ABMAC Foundation Programs

About H. William Harris Visiting Professorship Program...

The H. William Harris Visiting Professorship Program (HWHVP) continues the mission of the former ABMAC's HWHVP. This program provides an opportunity for distinguished senior faculty members, and clinicians with long experience in bedside teaching, to go to Taiwan to serve as visiting professors in various medical schools and teaching hospitals. The overall goal of the program is to advance the clinical teaching of internal medicine and its various subspecialty areas through patient-related bedside or small conference sessions, thereby providing a model of such a teaching method for Taiwan's medical educators and clinicians.

In the past, the urgent need for medicine in Taiwan to develop rapidly in subspecialty areas resulted, ultimately, in the current focus on subspecialties and a lesser concentration of effort in the broader aspects of clinical medicine. The result was to de-emphasize bedside teaching in Taiwan teaching hospitals. Many deans, senior clinical faculty members of Taiwanese medical schools, including heads of departments of medicine and subspecialty divisions expressed a need for "role models" to function in their programs so that the usefulness of good bedside clinical teaching be demonstrated to the students and residents. The H. William Harris Visiting Professorship Program was established to serve this need.

The Program was named for and honors Dr. H. William Harris who, since 1974 had made many two-month visits to Taiwan to conduct clinical teaching rounds and conferences in internal medicine and pulmonary diseases in the teaching hospitals in Taiwan. Since 1986, the HWHVP Program has sent approximately 50 visiting professors to the ten medical schools and teaching hospitals in Taiwan.

The ABMAC Foundation board of directors recruits and approves the visiting professors from the U.S. Dr. Sze-piao Yang in Taiwan arranges their placement in various medical schools and hospitals in Taiwan. The visiting professors may serve an additional S.P. Yang visiting Professorship during the trip. The duration of each visiting professorship is three to four weeks. Upon completion of the term, each visiting professor will be asked to submit recommendations to the Foundation and to the institutions visited.

About S.P. Yang Visiting Professorship Program...

The S.P. Yang Visiting Professorship Program complementary to HWHVP, provides an opportunity for distinguished senior faculty members, and clinicians with long experience in medical practice to go to Taiwan and mainland China to serve as visiting professors in various medical schools and teaching hospitals. The overall goal of the program is not only to achieve that of HWHVP, but also to monitor the applications and to advise the advancement of traditional Chinese medicine in medical practice. Over the decades, the integration of traditional Chinese medicine with the western medicine has become a standard medical practice in mainland China and has been endorsed by a limited number of hospitals in Taiwan. The S.P. Yang Visiting Professorship will provide an opportunity for interactions of traditional Chinese medicine and the western medicine, and for introducing the western concepts, attitude and methodology of medical education, training and clinical research to China. The visiting professors will utilize patient-related bedside or small conference sessions in major medical schools and teaching hospitals, and demonstrate the U.S. style of clinical education and training.

The Program was named for and honors Dr. Sze-piao Yang who has been devoting his life pioneering the development and improvement of medical education and health care services in Taiwan. He has been a major consultant and participant of former ABMAC activities in Taiwan, and since 1986, he has been serving as the chairman of HWHVP Taiwan Committee. Over the years, he has made a significnat contribution in promoting the medical knowledge exchange between Taiwan and mainland China with special emphasis on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. In medical diagnostics and therapeutics, he promotes the concepts of low-cost methodology instead of overusing the expensive high-technological methodology. Together with Dr. H. William Harris, Dr. Yang emphasizes the importance of bedside teaching as the most important component of clinical education and training.

The ABMAC Foundation board of directors recruits and approves the visiting professors from the U.S. Dr. Sze-piao Yang assists arrangement of Taiwan and mainland China visits. The duration of each visiting professorship is three to four weeks. Upon completion of the term, each visiting professor will be asked to submit recommendations to the Foundation and to the institutions visited.