A pre-eminent goal of China’s health care reform has been to improve the quality of care available to all citizens. Some aspects of reform have been quite successful – for example, health care insurance – while others, like access to primary care and general practitioner (GP) training remain challenging. It is becoming increasingly clear to policy-makers and education leaders that China’s medical schools must modernize their instructional design if they are to produce the workforce needed to meet the health needs of the Chinese people. Improving the quality and availability of both undergraduate medical and postgraduate residency education programs can, ultimately, help ensure the competency of doctors and restore public trust.

Elite institutions are inviting CMB’s cooperation. Peking Union Medical College Hospital and CMB have embarked on a partnership to enhance the quality of residency education and are exploring ways that information sharing and exchange can improve residency training through a consortium of seven leading institutions across the country. CMB and Peking University Health Science Center hosted a consultation with 20 invited representatives of medical universities to consider ways to advance GP training in China.

CMB will focus its efforts in Health Professional Education on postgraduate residency medical education, global health, nursing, public health, and e-learning. These exciting new undertakings reflect CMB’s long-standing goal to strengthen health professional education that meets the needs of the Chinese people. They build on the recommendations of the Commission on the Education of Health Professionals for the 21^st Century, which challenged countries to undertake instructional and institutional reforms.