Sixty medical educators and administrators from 22 medical schools in China gathered in Harbin, China, on December 9-11, 2011 to share ideas and knowledge about the accreditation of basic medical education at the workshop jointly sponsored by the Higher Education Department of Ministry of Education and the Working Committee for the Accreditation of Medical Education (WCAME), Ministry of Education, China.
As invited by the Secretariat of the WCAMC, Prof. Laurence Geffen, former Chair of the Accreditation Committee of the Australian Medical Council (AMC), and accreditation assessor Dr. David Strong attended the workshop to provide training for the participants. Bin Gao, Deputy Director of Agricultural and Medical Education Division, Higher Education Department of Ministry of Education, China, delivereda a keynote speech on the importance of implementing medical educational reform in improving the quality of health professions. Ministry of Education planned to finish the first round of accreditation of basic medical education by 2020, and demanded that all the medical schools should pay more attention to and actively participate in it. Prof. Laurence Geffen introduced the global and regional development of the accreditation of medical education, emphasizing on the sound cooperation between the AMC and WCAME. Prof. Qing Wang from Medical Center of Fudan University, Prof. Boji Cheng the Secretary-General of the secretariat of WCAME and Prof. Shibin Zhao from Harbin Medical University also delievered speeches on the accreditation from different perspectives, which were widely endorsed.
The workshop ended with a speech of the Secretary-General Boji Cheng, stressing the significance and necessity of the accreditation of medical education and pointing out the fact that more attention and efforts should be put into it.
