departments and departments also need to be profoundly adjusted in terms of enrollment, evaluation, teaching staff, etc. "Zhao Shikui said, "How to guide different groups to properly handle the relationship between overall interests and local interests, long-term interests and short-term interests, to ensure that talent training is in-depth and practical, and to avoid the 'patchwork' of professional training, is the challenge that guided professional development will face." (Reporter) Chen Peng)
