The Crux of the Insufficiency of Chinese Doctors is not “Quantity” but “Quality”
“Recently we have been expanding our enrollment, saying that the number of doctors per thousand people in China is much lower than that in other countries. In China, about 1.9 people among a thousand people are doctors, in comparison with 2.7-2.9 doctors per thousand people in the U.S. But is this insufficiency mainly due to the insufficient quantity? We must notice it is a problem about the quality.”
WANG Chen, President of CAMS & PUMC
Keynote Speech: "Innovation and Development of Chinese Medical Education"
Medical education must follow the principle of putting quality over the quantity. The aforementioned question of the quantity should be discussed on the premise that the same quality is secured. Since medicine is related to people’s lives, it is not allowed to lower the quality so as to operate medical schools or to educate doctors. It would be the most terrible thing that the education quality is sacrificed as a result.
We should think about how to get in line with international practices more scientifically and rationally. Doctor training is related to career planning. In 2014, the system of weekly training and specialty training was established. However, this system has not been completely sorted yet. Clinical medicine is highly important for patients’ lives and health, and therefore the requirement for fault tolerance is the strictest, the training content is the most varied, and the requirement for practitioners’ talents and abilities to update their knowledge and skills is the highest. Further education after graduation is a stage of lifelong learning.
