southwest medical university southwest medical university southwest medical university (chinese: 西南医科大学, formerly luzhou medical college, sichuan medical university (chinese: 泸州医学院), is a medical university in luzhou, sichuan, china. southwest medical university西南医科大学typepublicestablished1951presidenthe yanzheng (何延政)students~15,000locationluzhou, sichuan, china history the school was first established in 1951 as southern sichuan doctors' school (chinese: 川南醫士學校). in 1958, the school was renamed as luzhou specialist school of medicine (simplified chinese: 泸州医学专科学校; traditional chinese: 瀘州醫學專科學校). in 1978, it was authorized to grant bachelor's degrees and changed its name to luzhou medical college (chinese: 泸州医学院, luyi (chinese: 泸医 for short). name changes in 2015, luzhou medical college was authorized to change its name to sichuan medical university. however, west china medical center of sichuan university, which was called "sichuan medical college" between 1953 and 1985, protested that the new name was too similar to its former name. in 2016, the school changed its name again to southwest medical university. campuses the university has two campuses: zhongshan and chengbei, covering 1,004,700 square meters in total. the zhongshan campus is on mount zhongshan and is surrounded by the yangtze river and the tuo river. the area has a multitude of green camphor trees and local flowers. the new chengbei campus has modern teaching facilities. academics the approximate 17,000 students who typically occupy the college at any one time are from a wide variety of chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and many come from other countries. the staff number at around 2,560, with 520 of them being onsite professors or associate professors whose focus includes western medicine, traditional chinese medicine, and a hybrid combination of the two. facility wise, the college has five non-subordinating hospitals and 39 teaching hospitals with a total of 15,500 patient beds.