University-affiliated and teaching hospitals in China: what the State Council's opinions say

State Council opinions treat university-affiliated hospitals (高校附属医院) as a main base for training medical talent. Two sets of opinions say what is expected of such hospitals. This page summarises them. It names no hospital, and it does not rate, rank or recommend any institution.

What the opinions say about affiliated hospitals

The General Office of the State Council's guiding opinions on accelerating innovative development of medical education set several expectations under a heading on strengthening the university-affiliated hospital as the main base for training medical talent (夯实高校附属医院医学人才培养主阵地).

Management and standards

The opinions say the education, health and traditional Chinese medicine departments should work together to strengthen and standardise the management of university-affiliated hospitals. They call for standards for affiliated hospitals and other clinical teaching bases to be drawn up and improved. Training quality is to become an important part of the performance assessment of clinical teaching bases and of the evaluation of health professionals for professional titles.

Planning and funding

The opinions say a university should include the teaching and research work of its affiliated hospitals in its overall development plan. They ask a university to plan the number of affiliated hospitals scientifically, according to the scale of training, research and the clinical teaching needs of medical students, and to avoid adding affiliated hospitals blindly. The opinions also call for more funding for the teaching work of affiliated hospitals.

Teaching inside the hospital

The opinions say affiliated hospitals should:

improve their clinical teaching organisation
keep a stable team to manage teaching
optimise clinical department settings around training
set up dedicated teaching clinics and teaching beds
work to give medical students early, more and repeated clinical exposure

University, medical school and hospital

The opinions also ask universities to give real functions to their medical schools and to improve how medical education is managed across the university, the medical school and the affiliated hospital. They say the Ministry of Education and the National Health Commission should speed up co-building medical schools of comprehensive universities with provincial governments.

What the opinions say about residency training

The opinions call for a sound system of standardised residency training. They say residents' grounding in medical theory should be strengthened, along with clinical thinking and practical ability, and that courses on medical ethics should be compulsory. Training bases are to sign labour contracts with trainees recruited from society, setting out both sides' rights and duties during training. The opinions also call for a number of national demonstration bases for residency training, key specialty bases, bases for training core teaching staff and bases for standardised skills assessment.

What other State Council opinions say about training in hospitals

The State Council General Office's guiding opinions on establishing a modern hospital management system say that systems for standardised residency training, standardised specialist training and continuing medical education should be put into practice. They also say urban doctors must serve at least 1 year in a primary-level or paired-support institution before being promoted to attending physician or associate chief physician. They say large urban hospitals should actively train talent for primary-level and remote poor areas.

What this page did not establish

No list of university-affiliated hospitals or clinical teaching bases was collected, and none is given here.
Provincial and university-level arrangements were not collected.
The standards for clinical teaching bases were not collected.
Later changes to the opinions were not checked.

Questions people ask

What is a university-affiliated hospital in China?

The opinions treat university-affiliated hospitals as a main base for training medical talent.

Do the opinions limit how many affiliated hospitals a university can have?

The opinions ask a university to plan the number of affiliated hospitals scientifically and to avoid adding them blindly. They do not set a number.

Does affiliation say anything about a hospital's grade or quality?

The opinions read for this page describe teaching, management and funding duties. They do not rank hospitals, and this page does not either.

Sources

Each source above was read on the date shown. This page is an unofficial summary of general administrative information. It is not published by the bodies named above, and it is not medical advice. If it differs from the official pages, the official pages prevail, and rules may change after the check date.