CarryingForwardHistoricalCulture andStrengtheningtheConfidence ofHainan Medical University

2022 New Year Greetings fromYang Jun, secretary of the Party Committee ofHainan MedicalUniversity

With the sonorous rhythm of the construction of Hainan free trade port, Hainan Medical University is developing rapidly and steadily and has made great progress. Today, there is an urgent need to answer such a question: what does Hainan Medical University rely on to go through the past and move towards the future?

Answering this question is not only about yesterday, but also about tomorrow: how farHainan Medical Universitycan go.

Hainan Medical University is born for the health needs of the people in Hainan. Although it is born at an untimely time, its self-reliance and entrepreneurial spirit will last forever.

The history of establishingHainan Medical University is a history of hard work in medical education in Hainan. This university isborn entirely because of the health of the people in Hainan. Hainan island has been isolated from the mainlandfor a long time, with backward economic and social development, lack of medical resources on the island. People in this island have had many difficultiesin receiving medical servicesfor a long time. In 1947 and 1948, the private Haiqiang Medical Technology School, the predecessor of Hainan Medical University, and the Medical School of Hainan University were successively initiatedby the people, but they were not recognized by the corrupt and incompetent Kuomintang authorities at all. All the fundswereneeded to be raised by themselves, so it was difficult to run the school. The school running conditions of private Hainan University failed to meet the requirements. It was suspended after only three semestersand recruited 90 medical students in total. Haiqiang Medical Technology School had only a few teachers, four houses and several simple microscopes, and the school running conditionswerevery poor. However, inspired by the patriotic upsurge of the victory of the war, the sages still resolutely ran schools, promotedmedicine and devotedthemselves to the development of their hometown. Mr. Lin Xiaohaiwas thepioneer of modern medical education in Hainan, independent founder of Haiqiang Medical Technology School. He got themaster of medicine degree in Japan.When talking about why the first medical school in Hainan was established at that time, he saidthat because after the victory of the war of resistance against Japan, hereturned to Hainan as the president of Haikou army hospital. He saw that Hainan’s medical health care was very backward, there were few hospitals, few doctors and nurses, and a considerable number of young people who were out of school. He set up it to train medical and health personnel through medical education, enable social young people to go to school and find employment, and open up the road of medical development in Hainan. Zhu Runshen, a pioneer of modern health careand medical education in Hainan, president of the Medical Schoolof Hainan University and president of Hainan Hospital, and Ph.Dof medicine in France, gave up the superior conditions of working in Union Medical College Hospital and resolutely returned to his hometown. He was the president of the Medical College and Hainanhospital. Lin Xiaohai and Zhu Runshen, two sages, one from Wenchang and one from Wanning, are modern medical experts. They love their hometown very much. In particular, Mr. Lin Xiaohai has stayed in his hometown since he returned to Hainan. Despite hardships, he still has his original intention to develop medical education in Hainan. If there is no such spiritual support of patriotism, love for the island and self-reliance, there will be no previous and present life of Hainan Medical University.

Hainan Medical University has lived up to the expectations of the people of Hainan and worked hard. Despite its twists and turns, the university has always faced difficulties for the development of medical and health undertakings in Hainan.

