Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) is a key institution of higher learning under the direct administration of Zhejiang Provincial Government. It can trace its origin to the former Zhejiang Specialized Medical School established in Hangzhou in 1912. In August 1958, a group of faculty were sent from Hangzhou to Wenzhou to help build up Zhejiang Second Medical College, which was ever since renamed Wenzhou Medical College after the city it is located.
WMU started its five-year undergraduate program in 1958 and master’s program in 1978, among the first institutions in China authorized to confer master’s degree. Now WMU has a primary discipline doctoral program of Clinical Medicine and a postdoctoral research station. There’re 8 primary discipline master’s degree programs involving Clinical Medicine, Nursing Science, Traditional Chinese Pharmacy, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Preclinical Medicine, Chinese and Western Integrative Medicine, Pharmacology and 5 professional master’s programs. WMU is entitled to recommend her fresh graduates to further study for master’s degree by exempting them from the National Graduate Admission Test. WMU boasts one state key laboratory and 8 provincial or ministerial key laboratories (research centers), 4 provincial Top Priority programs and 10 provincial key programs.
WMU offers a 7-year program in optometry directly leading to master’s degree and 30 bachelor’s programs in the disciplines of medicine, science, engineering, administration, arts, law and education. At present, excluding the autonomous Renji College of WMU, the total enrollment of WMU amounts to 14000, of whom more than 80 are Ph.D candidates, over 2300 postgraduates working for master’s degree and 700 international students. With this complete educational system of higher learning, WMU covers a full range of programs from bachelor’s to master’s, from doctoral to post-doctoral study, from full-time to continuing education, not only for students from China mainland but also for students from abroad and from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well.
WMU has over 8000 faculty and staff members, including the academic appointments of the affiliated hospitals, of whom over 1200 hold senior professional titles. Excluding the staff of autonomous Renji College of WMU and the affiliated hospitals, there’re 204 full professors and 241 associate professors out of 1000 full-time teachers and researchers.
In recent years, a host of scholars have been selected in the lists of “Talent Projects”, governmental programs or fund aimed to foster high-level professional manpower to implement the national scientific strategy in the new century, such as the national “Thousand-Talents Project” and “ Yangtze Fund Scholars”. Quite a few professors and experts have been awarded or specially appointed by Zhejiang provincial government for their innovative contributions and the leading roles they play in a particular field of subject.
Composed of four campuses, WMU covers a total area of 120 acres with a building space of 510,000 ㎡.The college library has a collection of 1,380,000 volumes. Three out of five journals sponsored and issued by WMU are in CSTPCD, of which Chinese Journal of Optometry & Ophthalmology and Visual Science is Chinese Medical Association Journals. Four of five affiliated hospitals are ranked as Grade 3 Class A. Besides, there are another 14 non-directly affiliated hospitals all around the province.
In the past few decades, WMU has been striving to develop itself through constant endeavors and initiatives, thus steadily making for the strategic goals of its own on the road to success as a provincial institution of higher education, i.e. to boost comprehensive development driven by the featured programs, to upgrade the school level by pushing forward globalization, to meet the needs of the local community and beyond by an integration of medical and academic services and industries.
WMU is now oriented towards establishing a prestigious university with its own distinctive features, an institution that lays emphasis on the undergraduate education while actively developing graduate programs, maintaining medical-related disciplines as its core harmonized by multi-disciplinary programs adapted to both regional and national needs.
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