Research On Higher Education Of Western Medicine During The Republic Of China (1912-1949)

During the period of the Republic of China, the society had been in an unstable and turbulent state. It can be concluded that the history of the Republic of China is a history with frequently changing political power and continuous chaos caused by war. Most of the time, the dominating class had no concern on medical education. Without doubt, this situation was also related to the fact that medical education had been monopolized by foreign forces at all times. The dominating class also had no concern on the outcomes of medical education, which caused medical education to be almost in a state of natural development. Occasionally the authorities distributed some government orders of education reform; however, most of the time there were only few respondents. Nevertheless, the government's powerlessness provided medical education a freely developing space. Especially during the period between 1926 and 1937, the political situation was relatively stable, and various genres of Western medicine appeared one after another. This period became a brilliant phase of Western medicine development during the Republic of China.Western medical education was originated from missionaries. Objectively speaking, missionaries and church hospitals contributed significantly in introducing Western medicine to China and training medical staffs. Moreover, the debate among various Western medical genres in China also had an effect of a hundred schools of thought contention, which advanced the development of Western medicine in China. However, some of these missionaries and foreign governments and organizations serviced for their national invasion policies; some of them hold humanitarian and religious belief and came to China with an intention of starting medical education. Therefore, when evaluating the contribution of introducing western medicine to China, we should not ignore its negative impact.The objective of this thesis is to track down that phase of history and to return the original face of the history, to investigate the developing venation of medical education during the Republic of China, to summarize successes and failures, and to endow history its deserved respect. Who contributed greatly to the Western medical education during the Republic of China? What are these contributions? What contribution did the Republic of China make on medical education of new China? How do we evaluate the Western medical education during the Republic of China?Because a thesis cannot cover all the aspects and integrated all the elements of the research problems, this thesis analyzes the medical education during the Republicof China from four aspects; that is, the thesis is organized by four chapters.Based on the time span, the first chapter provides an overall grasp of medical education during the Republic of Chhta. For the convenience of research, the higher education of Western medicine during the Republic of China was divided into three phases: budding phase when big efforts Were used to push western medical education: 1912 - 1926; brilliant phase when Western^ medical education was localized: 1927 -1937; low valley phase when trying hard to exist in adversity: 1937 - 1949. The emergence and development of Western medicine in the early days of the Republic of China are also briefly reviewed in the first section of this chapter.The second chapter categorizes the higher education of Western medicine during the Republic of China, and based on these categories further analyzes the issue. According to the founders of each colleges and the opening time sequence, there are in total four categories. In each category, the representative was chosen for further discussion. Church medicine was considered to be the first of all regarding both the quantity and quality of running schools. Its impact was considered the most significant. Thus, higher education of church medicine is regarded as the first category. Due to it& distinct characteristics and high quality, St John's university hospital becomes the representative of church medical education. The second category is higher education of western medicine established by Kuorhintang government (including national and provincial ones). National Beijing Medical specialized Schools and Shanghai Medical College are examples of this category. The third category was schools supported by foreign governments and financial groups. Tongji is chosen to be its example. Influenced by the idea that education and enterprises can save country, some businessman started establishing education. The private colleges and schools become the fourth category. At the end of this chapter, the experiences, the gain and lost of opening schools in these four categories are also compared and analyzed.Union Medical College has played a significant role in the modern medical education history in our country. It has trained numerous highly qualified medical staffs and has made great contributions to the advancement and development of medical education, medical science, and medicine and health enterprises in our country. The history of Union also reflects the important influence of European and American medicine on the medicine in our country in the last decades. Therefore, regarding Union Medical College as single case, the third chapter investigates all theexisting historical materials that can be found about Union Medical College, and summarizes the long-term practice experience of its education policies, instructing ideologies, teaching plans, and teaching methods. By tracing the history, this chapter attempts to provide Union an objective evaluation and explores how to use Union's experience to assist today's medical education and health enterprise in China.The research objective of the fourth chapter is to explore Western medical education in northeastern China. At the beginning of the Republic of China, Western medical education in the northeastern area was mainly based on British and American style. Later on it changed to German and Japanese style. In fact, most of the time Western medical education in the northeastern area during the Republic of China was controlled by Japanese militarism. Distinct Japanese characteristic was its most distinguishing feature. Of course in the northeastern area, there were not only Japanese style western education but also other types of teaching with distinct northeastern characteristics. In the premise of both recognizing the fact that Russia and Japan invaded China and distinguishing the differences between politics and academia, and the differences between Japanese soldiers and Japanese people, this chapter summarizes the successes and experiences of western education in northeastern area during the Republic of China. Without doubt, the harm on Chinese people and Japanese people that are caused by the war is grieved.In the conclusion of this thesis, the primary achievements, basic experiences, and historical lessons are summarized. The realistic significance of higher education of Western medicine during the Republic of China is explored. The biggest achievement is the contribution of inaugurating Western medicine. During the Republic of China, Western medicine experienced from zero to existence, from sporadic teaching in Church hospital to the appearance of various types of medical colleges and schools spreading all over the country, from initially opening schools by churches to localizing Western medical education by gradually nationalizing private medical education. Finally a modern medical education system was established in China. Another significant achievement surely is training medical staffs. Comparing to the situation in the beginning of the Republic of China, there were huge progresses on the quantity, quality and distribution of medical staffs. Meanwhile, various types of personnel in the area of health administration, medical education, and public health were also cultured, which had prepared sufficient personnel for future development of Western medicine in China.The Republic of China accumulated rich experiences in starting medical education, which had an uncountable effect of the improvement and sustainable development of medical education level in China. The primary experiences include: accumulating rich experiences of multiple teaching modes; how to reasonably arrange medical education resources; how to develop medical education experience under special circumstances; and experiences iri establishing traditional medicine education mode. Nowadays, higher medical education is still facing the problems on the mode of running schools, resource arrangement, and teaching modes. Even now the experiences during the Republic of Chitta can be Used for reference. When looking at successful experiences, we should also realize the lessons of Western medical education during the Republic of China; that is, the unarguable fact {hat arts and humanities are not taken into account in the present higher medical education. This issue was rooted badly during the Republic of China. However, the negative experience is helpful in recognizing the reality and setting the future development direction.