Ningxia Hospital
Pictured third L/R – Melissa Dowdeswell, Matt Tutton, Professor Jin, Shane Gordon, Achuth Shenoy, Shaobin Wu
In October 2018 East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) and Ningxia Hospital in China signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties. In May 2019, five key personnel from ESNEFT travelled to China to further develop relations. The visit was a great success with Ningxia Hospital keen to upskill their doctors through our ICENI Centre Fellowship Programme.
Through this partnership we welcomed our first cohort of nine Chinese health professionals, pictured below, specialising in histopathology (2), orthopaedics (4), GI (2) and colorectal (1). During the 12 week clinical attachment programme, the clinicians had the chance to observe operations, attend MDT meetings and gain an understanding of the structure of the NHS. ‘Impressive’ said, spinal orthopaedic surgeon Xuehua Zhan, when asked to describe his experience. Dr Zhan’s clinical supervisor Mr David Cummings (Ipswich Hospital) also believes his involvement was ‘educational’ for himself. The doctors were ‘excellent to have around and discuss differences and similarities in our approach to patient care’, he said.
On their return to China they are hoping to complete the IELTS examination and apply to the General Medical Council to work in the UK and join our two year fellowship programme.
It is planned to send a second wave of Consultants to Ningxia to include talks on potential research collaboration between the Trust and our partners in China and deliver a consultancy service in the field of pathology.
All doctors wishing to develop their clinical practice at ESNEFT can apply for either an ICENI Centre clinical attachment or the ICENI Centre fellowship programme. More information on all our fellowship programmes can be found HERE.
Jiangsu Province Hospital
The seeds of the ICENI Centre’s relationship with our current partners in China from Jiangsu province were planted more than 10 years ago when head of Essex International, Peter Manning, approached our clinical directors Professor Roger Motson and Tan Arulampalam, on behalf of Essex County Council.
The culmination of this 10 year partnership between the two institutions was a business trip in November 2018 to the Province that included East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) director of strategy, research and innovation, Shane Gordon, Tan Arulampalam and Peter Manning. During the visit Shane Gordon, on behalf of ESNEFT, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Jiangsu Province Hospital (JPH). In March 2019, the JPH management will pay ESNEFT a visit to work out strategies to share best practice both in the UK and the Far East, including fellowship programmes.
Established in 1936 as the Affiliated Clinic of Jiangsu Medical College with mere 13 employees; through the course of over 90 years, Jiangsu Hospital as we know it now, takes pride in their impressive development of virtually all areas. In 2019, their number of employees surpassed 5,000 specialists with more than 3,000 beds for patients. That itself is almost a 385% growth rate!