Jining City has included "supporting Jining Medical College in establishing a medical university" in its 15th Five-Year Plan. As the only provincial public independent Western medicine undergraduate institution in Shandong still retaining the "Medical College" designation, can it achieve its dream of becoming a "University"?
Shandong was once widely recognized as a major province for medical colleges in China. At its peak, it had six public, independently established Western medicine undergraduate medical colleges, boasting a profound foundation in medical education. After multiple rounds of institutional mergers, upgrades, and name changes, the number of public undergraduate institutions in Shandong retaining the "Medical College" name is now very few. Qingdao Medical College and Shandong Medical College were successively merged into comprehensive universities, while Taishan, Weifang, and Binzhou medical colleges have all been renamed "Universities," leaving only Jining Medical College yet to be upgraded. Now, Jining Medical College is also set to change its name.
Recently, the Jining Municipal People's Government issued the "Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of Jining City," which explicitly states: support Jining Medical College in establishing a medical university and strive to become a doctoral degree-granting unit. This means that once Jining Medical College successfully establishes itself as a medical university, there will no longer be any public independent Western medicine undergraduate institutions in Shandong with "Medical College" in their official names.
Veteran Medical College Strives for University Status
The history of Jining Medical College can be traced back to the Shandong Provincial Jining Medical School established in 1952. In 1958, Shandong Medical College dispatched teaching staff south to Jining to support the expansion of Jining Medical School into Jining Medical College; in 1959, during the nationwide departmental restructuring, it was renamed Jining Medical Junior College; in 1987, it was re-established as Jining Medical College. For over seventy years, the institution has been deeply rooted in southwestern Shandong, training a large number of medical professionals for Shandong and surrounding regions, and producing a cohort of distinguished alumni—including digestive disease specialist Fang Jingyuan, newly elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in November 2025, and neurologist Du Yifeng, a recipient of the "Bethune Medal."
Currently, Jining Medical College has 19 teaching units and 37 undergraduate programs, including 2 national-level first-class undergraduate programs and 2 national-level characteristic specialties. It holds master's degree-granting rights in three professional fields: clinical medicine, public health, and pharmacy, with over 18,000 full-time students. The college's clinical medicine discipline ranks within the top 5‰ globally in ESI, while pharmacology and toxicology, along with molecular biology and genetics, have entered the top 1% in ESI global rankings.
Notably, psychiatric medicine is the most distinctive academic hallmark of Jining Medical College. It was one of the first four universities in China to establish an undergraduate program in psychiatric medicine. This program is not only a national-level first-class undergraduate program construction site but has also been rated A++ in the校友会 China University Major Rankings (Applied Type), recognized as a Chinese Six-Star Applied Major, ranking first nationally.
Affiliated hospitals are a crucial window for assessing a medical college's clinical strength. Currently, Jining Medical College has 3 directly affiliated hospitals and 12 non-directly affiliated hospitals. Among them, Jining Medical College Affiliated Hospital is one of the first batch of Shandong Provincial Regional Medical Centers, with pediatrics as a provincial-level specialized regional medical center; in the national performance assessment of tertiary public hospitals, it has ranked within the top 10% nationally for seven consecutive years, with a national monitoring indicator grade of A+. Two of the three directly affiliated hospitals have been recently added. In November 2025, the comprehensive tertiary A-grade traditional Chinese medicine hospital, Qufu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was designated as Jining Medical College Affiliated Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine; in April 2026, Jining Medical College revealed in public documents that Jining City had agreed to develop Shandong Provincial Daizhuang Hospital into a directly affiliated hospital of the college. Shandong Provincial Daizhuang Hospital is the earliest established psychiatric specialty hospital in Shandong and the first to pass the tertiary A-grade evaluation, consistently ranking in the top tier of national psychiatric specialty hospitals in the national performance assessment of tertiary public hospitals.
In fact, signals of Jining Medical College's upgrade to university status have been evident for some time. As early as the third party congress of Jining Medical College in 2018, the institution set "building a distinctive, nationally renowned applied modern medical and pharmaceutical university of science and technology" as its goal. This objective has been reiterated over the years. In 2024, at the college's fourth party congress, the goal was updated to "building a distinctive high-level medical university," outlining a clear "three-step" strategy: Step one, achieve a breakthrough in academic level by 2024, obtaining approval as a master's degree-granting unit; Step two, by 2030, achieve full coverage of master's programs in core medical and pharmaceutical disciplines, with main operational indicators basically meeting university upgrade standards; Step three, by 2035, fully establish a distinctive high-level medical university, significantly enhance comprehensive strength, and basically meet the standards for a doctoral degree-granting unit.
Now, "Step one" has been solidly achieved. However, completing the upgrade in the short term is not easy. According to the "Interim Provisions on the Establishment of Regular Undergraduate Institutions," to be called a "University," an institution generally should have at least 10 master's programs and have graduated over five cohorts of master's students. Jining Medical College currently has only 3 master's programs, indicating a remaining gap. Based on its timeline of "achieving full coverage of master's programs in core medical and pharmaceutical disciplines and basically meeting upgrade standards by 2030," this veteran institution's name change likely cannot occur until at least four or five years from now.
