About HBMU

HBMU was founded in 1943 in Enshi 恩施, western Hubei, with the name of Hubei Provincial Medical College 湖北省立医学院. It was believed that CHEN Cheng 陈诚, the then prime minister 行政院长 of China, was one of the founders. Due to known reasons, people avoided talking about this at least until mid-1980's. Anyway, the first President was Professor ZHU Yubi 朱裕璧, who held this position until late 1950's. Due to the Anti-Japanese War and the following Civil War, there were really not much development until the establishment of PRC. There were only dozens of graduates in the 1940's.

In early 1950's, the university was relocated to the present location in the provincial capital, Wuhan, by the beautiful East Lake. With the faculty of Wuhan University Medical School joining, it was renamed to Hubei Medical College 湖北医学院. While the new govenment was supportive, Professor Zhu made a mistake by ordering the then Governor of Hubei to let the construction crew for the Provincial Guest Hotel to work on the soviet-designed Teaching Building. The Governor obeyed, but this event was believed to be the reason of Professor's downfall. When we celebrated the 40th anniversary, I once asked the authority permission, on behalf of the student union, to interview Professor ZHU who was then in his 80's, but it was turned down.

In 1993, when HBMU celebrated its 50th anniversary, it joined the last bandwagon and changed its name to the present Hubei Medical University 湖北医科大学.

HBMU has a full-time enrollment of about 4500, of whom about 200 are graduate students pursuing their master or Ph.D. degrees. The students are enrolled in programs ranging from clinical medicine, stomatology, pediatrics psychiatry and mental hygiene to ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology, from family planning to health administration.

HBMU has three teaching hospitals, including a dental hospital, and one nurse school. The First Affiliated Hospital also serves as the provincial hospital. HBMU also has contracts with 12 other hospitals in the province serving as clinical teaching bases for medical students.

HBMU has been admitting forieign students since 1986 in all departments and most specilities. In 1992, it began enrolling students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan with the authorization of the State Education Commission. While foreign students have to pass the standard Chinese language test before they can be admitted to any Chinese university, HBMU do offer some courses taught in English and have special programs to help foreign students to make the transition more smooth.

Active reseach programs are being conducted in HBMU. Except the traditional basic and clinical medicine programs, it also has programs such as biomedical engineering, rehabilitation and sports medicine. The university houses several special research institutes in medical virology, stomatology, pediatrics and psychiatry. The academic journals the university publishes include Acta Academia Medicinae Hubei, Medical Education Research, Comprehensive Stomatology, Heart and Pacing, Microcirculation, J. Medical Mathematical Logic.

This page was created by Yidao Cai on November 10, 1995. Last modified on: JUNE-11-1997