CHINA

Universities offer paediatrics major after 17-year gap
Chinese universities will re-introduce paediatrics as an undergraduate major this year for the first time in 17 years. The move is to ease the severe shortage of paediatricians in the country to prepare for possible baby booms brought by the end of the one-child policy, writes Wu Guoxiu for CCTV.com.Currently, parents wait up to three months for an appointment for their child to see a doctor. The health authority says there is about one paediatrician for every 2,000 children in China. But in the US, the same number of children share three doctors. The authority vows to add about 28,000 paediatricians by 2020.
"We'll support the Education Ministry to cultivate undergraduate paediatrics majors, expand enrolment and improve quality. We'll increase residential paediatrician training from 4,000 every year to 5,000," Jin Shengguo, the deputy education director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said.
Full report on the CCTV.com site