Shandong's "Last Medical College"
Currently, Jining Medical College is the only institution in Shandong whose official name still retains "Medical College" and has not yet been upgraded to a medical university. In the past, there were as many as six such medical colleges in Shandong. In just a few decades, this landscape has been completely transformed.
The first changes involved Qingdao Medical College and Shandong Medical College. In 1993, Qingdao Medical College merged into Qingdao University, becoming "Qingdao University Qingdao Medical College"; Shandong Medical College was renamed Shandong Medical University in 1985, and in July 2000, it merged into the newly formed Shandong University, becoming Shandong University Qilu Medical College. Subsequently, Taishan, Weifang, Binzhou, and Jining medical colleges were collectively known as the "Four Major Medical Colleges." These "Four Major Medical Colleges" have also embarked on the path of renaming in recent years.
In 2019, Taishan Medical College merged with Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Shandong Provincial Hospital, and Qianfoshan Hospital to form Shandong First Medical University; in 2023, Weifang Medical College was officially renamed Shandong Second Medical University; in early 2026, the Ministry of Education approved the renaming of Binzhou Medical College to Shandong Medical University, and in March of that year, the Shandong Provincial Government issued a notice, and the university was officially inaugurated. Thus, among Shandong's "Four Major Medical Colleges," only Jining Medical College retains the "Medical College" designation. An era belonging to "Medical Colleges" is nearly over.
In this process, the stratification of medical higher education in Shandong has become increasingly clear. In the "2026 China Medical College Comprehensive Strength Ranking" released by "Medical Community" (excluding traditional Chinese medicine colleges), Shandong University Qilu Medical College ranks 16th, Shandong First Medical University ranks 35th, Qingdao University Qingdao Medical College ranks 37th, Shandong Second Medical University ranks 72nd, and Shandong Medical University ranks 80th; Jining Medical College did not make the top 100.
What does renaming actually signify? A comparison is quite illustrative. In 2017, Taishan Medical College ranked only 77th on this list, even trailing behind Jining Medical College, which was then ranked 74th. However, after completing its renaming and upgrading to Shandong First Medical University in 2019, its ranking jumped to 56th, opening a gap of nearly 20 places compared to the other three medical colleges.
Today, Shandong First Medical University has over 27,000 full-time students, and its affiliated hospitals handle an average of 40 million outpatient visits annually. Its comprehensive strength in Shandong is second only to Shandong University Qilu Medical College. For Jining Medical College, which is in the second tier in terms of scale and level, "renaming" is just the first hurdle. After the name change, how to establish its position within the competitive provincial landscape is the deeper challenge.
Medical Colleges Rush for "University" Status
The story in Shandong is just one example of the nationwide wave of independent medical colleges renaming themselves. According to incomplete梳理 by "Medical Community," in just the past three years, nearly ten medical colleges have replaced the word "College" with "University" in their names. In 2023, Gannan Medical College was renamed Gannan Medical University, Bengbu Medical College was renamed Bengbu Medical University, and Weifang Medical College was renamed Shandong Second Medical University; in 2024, Mudanjiang Medical College was renamed Mudanjiang Medical University, and Hainan Medical College was renamed Hainan Medical University; in 2025, Guilin Medical College was renamed Guilin Medical University, and Xinxiang Medical College was renamed Henan Medical University; in 2026, Binzhou Medical College was renamed Shandong Medical University.
Furthermore, Wannan Medical College, Chengdu Medical College, and Chuannan Medical College have entered the公示 or review stage, while Shenyang Medical College, Hangzhou Medical College, Qiqihar Medical College, Chengde Medical College, among others, have also explicitly stated their goals of striving for "University" status. It can be said that almost every independent medical college with some capability is preparing and waiting for a name change.
Why are they so persistent? "Within the current higher education management system, renaming is directly linked to resources, reputation, policy space, and more," once analyzed Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the China National Academy of Educational Sciences. The "dividends" brought by renaming are often immediate. Taking Bengbu Medical University, renamed at the end of 2023, as an example, according to a Bengbu Daily report, after the renaming, the number of applicants for the university's 2024 postgraduate entrance exam初试 reached 4,207, an increase of 457 from the previous year, with about half being candidates from outside the province. After Guilin Medical College's upgrade in 2025, the admission score for its clinical medicine program increased by about 30 points compared to before the renaming. With such direct and visible enrollment benefits, naturally, no institution can afford to remain a passive observer.
In the future, among Shandong's public Western medicine undergraduate institutions, names bearing "Medical College" may no longer exist. However, whether called "Medical College" or "University," the name is merely a carrier. Cultivating more high-quality medical talents remains the unchanging core mission of education.