A new medical exchange program between Brown and China's Zhejiang University was symbolically signed into agreement last night by President Ruth Simmons and Zhejiang President Wei Yang PhD'85 over cocktails at Simmons' Power Street home.
In the first significant agreement since administrators placed internationalization high on the University's agenda last year, the exchange program will allow students at the Warren Alpert Medical School to study at local hospitals in Hangzhou while Chinese students study in Providence. Zhejiang University is one of the most prestigious universities in China and is home to over 40,000 students.
Yang, who earned his Ph.D in engineering from Brown, told The Herald he was excited to return to Brown and create the exchange program - the first of its kind between Zhejiang's medical school and any American university - and called Brown the perfect candidate for such a program.
"We have very unique similarities between Brown University and my university," Yang said.
Seeds of the program were planted over a year ago when Simmons and other University officials traveled to Beijing and signed a document of interest with Zhejiang officials.
Associate Dean of Medicine Julianne Ip '75 MD'78 said the Zhejiang medical school was looking to implement an eight-year M.D. program for Chinese high school graduates, so three representatives from Zhejiang came to Brown for a week to learn about the Program in Liberal Medical Education.
"Eight months later, totally out of the blue, President Yang contacted and then met President Simmons," Ip said. "It turned out to be a perfect match, because President Simmons was interested in Zhejiang University."
Yang said the two schools will "have more collaboration," in the near future.
The University also has international exchange programs with the University of Tuebingen and the University of Rostock in Germany, the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University and the Bruce Rappaport Medical School Technion Institute of Technology in Israel and Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya.
