Nursing program partnering with Hubei University of Chinese Medicine

Winston-Salem State's School of Health Sciences completed an agreement to offer a dual degree nursing program with Hubei University of Chinese Medicine.
Starting fall 2014, nursing students who have completed two years at Hubei University will be eligible to transfer to WSSU to pursue a Bachelor of Science in nursing; the 20 students will earn degrees from both schools.
Talks between WSSU and Hubei University about forming a partnership began in 2007.Hubei University of Chinese Medicine is in Wuhan City, Hubei Providence, the central part of the People's Republic of China.  The Chinese university offers several health science degrees and has a student body of more than 15,000.
"We are very excited about it," said Peggy Valentine, dean of School of Health Sciences. She has been with the SHS for about seven years.
Only WSSU professors will be going to the university, not students. Valentine said that she thinks that will change.  "We definitely want our students to have that international experience," she said.
"We think it will put WSSU on the map in a more international way."
WSSU's nursing school is well known for excellence.  Having that reputation, Valentine said, made it possible for WSSU to form a relationship with Hubei University.
"It helps us that our nursing program is so strong," Valentine said.
"So the students will enter this program and do very well."
According to the agreement, WSSU professors will teach at Hubei.
Some professors have visited the campus.
Wanda Lawrence, associate professor of nursing said that Hubei University of Chinese Medicine has a "first-rate school."
"They have a wonderful campus," Lawrence said.
"They have state of the art equipment and in terms of nursing their clinical aspect is very different."
Some of the classes WSSU professors will be teaching include the Clinical Nursing Foundation course, which is an introduction to professional nursing.
President Wang Hua and other representatives from Hubei University visited WSSU to see the human performance and biodynamic laboratory, the virtual hospital at the Enterprise Center, and observed WSSU's mobile clinic work at the East Winston Shopping Center.
The group also attended a Winston-Salem Dash baseball game.
"Part of our mission in the school of health sciences is to prepare students to be clinically and culturally competent.
"It [partnership with Hubei University] creates more opportunity for us to understand what global health is all about and learn more about the rest of world," Valentine said.