The Hungarian participants included members of Győr-Moson-Sopron County Council: Mr Zoltán Németh, Leader of the Council and Dr Ágnes Nánási-Encsy, Head of Office, as well as members of the management of Széchenyi István University, Győr: Prof. Péter Földesi, Rector; Dr Bálint Filep, Chancellor; Dr Eszter Lukács, Vice-Rector; Prof. Ottó Dóka, Vice-Rector for Research; Dr Zsolt Kovács, Director-General; Dr Sándor Nagy, Dean, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences.

Also present were doctors and staff from the Petz Aladár County Teaching Hospital (PAMOK), Győr: Dr László János Tamás, Director-General and Head Physician; Prof. Attila Oláh, Director/physician; Dr Zoltán Skaliczky, Director of Operations; Mr Péter Végh, Head of Administration and Management.

With HUCM already enjoying many international connections, the principle goal of the delegation’s visit was to investigate potential links, professional exchange schemes and possible areas of co-operation between the Chinese University and Széchenyi István University in collaboration with Petz Aladár Hospital.

The programme commenced with a speech welcoming the Chinese delegation to Győr and the University, followed by introductions of the Hungarian participants. Mr Zoltán Németh outlined the existing links and cooperation between Széchenyi István University and PAMOK, also mentioning the international connections established by the hospital.  In his introduction, Mr Németh especially emphasized the rapid economic and structural development of Győr-Moson-Sopron County.  The Director of Operations at Petz Aladár, Dr Skaliczky, provided the visiting delegates with core statistics regarding the services and capacity of PAMOK, Győr’s highly respected county teaching hospital.

The Chinese delegates were introduced and there followed an in-depth presentation of Henan University of Chinese Medicine by Professor Xu Jiangyan. HUCM was established in 1958, based on the former Henan provincial training college of Chinese Medicine. There are currently 18 schools in total, including The School of Basic Medicine, The School of Pharmacy, and The No.1 Clinical Medical School. The university offers 24 majors conferring Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees and has been approved as a post-doctoral research station. HUCM currently trains over 19,000 full-time students and since its inception has produced over 90,000 graduates of Chinese medicine. There are three hospitals with direct affiliation as well as seven indirectly affiliated hospitals and 127 training bases. Most importantly, for over thirty years HUCM has been developing international relations and cooperation with nearly fifty universities, research and medical institutions, and companies in the field of medicine.

Vice-Rector, Dr Eszter Lukács, briefly outlined the history of Széchenyi István University from its time as a College of Higher Education to the present, highlighting and emphasizing the significance of the triple-helix model of collaboration between the University, industry and local government, and citing the prime example of the Audi’s company’s integration into the University’s academic programmes. Dr Lukács then went on to give detailed statistics of Széchenyi István University: the size of the campus, the number of students and staff, also revealing that currently the most popular subject is Mechanical Engineering. The fifth most popular was Teacher Training for Special Education. Emphasizing the rapid internationalization of SZE, she then detailed the number of different disciplines in the University: 76 taught in Hungarian and 5 in English. This latter number of programmes taught in English is due to expand to 23 by 2019, including degrees in instrumental music.

The Vice-Rector firmly asserted how China is the most important country in Hungary’s policy of opening to the East. With the aim of attracting Chinese students to our University, it would be vital to establish a Chinese community in Győr, making it easier for them to settle into their new study environment.

The Dean of the Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences, Dr Sándor Nagy, continued the presentation of Széchenyi István University with an outline description of the range of programmes in his Faculty. He talked in some detail about Nursing and Social Worker Education. He asserted that Hungarian-trained nurses are now successfully employed primarily in the Hungarian National Health Service, but also in some other EU member states. Practical training for the health oriented disciplines in the Faculty is provided by Petz Aladár County Teaching Hospital. His final thoughts centred on potential areas of cooperation with Hunan University.

Finally, the presentation of Petz Aladár County Teaching Hospital was given by the Director-General / Head Physician, Dr László János Tamás. He listed the number of hospital employees as around 2000, including 400 doctors. Sixty-two thousand in-patients are treated annually in the institution’s 40 departments and the number of outpatients seen in one year exceeds one million.

There then followed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the possibility of joint research and other areas of future collaboration.

After lunch, the delegation from Hunan was accompanied on their visit to Petz Aladár County Teaching Hospital, where they received a warm welcome from the management and medical staff. Having been introduced to the comprehensive facilities of the hospital during their tour, they then discussed matters of common interest with their Hungarian counterparts.