Hartford Hospital Renews Affiliation with China’s QiLu Hospital and Shandong Medical University
July 26, 2012
(Hartford, Conn.)—Twenty years after the first affiliation was signed, Hartford Hospital renewed its agreement with its sister hospital in China, QiLu Hospital and Shandong Medical University. Over the past two decades, more than two hundred physicians have trained in Hartford, learning skills that they brought back to China.
“This is a very special relationship that we began twenty years ago,” said Dr. Xingang Li, QiLu Hospital’s president. “I did my fellowship at Hartford Hospital and spent two years here. Many other doctors trained here. We have become the backbone of our fields in China. This is my first visit as president of the hospital, and Hartford Hospital is where I wanted to be.”
“It’s a great honor to think what we began years ago is still so strong and helping to bring medical skills to our sister hospital in China,” said Hartford Hospital president and CEO Jeffrey Flaks. “We are thrilled to have a world-class, academic institution that helps further the field of medicine not just here in the state of Connecticut, but across the globe.” Hartford Hospital’s relationship with QiLu Hospital began in April of 1992. The 1,310 bed teaching hospital provides more than 1 million outpatient visits and has 25,000 discharges and 12,000 surgical cases annually. Dozens of scholars from QiLu have been mentored by Hartford Hospital’s physician faculty and participated in research projects. In turn, Hartford Hospital has learned about the culture and medicine of China from the visiting scholars.
Shandong University is one of the largest and oldest comprehensive universities in China, with more than 40,000 students, 3,000 professors, and 74 doctoral programs.