In 1951, the people’s government accepted the private medical college of Hainan University and Haiqiang Medical Technology Schooland merged them into Hainan Medical Specialized School. In 1953, the school buildings were damaged due to typhoon andthe school wasmerged with No.8 Health School of Guangdong Province. Hainan Medical College resumed in 1958 and stopped enrollment again in 1963. Hainan Medical College reopened in 1973andtried to run the undergraduate courses in 1977, and was incorporated into Hainan University as the Department of medicine in 1983.Taking advantage of the breeze of reform, Hainan Medical College was in preparation from January 1989 and officially established in 1993. Hainan Medical Universityhas been on the right track of independent development since then. Despite twists and turns in growth, there is no lack of perseverance and tenacious spirit.Liang Wenyi, the first president of Hainan Medical College, was from Qionghai. He returned from Malaya to participate in the Anti Japanese war in 1939 and later joined the Communist Party of China. He was the section chief of the political department and the military medical director of QiongYa Anti Japanese Corps. He was a QiongYa Anti Japanese soldier who had been tested by wars and bullets. It was he who first injected the red gene of Hainan’s 23 year red flag into Hainan Medical University, making"loyalty to the party, hard work and perseverance" become the essence of Hainan Medical University. Although the university has experienced many hardships, ithas gradually expanded. The First Affiliated Hospital was established in 1973. The former General Hospital of agricultural reclamation was classified as the Second Affiliated Hospital of the University in 2016, and HainanProvincial Hospital was classified as Hainan Medical Universityin 2018, which has improved the teaching system day by day. With the establishment of Hainan Province as a special economic zone, the universityhas also entered a period of prosperous development. In particular, Hainan Medical University, which has entered the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, now has a complete medical talent training system, 31 majors, more than 14000 full-time students and 11 directly affiliated and non directly affiliated hospitals, and has successively trained more than 50000 medical talents.More than 70% of the province's health professionals and technicians and more than 70% of the presidents and management cadres of grass-roots hospitals have been trained, making great contributions to the health and well-being of the people of Hainan. Today, the prosperous age has been as the wishes of our ancestors. The strong national feelings and political consciousness of "loving the country and the island, helping the world and saving the people and following the party's words" embodied in Lin Xiaohai and Liang Wenyi, whichare the powerful spiritual forcesupporting usand the blood root of the history and culture of the university, and isworth carrying forward.

Hainan Medical University is committed to people’s health in Hainanand hasbeen working hard demonstratingits mission and responsibility in the development of tropical medicine.

For more than 70 years, teachers and students of Hainan Medical Universityhave been committed to the cause of people’shealth in Hainan and made great contributions to the development of medical education and the improvement of medical technology in Hainan. Especially in the efforts to develop tropical medicine and eliminate tropical infectious diseases and endemic diseases in Hainan, they have embodied the professional spirit of pursuing excellence and being brave in innovation. As the only tropical island in China, Hainan’stropical humid environment is prone to breeding mosquitoes, ticks and other parasites. Viruses are easy to reproduce, malaria and dengue fever are rampant, and people suffer a lot from it. Tropical diseases, also known as "neglected diseases" by WHO, have been neglectedfor a long time.

Since the 1950s and 1960s, Hainan Medical University has begun to study tropical infectious diseases. Through the unremitting efforts of several generations, Tropical Medicine and Laboratory Medicine College was established in 2009, opening undergraduate and graduate education inthe field oftropical medicine. In 2021, thesecond Tropical Medical CollegeinAsia was established. The Construction and Development Plan of Tropical Medicine Discipline of Hainan Medical Universitywas formulated, which defined the development path of tropical medicine.Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Diseases and Key Laboratory of Tropical Medicinal Plant Research and Development have been established successively. In 2017, Academician Workstation of Tropical Medicine was jointly established with academicians GaoFu and KangLeof the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Joint Laboratory of Tropical Infectious Diseases and Joint Research Center for Major Disease Prevention and Control were jointly established with Cambodia and Myanmar, and Laboratory of Emerging Tropical Diseases was jointly established with University of Hong Kong in 2018. In the same year, Hainan Medical Universityled the establishment of the tropical medicine alliance with the participation of more than 30 countries along the line, and built a multi-level tropical medicine research platform.In 2019 and 2020,Key Laboratory of Tropical TranslationMedicine of the Ministry ofEducation and Key Laboratory of the National Health Commission for Tropical Disease Prevention and Control were successively approved. The affiliated Hainan hospital and the Second Affiliated Hospital set up infection department and tropical disease department, with high diagnosis and treatment capacity of infectious and tropical diseases. The influence factors of the two English journals of SCIsponsored by Hainan Medical Universityare rising. The number of papers on tropical medicine included by SCI of theuniversity ranks second in China, and relevant articles have been published in top academic journals such as NatureandCell. Today, Hainan Medical Universityhas alreadyshouldered the banner of Tropical Medicine and established its due position in the cause of tropical medicine throughout the country and even around the world. In the decades of unremitting pursuit of Tropical Medicine, a group of excellent teachers with selfless dedication and professional dedication have emerged, who havebrewed thetouching professional spirit. Professor Deng Zifu is a typical representative. He graduated from Zhongshan Medical College in 1955. He should have become an excellent surgeon, but due to the lack of basic teachers, he obeyed the organizational arrangement and changedhis teaching orientationfrom clinicalmedicineto physiological teaching. He hastaughtfor 40 years. In the part-time ophthalmology clinic, he firstly found eye infectionwith Monteggia infantilis. He was not a public health professional. In order to find out the etiology, he went to the Miao village andLi village with other teachers to carry out flow regulation. He treated patients in the rural health center, caught frogs in thepaddyfield, fed the parasites in frogs to cats and dogs, and finally found that there were adults of similar parasites in the intestines of cats and dogs. After finding the cause, he and his colleagues carried out surgical treatment and oral pyrquine tablets for dozens of patients infected with the parasite in local hospitals, and rescued these patients from the brink of blindness one by one. The results were highly recognized by authoritative experts of tropical diseases at home and abroad. Hainan Daily published a large interview on the first page, reporting asPeople Need Good Doctors like Deng Zifu. In recent years, a group of middle-aged and young scholars such as Lv Gang, Xia Qianfeng and Yin Feifei have been engaged in the research of functional genomics of important tropical pathogens and the molecular biology of new infectious diseases such as melioidosis virus, and have made outstanding achievements. Professor Ning Yi, Ph.D. of Harvard University in the United States and researcher Yang Guojing of Swiss Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health successively have gone back to Hainan Medical Universityfor tropical medicine after returning home. Hainan Province was recognized by the state to eliminate malaria in 2019 and accepted the on-site acceptance of malaria elimination by WHOon behalf of China in 2021. The hard-earned achievement comes from the persistence and dedication of countless alumni of Hainan Medical University for decades. The professional development of tropical medicine is an epitome of the development of the medical career of Hainan Medical University. The spirit of pursuing excellence and continuous innovation shown by doctorsof this universityin the development of tropical medicine is also a powerful force to support us tilltoday. It is a rare spiritual wealth in the history and culture of Hainan Medical University, which is worth carrying forward.

