The School has taken on various challenges throughout the years. ‘The first thing we had to resolve was the medium of instruction,’ said Professor Feng. ‘HKU offers educational programmes in English, but the system of Chinese medicine has embodied traditional Chinese culture, history and philosophy since its inception over 2,000 years ago, making it impractical to translate all the related literature into English and retain the original meaning. Teachers and students must therefore be biliterate and trilingual, as Chinese medicine is taught in both modern and classical Chinese languages, whereas Western medicine, HKU Common Core subjects and research postgraduate curricula are in English. Outside of the School, we also promote Chinese medicine in English. In fact, multilingual teaching has helped catalyse the internationalisation of our Chinese medicine education and has become one of our School’s strengths. In Imperial China, medical advances progressed along with the development of science and technology in different dynasties. Nowadays, it is undeniably more important for Chinese medicine to integrate with modern technology and Western medicine and for us to appropriately incorporate traditional Chinese medicine in a modern university. Over the past 25 years, we have successfully established a comprehensive and highly commended system of Chinese medicine education, covering undergraduate, taught postgraduate, Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy programmes.’ Currently, the School operates two Clinical Centres for Teaching and Research on the Sassoon Road campus and in Central; six out-patient clinics, established under a tripartite collaboration amongst the Hospital Authority, nongovernment organisations and HKU (among the 18 district-based Chinese Medicine Clinics cum Training and Research Centres), as well as the Department of Chinese Medicine in the HKUShenzhen Hospital and the Chinese Medicine Clinic at Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong, to fulfil clinical teaching and research needs, and serve the general public. The clinical clerkship of our students has to take place in Guangzhou or Shanghai for the time being. With the setting up of the first local Chinese medicine hospital in 2025, it will become the teaching hospital and clerkship base of the three schools of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong. The School’s extensive research publications encompass five major directions, corresponding to the WHO’s major acute and chronic disease areas of concern: cancer and metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases, and Chinese medicines quality control. Two of the School’s professors were ranked among the world’s top 1% of researchers by the Essential Science Indicators (ESI); seven teaching and research staff were ranked among the top 2% of scientists by Stanford University; and most of the teachers were ranked among the world's top scientists by the AD Scientific Index. In addition to being listed in all three of these rankings, Professor Feng was elected as a member of the National Pharmacopoeia Commission in 2022. These accomplishments demonstrate the international standing of the School’s remarkable research achievements, as well as the successful integration of Chinese medicine into modern medicine and international academia. ↑The Chinese medicine dispensary at the Specialist Clinical Centre for Teaching and Research which provides clinical training for students while serving the public. 學院的臨床教研中心 為學生提供臨床訓練， 同時提供臨床服務。 圖為設於專科臨床教研 中心内的中藥房。 Internationalisation of a Traditional System of Medicine 37 HKUMed News Summer 2024
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