China Reunion 2000 Set for May 1-8

The Xuan We Hospital Acupuncture Clinic for Children

In 1981 something monumental took place that would impact the UT-Houston Medical School and its students for years to come. While the still new medical school (barely a decade old) continued to build its curriculum, facilities and faculty, a young biochemist on the faculty named Henry Strobel set out to create something unique. For that, he went to China.

Dr. Strobel, a member of the clergy, accomplished biochemist, and popular teacher sought to give UT medical students an intangible gift they'd never find in a textbook - an international perspective to health care delivery that only comes by experiencing and seeing firsthand. With that vision in mind, along with the support of faculty colleagues and Medical School leadership, he made serveral trips with help from faculty colleagues in the early 1980s to build relationships and student opportunities in China.

By 1986 the UT-Houston Medical School acting dean at the time, Dr. Louis Faillace, was in Beijing to sign a formal agreement with Chinese health officials that would bring about a dozen UT-Houston senior medical students to that city's four largest hospitals every year in April. Since 1986, Dr. Strobel has yet to miss a year sharing this unique experience with students who spend about a week at each of the hospitals along with visits to community clinics. In the early years, the Capital Unversity of Medical Sciences (the medical school) even built a dormitory to take care of their Houston guests. That facility, designed to house eight, has now expanded into a larger building with capacity to house more than a hundred.

The extra space will be needed this year as a special 2000 reunion trip (in addition to the annual April trip for current students) is planned May 1- 8. "It's very exciting and this event is developing by the moment with dozens of former students who made the trip in the past along with a small group of faculty gathering from afar for a very special China reunion." Henry Strobel, as usual, will be a very busy man and plans to wear black tie at the reunion's opening dinner to formally celebrate a vision that has emerged into tradition at the UT-Houston Medical School.

Looking back over the years he summarizes, "From the beginning this student experience was developed to allow our students to stand outside the environment that has trained them. From that position they are able to ask questions and put into perspective the training we have. Nobody comes back without an appreciation for American medicine and an increased appreciation for the practice of medicine elsewhere. Nobody comes back without finding new ways to be a physician more effectively, and I believe, more humanely."

Dr. Strobel, who is today a tenured professor in biochemistry as well as associate dean for faculty affairs and assistant dean for student affairs at the UT-Houston Medical School, notes the four hospitals in Beijing that host the students each care for about 4,000 outpatients a day.

"These four hospitals have a daily census that runs more than 100 percent capacity - yet, they find a way to deal with what may seem like overwhelming medical needs in human and compassionate ways that open the eyes of many a student - and faculty member, notes Dr. Strobel. "This is an increasingly important lesson given the current changes in American medicine that put pressure on the physician/patient relationship. For our students to see someone else who has many more patients than we do yet manages to keep human compassion at the forefront only affirms and confirms the importance of the personal touch."

From the early 1980s to the present, Dr. Strobel and fellow faculty who have escorted students to China over the years have seen tremendous change in China's health care delivery. "Students attending the May reunion who were on this trip in 1986 will hardly recognize some of the hospitals and the changes that have taken place. However, they'll find the friendships and hospitality of the Chinese medical community that we are now a part of remains constant. Therein lies another important lesson that all who participate in this reunion visit will witness," he adds with his trademark smile that so many on both sides of the world have come to know.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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