Centre for Traditional Chinese Medicine inaugurated

The University of Malta and the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SHUTCM) have inaugurated the Centre for Traditional Chinese Medicine at the University of Malta’s Msida campus.

This Centre allows healthcare practitioners, who enrolled as students, to acquire skills in clinical practice of TCM to complement their theoretical studies. The Centre has two resident Chinese clinical professionals from SHUTCM, while several professors specifically dedicated by SHUTCM will carry out the theoretical and practical teaching in Malta.

This is the first time that SHUTCM has joined forces with another university and launched a course outside China. In fact, the new Centre, run jointly by the two universities, is the first one of its kind for SHUTCM outside China.

The Centre was officially opened University of Malta Rector, Prof. Juanito Camilleri, and Prof. Zhang Zhiqiang, Party Secretary and Chairman of the University Council of SHUTCM, in the presence of the Chinese Ambassador, Cai Jinbiao and his wife Wang Jianqun.

Centre director Prof. Charles Savona Ventura, Malta China Friendship Society president Reno Calleja, Longhua Hospital president Zhang Bing, and Shuguang Hospital deputy president Yao Zheng were also present.

SHUTCM, set up in 1956, is one of first four colleges of traditional Chinese medicine in China. It is an established leader in its field and boasts a group of celebrated experts amongst its staff. In 1991 the University obtained the prestigious evaluation of ‘National Excellent College of Undergraduate Education’.

Academics from the University of Malta together with their counterparts from SHUTCM were responsible for the design of the Master Programme in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Culture.

Fourteen applications were received and eventually seven students from the disciplines of Physiotherapy, Midwifery and Nursing were accepted. They started their studies at the beginning of October with lectures in Traditional Chinese Culture and in the Physiology of Pain, while Clinical Acupuncture sessions started a month later.