Exchange report - teacher at KI
Home university: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Study programme: Medicine
Exchange programme: INK
Semester: Autumn semester 2013/2014
Duration: 16
Name: Stephan Haas
Email address: stephan.haas@karolinska.se

Accommendation

Via Tripadvisor I rented a room in a hotel which was located quite near the Ruijin Hospital which is the main teaching hospital of the Jiao Tong University. To a very reasonable prize you can get excellent hotel rooms. The university has student accomodations which I did not check.

Language and Culture

As I do not speak Chinese I used English for teaching medical students and young doctors. The students are generally very interested to learn and speak English but the level of competence varies. Outside the hospital you cannot expect people to understand and speak English (e.g. shopping, traveling…).

Leisure time

Apart form teaching at the Ruijin Hospital I visited the Endoscopy Center at the Zhonghan Hospital which is affiliated to the Fudan University (http://www.zs-esd.com/en/index.aspx). The Center is the leading center for interventional endoscopy in China. In addition, I visited the e-learning Center at the Shanghai Jiao Tong

University and was introduced to the Department of e-learning which was very interesting (www.dlc.sjtu.edu.cn/).


With my colleague and friend Dr. Deng I spent my spare time and was invited to his family. Moreover we visited together with other friends Chinese restaurants. Shanghai is a fascinating city which numerous attractions but two weeks are rather a short period of time. 

Miscellaneous

See above. 

Other activities

Teaching medical students and young doctors is well-implemented and every department has a director for medical teaching. I received the opportunity to meet the directors of teaching of both the Department of Medicine and the Department of Surgery and furthermore the director of teaching of the Medical Faculty. People involved in teaching can take part at international meetings to be updated on teaching methologies.


The directors of teaching are familiar with case-based, problem-based and team-based learning and the hospital has a modern clinic skills center where objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) are performed. 

Preparation

Before taking part in the exchange program I had only very limited contact with China and its people and I wanted to learn more about this country with its more than 1 billion inhabitants. But before traveling to Shanghai I spent time with a surgeon from Shanghai Jiao Tong University who also participated at the exchange program and who visited Karolinska University Hospital. By this I got "first-hand" information from a colleague from Shanghai. 

 

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University is one of the oldest and most renowned universities in China and belongs to the C9 league of Elite Universities (something like a US Ivy League). See more information on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Jiao_Tong_University; and

http://www.topuniversities.com/universities/shanghai-jiao-tong-university/undergrad). 


Furthermore Shanghai Jiao Tong University has a leading role in China in the fields of medicine and e-learning. The university has developed several high quality e-learning courses which are accessible by Coursea (
https://www.coursera.org/sjtu).

 

Shanghai has > 24 millions inhabitants and is the largest city in China and one of the largest city worldwide representing the main business and financial center in China. 

 

A visum is required which takes approximately one week. The visum costs 1095 SEK, a photo can be taken at the visum office (150 SEK) http://www.mittensrike.se/om-kina/visum-till-kina/. The address of living in Shanghai (e.g. hotel) has to be noted to get a visum. 


It is recommended to buy a tourist guide about Shanghai or China if you have not been in Shanghai/China before. By this you get information about Chinese culture & life.


I organized the whole trip for myself. The International Affairs Office of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University can be contacted to arrange teaching and lecturing. It is important to check when students have holiday because many students are leaving Shanghai and travel to their parents when there are no lectures.

Reflections

In summary, I greatly benefitted from this KI exchange program for teachers. I learnt a lot about the Chinese culture, Chinese daily-life and about teaching and working at one of the leading academic University Hospitals in China. Being immersed in a different culture was exciting and of importance in light of the increasing globalization and internalization of teaching and researching. These “cross-cultural” exchanges are of great value considering the increasing influence of China in all fields of research, development and world economy. One of the most important experiences for me was to get new friends and to be grateful for the very warmhearted hospitality I encountered. 

Teaching

My teaching took place at the Ruijin Hospial which is affiliated to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Ruijin Hospital was founded in 1907 formerly known as St. Marie Hospital and has strong French roots. The hospital is located in the so-called French Concession – a district which was established in 1894. Merchants from France, Britain and America lived in this district which is characterized by an interesting mix of European and Chinese architecture. The district with its architecture, shopping streets and numerous trees attracts many tourist.   

 

Many members of the medical faculty at the Ruijin Hospital speak French and the Ruijin Hospital has many contacts with French university hospitals. To become a consultant at the Ruijin University Hospital requires a stay at a foreign university for a minimum of 6 months. There is an increasing interest to learn English and the students and physicians at Ruijin were very interested in American hospitals and the interest for learning French is decreasing. Most consultants at the hospital were fluent in English but there were others that did not speak any English at all.


The director of medical teaching of the Department of Medicine was a young assistant professor who spent 2 years at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore/USA. Others spent time at other premier institutions in Tokyo, Stockholm, New York, Paris…

Teaching hours

I used different pedagogical ways of teaching which comprised case-discussions (3h), lectures (4h) and bed-side teaching (3h).


The hospital has fully equipped lecture rooms which I used for lecturing. The topic of the lectures where circulated by e-mail and the students and young doctors even received lunch when the lectures took place at noon. It was important for me that lectures had ample elements of interactivity. Some students had to be addressed personally to take part in discussions. In the lectures topics such as liver cirrhosis, GI complications of alcoholism, acute and chronic pancreatitis and autoimmune pancreatitis were discussed. In addition to that I was asked to give lectures on specific topics of interest (e.g. “how to get the Nobel prize”). Interesting cases were the basis to discussions. Students were reflecting on decision-making regarding the best diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Medical students were allocated to different wards where further teaching took place.