Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital is the only public medical center in Kaohsiung-Pingtung area of Southern Taiwan, in order to have advanced medical quality and to pursue perfect Holistic Health Care, since its foundation, this hospital has devoted itself to the medical research and taken the responsibility of clinical educational and training tasks for internship and after-graduation for doctors, medical and non-medical professional personnel, including western medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmaceutical affairs, medical technology, physical and occupational therapy, medical radiology, public health, health care administration, nutrition, psychology and social work, etc.
During the startup period of Department of Medical Education and Research, we have invited previous hospital vice director Ting-Hung Chiang (director of department of internal medicine at that time) and previous hospital director Kuo-Chi Cheng (director of department of surgery at that time) as the department chief, meanwhile, hospital director Jung-Ching Huang (director of department of urology at that time) was invited also as director of department of medical research to promote related businesses aggressively. Later on, due to the urgent expansion need of research works and the expectation of cooperation between basic research and clinical work, hospital director Jung-Ching Huang (director of department of surgery at that time) was invited as the department chief, moreover, professor Ching-Chuan Tseng from National Defense Medical Center was invited to be the director of Department of Medical Research, in addition to inviting aggressively domestic and foreign excellent researchers to act as project leaders of laboratory to participate in research works, meanwhile, several laboratories were set up to instruct clinical departments and offices to conduct research works. In the period from 2006 to 2012, director Hui-Peng Pan and director Hsiao-Ming Chung acted as department director respectively, in the period from 2005 to 2008, physician Hsing-Chung Lin and director Ching-Ho Lo was invited to act as director of Department of Medical Research; in 2007, Department of Basic Medical Research was founded, and teacher Yu Hua acted as director; in 2009, physician Chien-Jen Hsu acted as director of Department of Medical Research; in 2011, teacher Yu Hua retired, and physician Pang-Ping Chien has received and acted the position of director of Department of Basic Medical Research. On July, 2016, professor Kuo-Hung Li retired, and professor Nien-Feng Chu acted as the next department director; due to the requirements from hospital evaluation and development of medical education and research, on August 2017, under Department of Medical Education and Research, it was set up with three departments and one group, namely, Department of Medical Education, Department of Medical Research, Department of Clinical Research and administrative group. On July 30, 2019, professor Ching-Shun Chen has acted as the position of department director to lead the entire team. And on May 28, 2021, professor Yih-wen Tarng has becomes new director, and guiding whole department to the new era.
In recent years, the medical education in Taiwan has encountered giant reform. For our hospital, in order to cooperate aggressively with government policy, we have promoted excellent medical education, starting from August 01, 2010, Department of Medical Education, which includes clinical technique training center, empirical medical group and teaching resource incubation center, was founded under Department of Medical Education and Research, and director Ching-Huang Ling acted as the director.
When we review the growth history of this department, it is obvious that under the great support and great co-efforts of the colleagues, in the research part, the research projects grew year after year, the research results were plentiful and substantial, hopefully, the basic and clinical researches can be more highly associated in the future, and collaboration with other medical research institutes can be reinforced so that medical research can become locomotive for promoting the progress in medical science. In the teaching aspect, life and humanities education will be promoted in the entire hospital, hopefully, people-oriented, respect-for-life, respect-for-others and respect-for-yourself spirit can become a culture and belief. Meanwhile, cross-disciplinary team work health care education was aggressively developed to provide comfort for both body and mind of the patient, hopefully, excellent and safe holistic health care can be achieved, and hopefully, under the atmosphere of oral and example teaching environment and culture, all the members and teachers of this hospital not only can fulfill spontaneously the holistic health care that can meet the humanity need, but also can find a way of self-growth and continuous improvement.