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Tom O’Connor, senior associate director of public affairs, is in China with a UNMC delegation committed to building academic partnerships with several Chinese institutions. O’Connor will report on UNMC’s activities, as well as his observations, in UNMC Today. |
Well, for yours truly, the next couple weeks probably would qualify.
As UNMC Today readers know, UNMC has been actively pursuing academic partnerships with several Chinese institutions over the past several years.
In August, Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., signed an agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences — the Chinese equivalent of the U.S National Academy of Science — to form a joint center for research collaboration. Other U.S. institutions including the University of California-Davis, University of Arizona and Rutgers University already have expressed interest in joining this center.
In addition, Dr. Maurer also signed an agreement with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine to initiate a joint M.D./Ph.D. program that would allow medical students from the Chinese university to come to UNMC to earn a Ph.D. degree after their M.D. training in China. It’s the first such program between a U.S. and Chinese university.
Shortly after returning from his trip, Dr. Maurer asked me to join the UNMC delegation that was traveling to China this month. As he put it, “You need to go over and see for yourself what is happening. You have to see it to appreciate it, and it will allow you to tell the story better.”
For someone like myself who had never ventured off U.S. soil before, this was pretty heady stuff.
For those of you who know me, putting Tom O’Connor and world traveler in the same sentence is about as incongruent as putting mustard on your ice cream.
Oh well, if the chancellor asks, you do it.
So, with the assistance of Keith Swarts, director of business services, Jialin Zheng, M.D., director of the Asia Pacific Rim Development Program (APRDP), and Mary Cavell, coordinator of the APRDP program, I hurriedly procured my passport and visa.
On Sunday, the UNMC contingent, headed by Don Leuenberger, vice chancellor for business and finance, departed Omaha at 6 a.m., caught a connecting flight in Chicago and arrived in Beijing around 2:30 p.m. on Monday.
So far, so good. Beijing is an impressive place. The Beijing Capital International Airport is magnificent. It apparently had a complete makeover in anticipation of the Olympics coming to Beijing this past summer. It is spotless and the floor of the parking lot is painted. I’m not kidding.
We settled in our hotel and then went to a dinner hosted by Yong Zhao, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of transplantation biology research in the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Dr. Zhao was in Omaha last month and spent time at UNMC and with Dr. Maurer as part of Gov. Dave Heineman’s reverse trade mission.
I now understand that the stuff I eat in Omaha and call Chinese food is really not true Chinese food. The meal consisted of 17 courses. Yes, 17.
I’m not the most adventurous eater, but when you have 17 different items to choose from it wasn’t hard to find enough to satisfy my hunger. The presentation of the food was incredible. The chefs must be artists on the side.
We were joined at the dinner by several scientists, including an old friend of UNMC — Eugene Major, Ph.D., chief of the Laboratory of Meleculare Medicine and Neuroscience at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, one of the institutes that make up the National Institutes of Health. In 2000, Dr. Major testified at a special hearing of the Nebraska Legislature to defend the fetal cell research being done at UNMC to find a possible treatment for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.
Our travel schedule calls for several major events, including a two-day symposium at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a two-day International Graduate Scholarship Conference in Beijing, a meeting with key officials at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and an opening ceremony to launch a short course in family medicine education and training at Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center.
As the next nine days unfold, I’ll try to capture some of the activities for UNMC Today readers. I also hope to start a blog that features comments from some of the UNMC contingent who have made the trip to China.
Stay tuned.