London hospital signs medical training partnership with Chinese institution

The Shanghai International Medical Center, known as SIMC, and The London Clinic, or the Clinic, have signed a memorandum of understanding to create a partnership in knowledge sharing.

The agreement was signed at the clinic in Marylebone in London on Monday and the focus will be on oncology, gynaecology and urology as well as looking into robotic surgery.

This will be the first time the 87-year-old private London hospital has partnered with a hospital in China.

Al Russell, chief executive of the Clinic, said: "At the heart of this partnership is knowledge share. Our doctors go to China, and SIMC doctors come here and we both learn as institutions about how we advance health care and that has patients at the heart of it."

SIMC hopes that the memorandum will pave the way for a nurse training program at the Chinese hospital as well as learning about UK hospital services and management.

"We want doctors from the Clinic to practice and consult patients at SIMC and I hope this will help advance our doctors and improve our working system," said Huang Yirun, SIMC president. "At the same time, we can help the Clinic by expanding the Chinese market for them."

Huang praised the London hospital's nursing practices and patient care and would like to see similar skills and services established at SIMC.

Huang added, "There are around 800 consultants practicing at the Clinic, they are top doctors in the UK, so we would like to see consultants working with us. Also, at SIMC we have over 2,000 consultants from public hospitals who practice at SIMC who could offer its services to the Clinic."

The Chinese delegation from SIMC were also given a tour of the Clinic, which included visits to the oncology department, intensive care unit and radiotherapy department.

The delegation also spoke to staff members at the London hospital on the day-today management of the hospital and departments.

"We've chosen to focus on areas that will be naturally complimentary for knowledge share," Russell added.

"So oncology is one of those, gynaecology is another and also urology, where we do a lot of robotic surgery here at the Clinic. Hopefully, SIMC will see that we have strengths that they want to learn from, and they may be using technologies that we should learn from."