Brief History

Collaboration between the University of Chicago and Wuhan University began in 2003, when they partnered with Hubei Province and Project HOPE on an HIV care initiative which trained over 10,000 health workers and reduced HIV mortality from 49% to 8%. Between 2003 and 2008, physicians from the Section of Infectious Diseases at the University of Chicago visited Wuhan and rural Hubei Province to provide lectures, bedside teaching, and assistance to the provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention for the prevention of HIV and TB. Chinese physicians also visited the University of Chicago campus to spend time in the laboratories, HIV clinic, and medical wards.  

At the end of this HIV care initiative, Wuhan University invited the University of Chicago to provide assistance for medical education reform. Built upon the relationship established through HIV care, officials of both institutions executed a Letter of Agreement to Collaborate for medical education and research. The Wuhan University Medical Education Reform (WUMER) Project, led by Renslow Sherer from the Section of Infectious Diseases at the University of Chicago, began to work with Wuhan in 2008 to restructure its medical curricula based on the Pritzker School of Medicine. The scope of the WUMER Project included the following objectives:

1. Provide technical assistance to Wuhan University for reform in medical school education methods, curricula, and evaluation. 

2. Support faculty, resident, student, and fellowship exchanges to achieve medical education reform.

3. Provide technical assistance for state-of-the-art public health control, prevention, and treatment practices for infectious diseases, in partnership with the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

A pilot of 50 medical students began in 2009 and graduated in 2014.

Contributing Faculty