Cooperation, Education and Science, Estonia, Medicine

Under the program to be carried out in collaboration between three European and four Vietnamese medical universities, European researchers will support creating the first doctoral program in medicine in Vietnam, spokespeople for the University of Tartu said.

The program is supported also by the government of Vietnam.

The money was granted under the Global Erasmus+ call for proposals funded by the European Commission, where 147 of the 736 applications submitted received funding. The curriculum development project titled "Joint capacity building in biomedical higher education through adopting international academic standards and transferring technology between European and Vietnam universities," written by researchers from the University of Tartu, received the maximum grant at the second attempt.

The authors of the project acknowledge that medical education and the quality of health care in Vietnam are years behind compared to Europe.

"The Vietnamese government also admits there are shortcomings in this field – there is a shortage of doctors in Vietnam and there are practically no people with a doctoral degree, which in turn undermines the possibilities and quality of local training," said the leader of the project, professor of pathophysiology Sulev Koks.

The consortium founded by the University of Tartu brings together, in addition to the University of Tartu, the University of Greifswald in Germany, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, the University of Essex in UK and four major medical higher education institutions in Vietnam: Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Danang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi University of Pharmacy.