Premier Li Keqiang said it is important to promote collaboration between medical education and healthcare service to train more qualified medical professionals on July 10.

He made the remarks in an instruction to a symposium on medical education reform, and stressed that talent is the most important resource in healthcare.

He urged the Ministry of Education, National Health and Family Planning Commission and State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine to improve the training system for medical professionals and the incentive mechanism, borrow ideas from international peers, and respect China’s traditions.

Vice-Premier Liu Yandong addressed the symposium. She said the country must promote medical education based on common sense and social demand, so as to build a solid foundation of a healthy China.

Liu said remarkable progress has been made in medical education reform, with a standardized training system for resident doctors being launched, gradually improved, integrated medical education models that include college education, postgraduate education and further education and a talent cultivation system.

She also urged strengthening medical personnel’s ability in clinical practice and fostering medical talent with outstanding medical skills and ethics.

Efforts also should be made in realizing the coordination of medical practice and medical education, and the effective integration of subjects, such as clinic, medicine and nursing, in medical colleges.

Medical personnel specializing in general practice or pediatrics, who are in short supply, should be further cultivated and the system for the cultivation of Chinese medical talent should be improved, Liu said.

She also called for improving the salary system and talent evaluation system that fit the characteristics of the medical industry.