AAFMUA Working Committee meeting was held at 14 E. 34th Street, New York, NY, May 7th, 2000. The meeting reviewed the AAFMUA Working Committee’s state of work, discussed short-term and long-term work plan.
Dr. Ruoqing Huang, President, chaired the meeting. Following members of the Committee attended: Ling Zheng (Vice President), Yishun Lin (Secretary General), Xiongfei Kang (Advisor), Zheng-Bo Huang (Director, Subcommittee for Clinical Medicine), Yiwu Huang (Associate Director, Subcommittee for Clinical Medicine, Treasurer), Ning Wang (Associate Director, Public Relations), Mingyang Lin (Information Services), Lizheng He (Subcommittee for Medical Science). Yongsheng Chen also attended as invited . Tongchuan Li and Guanyi Xu (Honorary President) requested a leave because of schedule conflict.
The President started the meeting by reviewing the work progress of the Committee. Dr. Ruoqing Huang expressed his appreciation over the official establishment of the AAFMUA and the successful March 11th celebration party on the establishment of the organization. The President and the committee acknowledged alumni fellow’s participation in past activities and generous financial contributions by many alumni.
The meeting spent fair amount of time on discussing plans to promote academic exchanges between the association and the home university. During the university delegation’s visit to U.S. in March, the association and the university reached an interim agreement on academic exchanges, following extended discussion. Many of the U.S. alumni are willing to promote the tie, in a way to return for the critical education that the home university provided in our early academic life. Some of the alumni have had actual trip planned to visit the university as early as next month. The Working Committee of the AAFMUA is working on establishing a permanent official communication channel between the U.S. alumni and the home university for the purpose of the academic exchanges. With the communication means, we will be able to effectively and promptly schedule academic exchanges and make appropriate adjustments.
The meeting also agreed on corporation with the home university to better outline a proposal of responsibilities and duties for the U.S. guest professors appointed by the university. There may be service terms decided by the university posted on the guest professors, which would be up to be renewed once a few years by the university. The university shall decide the detail proposal with input from the AAFMUA. This meeting agreed that this sort of the proposal would seem to be necessary and fair to both U.S. alumni community and the university community. The AAFMUA will keep our alumni informed of the issue.
Some of the U.S. alumni are also willing to make financial contribution to the medical education at the home university. Such a contribution may be started by the means of contributing to an educational foundation. Preliminary, there are already some alumni, many of who are the guest professors, who support the notion. The money saved in the proposed foundation can be used to support outstanding high school graduates who would be accepted by the university but with great difficulty in paying for the medical education, which they will be receiving.
At this moment of time, it is still premature to determine by the Working Committee about exactly how the foundation will be established and managed. The Committee encourages all alumni provide suggestions. It also hopes Chinese communities in U.S. support the plan. Anyone with ideas regarding the issue is encouraged to contact Dr. Ling Zheng (Vice President), at 212 689 1773 or fax us at 419 818 0250.
The meeting also discussed plans of other activities for the association. They are highlighted as follow:
- Seminars on clinical medicine, the audience of which will be private physicians in the Chinese community mostly in New York City.
- The AAFMU will also organize free clinical services to the Chinese community in the region.
- The Working Committee also encourages help among alumni fellows with personal finance planning, medical board exam and so on.
- The Working Committee will provide all necessary assistance for such activities.
The AAFMUA Web site is an importantsource for information regarding the activities mentioned.TheDivision of Information Services of AAFMUA will be working onmodifying and updating the Web site.Please contributearticles to the Web site by email us at aafmua@gmail.com.
(May 2000, Information Services)