CHINA’S first family doctor clinic that incorporates service method similar to North America opened at the Renji Hospital over the weekend.

　　It will not only serve as a clinic but also as a training base for medical students.

　　Patients are not just treated by one family doctor but by a team consisting of professionals like psychologist, therapist and social workers.

　　Any team member is available for patients depending on their ailments.

　　The clinic used to train students at the Ottawa-Shanghai Joint School of Medicine, which was set up by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ottawa.

　　The school gave emphasis on family doctor training.

　　“The family doctor system has been successfully implemented in many developed countries and we are now trying it out in China,” said Shao Li, a vice dean of the school.

　　“Currently, most Chinese patients go all the way to big hospitals for common and small diseases due to a lack of family doctor service,” Shao said. “Both the city and the nation started to work on a health system that encourages patients to go to family doctors for primary screening and common disease treatment.

　　“So the new joint medicine school intends to cultivate medical graduates for being excellent family doctors and also help the government explore proper health service format suitable for Chinese patients.”