Posted: 8/18/2010
Five doctoral students from China’s Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) will be studying at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) this fall, carrying on in a tradition between these two institutions that goes back 90 years. Huang Baoyan, Kang Xiaofeng, Zou Haiou, Fan Yanyan, and Sun Ning make up the fourth cohort in this doctoral program partnership that resulted in the first nurse PhD graduate from a Chinese university in 2008.
This collaboration affords the Chinese students an opportunity to develop relationships with faculty mentors that often evolve into collaborative research relationships after they graduate. “In addition to advancing their dissertation work, the students engage in many clinical and teaching observations that allow them to compare the U.S. and Chinese health care systems and higher education in nursing,” said associate professor Marie Nolan, PhD, RN, FAAN, Director of the JHUSON-PUMC Program Partnership and chairperson of the Department of Acute and Chronic Care. “When the students arent in the classroom, they also experience American culture and how it compares to their own.”
The joint JHUSON-PUMC program, funded by the China Medical Board of New York, Inc., was established in 2004 with the goal of bringing China and its healthcare system an internationally recognized, doctoral-level model for Chinese nursing education. The program officially launched in 2004 under the leadership of the late Dr. Vicki Mock, then JHUSON-PUMC program director, with the first cohort enrolled in the fall of 2005. Since then, 18 students have participated in the collaboration.
A hallmark of the program is the dissertation work that is guided by a PUMC faculty advisor in collaboration with a JHUSON faculty co-advisor. Students spend the fall semester of their second year on campus at the JHUSON in Baltimore, MD. While there, students participate in doctoral seminars with other PhD students and learn about the best of evidence-based nursing practice, and work toward finalizing their dissertation proposals.