Location:Index>>Education

Same Thing, Different Perspectives

date:2021/3/19 16:15:58 hot:3361

    I should extend my sincere gratitude to our hospital for providing me precious opportunity to pursue further study at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic as a visiting scholar. The one-year study has always been my dream, and it has not only exposed me to new knowledge, but also let me gain more insights into life.

    Mayo Clinic was founded in Rochester, Minnesota in 1863. Based on continuously innovative medical education and world-leading medical research, it has the most comprehensive medical system in the United States with the most advanced equipment, and it still ranks top 1 in terms of medical strengths in the United States. Since very first years, Mayo Clinic has always been a world leader in medical care and medical research. In 1950, Dr. Kendall and Dr. Hench of Mayo Clinic won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering cortisone. The three shields on the emblem of Mayo Clinic represent its core values: education, scientific research and clinical service (practice). With perfectly combining of education, scientific research and clinical service (practice), Mayo Clinic provides the highest-quality medical services and medical experience for all patients.

    Although “Becoming a Scientist” was the ideal of many people when they were young, excellent scientific research qualities require systematic discipline. Some qualities, such as how to carry out effective academic exchanges with others, how to figure out a certain research field within a very period of time, and how to prepare a high-quality academic report, are not easy to acquire. The Mayo Clinic laboratory attaches great importance to the scientific research training for researchers. The training courses for researchers are regularly launched every month. They are themed the latest experimental technology and cutting-edge scientific issues, and researchers can participate in them for free. Besides, a symposium is held at noon every weekday. The lecturers are the world’s most well-known experts in the fields of medicine and life sciences, among whom there are Nobel Prize winners, academicians of National Academy of Sciences, United States, professors from top universities, etc. These symposiums offer annual lunches and participants can have lunch while attending lectures.

    It is well-known to us all that proactive academic exchanges, interdisciplinary backgrounds, outstanding scientific research quality training, detailed control and perseverance are the advantages of Mayo Clinic, which is the key to make it possible for Mayo Clinic to successfully maintain its leading position in the medical and scientific fields from my perspective. During the visiting, as long as time permitted, I would participate in such symposiums. Not only did I gain professional knowledge, but I also learned to understand the same problem from different perspectives. These experiences have greatly broadened my academic and professional horizons.

    What impressed me most was that Mayo Clinic systematically manages scientific research work. Mayo Clinic has scientific research buildings, such as Gonda building, Medical Science building, etc., with functional blocks divided in detail. There are veterinarians and technicians managing laboratory animals. They will breed animals and give professional experimental guidance, providing great convenience for researchers who need laboratory animals. In addition, Mayo Clinic sets up a special department to uniformly manage all scientific research resources, such as commonly used reagents, consumables, kits, antibodies, etc. After researchers filling in the relevant application forms, he or she will be sent to the corresponding laboratory next day. If Mayo Clinic has no stock on hand, the cooperative companies will also give priority to the delivery at the best possible prices, which greatly facilitates the research work. If researchers encounter problems, covering such aspects as experimental operation, data statistics, picture production, etc., they can get the corresponding technical support on the service platform as quickly as possible. In short, Mayo Clinic provides researchers with a powerful research platform.

    Indeed, after the study ended, people often asked me what I have gained from this learning experience. It is difficult for me to describe in a few words. Perhaps my gains are like what Gandalf has said to Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, “The world is not in your maps and books …When you come back, you will not be the same.”


By  Yao Jia/ Lin Juanzhen

Edited by Office of International Cooperation and Communication