Facing the future, Hainan Medical Universityinherits the red gene, firm and confident, and takes the road of tropical characteristics and international development.

Theshipof Hainan Medical Universityhas experienced wind and wavesand finally sailed into Hainan free trade port with Chinese characteristics today!Hainan’s comprehensively deepening reform and opening up and building a free trade port with Chinese characteristics is a major national strategy planned, announced and promoted by general secretary Xi.As the only undergraduate medical universityin Hainan free tradeport, Hainan Medical Universityfacesunprecedented major historical opportunities and challenges, and shoulder the important task of cultivating high-level medical and health talents for the construction of Hainan free trade port and more than 30 countries along the line. We are committed to building an international high-level medical university with distinctive tropical characteristics, which not only has the essential characteristics of adhering to the party’sleadership in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but also has the international characteristics of a world-oriented, grand, free and open free trade port, with higher standards and better quality. We cannot position Hainan Medical University as a general local medical university, but as a benchmark with a free trade port with Chinese characteristics.We cannotask ourselves for the quality of running local medicaluniversities, but pursue the quality of running international colleges and universities.We cannotfollow the old path of natural growth, but break a new path of high-quality connotation development under the background of internationalization and opening-up.

Challenges and opportunities coexist, and courage and wisdom go hand in hand. Kapok flowers bloom everywhere in spring. We can see that today’s vibrant QiongYa land not only has the intersection and collision of agricultural culture and marine culture, but alsohasthe vast, profound, open and inclusive free trade port culture, which is blowing in the South China Sea. In the struggle of the new era, doctorsof Hainan Medical Universityshould not only inherit and carry forward their own excellent historicalculture, but also temper their unique cultural temperament of openness and inclusiveness, enthusiasm, boldness, daring to try and pursue higher, evolve more excellent red genes and cultural genes, build more firm confidence as thedoctors of Hainan Medical University in the new erato build a high-quality Three Complete education system with the characteristics of free trade port. Only in this way can we go further.

Time is fair. As long as the direction is correct, we are not afraid of a long journey.

History is generous. As long as you sow hard in spring, you will have a fruitful autumn harvest.

With historical and cultural heritage and the guidance of the spirit of the times, under the leadership of theCommunistPartyof China, Hainan Medical Universitywill be stable and far-reaching, and will be strong due to the construction of Hainan free trade port.

Beginning of spring, February 4^th, 2022

海南醫(yī)學(xué)院黨委宣傳部

海南醫(yī)學(xué)院新聞中心

翻譯：陳熙宇

編輯：吳京京

審核：雷浩澤