The first cohort of 15 Inaugural Fellows of CMB’s Equity Initiative convened for the program’s opening retreat in Hue, Vietnam, on April 21-26. Held in a natural environment, the retreat aimed to promote bonding among the Fellows, who bring diverse health-related experience from government agencies, NGOs, communications, consulting, and other sectors. The Fellows, eight men and seven women, come from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malayasia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and China.

At the Prince Mahidol Award Conference in Bangkok on January 29, CMB announced an unprecedented partnership with the Atlantic Philanthropies to launch an ambitious program to nurture an entire generation of health leaders and a community of fellows and partners to advance health equity in Southeast Asia. The Transformative Leaders for Health Equity Initiative, supported by a pooled fund of $50 million (AP $40m; CMB $10m) and operating out of new CMB offices in Bangkok and Hanoi, aims to develop 500 leaders over the next two decades through peer, experiential, and online learning on health equity and leadership.

A premier Chinese health challenge for the 21st century is to ensure quality of care for all of its citizens. Thus, national accreditation, certification, and faculty development emerged as the key themes addressed by the 2015 PUMCH International Conference on Residency Education and the 5th Westlake Forum, which opened on October 31 in Beijing. In his keynote speech, Lincoln Chen announced CMB’s partnership with Peking Union Medical College Hospital to enhance the quality of residency education.

Professor Ke Yang, the Executive Vice President of Peking University and the Peking University Health Science Center, has been designated a Foreign Associate of the Institute of Medicine (recently renamed the National Academy of Medicine, a division of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in the United States). Election to membership in the IOM/NAM recognizes outstanding individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.