Officially established in October 2014, the School of Rehabilitation Medicine, Nanjing Medical University (NMU) is a young and dynamic school with distinctive innovative features. The Rehabilitation Therapy (Undergraduate) program of the school is one of the first specialties approved by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and is one of the earliest programs started students enrollment in China. It was rated as a national specialty program in 2009 and a national first-class specialty program in 2021. The four-year undergraduate education program of rehabilitation therapy (occupational therapy direction) has passed the international certification of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) with the highest certification level (7-year valid term).
Since the admission of the first group of domestic undergraduates (rehabilitation therapy) in 2001, the school has trained nearly 1,100 graduates for the society in 17 years, with the one-off employment rate hitting over 98% in the past 5 years. Among them, more than 40% of the graduates were employed by Class III general hospitals in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces and cities, as well as provincial-level and prefecture-level hospitals, Class III rehabilitation specialty hospitals, and higher education institutions. Currently, the school has two masters’ and doctoral degree programs Rehabilitation Medicine and Physiotherapy, Medical Technology (Rehabilitation Therapy), offering students opportunities for further studies.
The school highly values the talent training quality and continuously funnels in the teaching reform and innovation. It took the lead in China in establishing a complete set of training program, syllabus, teaching model, and teaching standard, becoming the education benchmark for this specialty in China. It has edited China’s first series of teaching materials for rehabilitation therapy and the first programmatic teaching material of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Teaching Guide; the textbook Rehabilitation Medicine has been selected as one of the first batch of outstanding postgraduate textbooks in Jiangsu Province. Currently, the school has more than 10 teaching laboratories installed with state-of-the-art equipment; its experimental teaching demonstration center is the provincial level experimental teaching demonstration center of rehabilitation therapy of Jiangsu Province. It is the home high-level teaching practice bases contracted to 24 well-known Class III Type A general hospitals and Class III specialty rehabilitation hospitals, all of which have excellent teaching conditions, strong faculty, and complete discipline construction. The Rehabilitation Medicine Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of NMU, the supporting unit of the school, has ranked the 1st in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department of the “Comprehensive Ranking of China’s Best Hospitals” issued by the Hospital Management Institute of Fudan University for 6 consecutive years (2011-2017) , ranked the 2nd in 2018 and 2019. The school continues to broaden the international vision of rehabilitation medicine education and is in close contact with the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) and the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT). The school has entered into extensive cooperation and exchanges with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dayton University, Creighton University (ranking first in the United States in occupational therapy), the University of Sydney in Australia, the University of Queensland in Australia, the University of Manchester in the UK, and the Hanover Medical School in Germany. Now, every year, the school will regularly send students for short-term study and exchange tours to the United States and Japan.
The school has a strong faculty team headed by the national -level academic leaders and senior ranking professors. Professor Li Jian’an is a national outstanding teacher and a famous teacher of NMU. He is an international member of the American Academy of Medical Sciences, former chairman of the International Society of Physical & Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM), and also serves at other important positions, enjoying a very high reputation both at home and abroad. Professor Xu Guangxu, the incumbent dean of the school, is the President of the Jiangsu Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (JARM), Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (CARM), Chairman of the Exercise Therapy Professional Committee of CARM, and Deputy Director of the Quality Control Expert Committee of Rehabilitation Medicine of the National Health Commission (NHC). Currently, the school has 54 full-time faculties, 34 of whom carry senior technical titles (associate professor or above). The proportion of teachers with senior professional titles and postgraduate qualifications is far higher than that of other domestic schools and universities. More than 50% of the full-time faculties have overseas further study experience. The school has rapidly expanded its international expert group and engaged Walter R. Frontera, a member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA) and the incumbent chairman of the International Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM), a group of top international experts such as Milos R. Popovic and Joel A. DeLisa as honorary professors, and eight internationally renowned experts from the United States and Japan as visiting professors.
With the advancement of the international teaching reform in rehabilitation education, the school will continue to carry out specialty education in physical and occupational therapy by international standards, drive the internationalization of rehabilitation education, and provide greater development potential and further study opportunities for graduates of this program.
Contact Information:
Tel: 025-86862196
E-mail: yangxinting@njmu.edu.cn
School website: http://kfyxy.njmu.edu.cn/
