Since June 29, 182 sophomores of Tsinghua SEM will leave Beijing for the countryside of Anhui, Shanghai, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Qinghai to conduct a 10-day on-the-spot investigation as Tsinghua SEM 2009 summer field trip has formally kicked off. The theme of this year's summer field trip is "current situation of health care system in Chinese rural areas".

The launch ceremony of the summer field trip and its press briefing were held at Tsinghua SEM on June 28, 2009.

(Students Conferred the SEM Flag )

The participants will be divided into 16 teams, with research covering 16 cities/counties in areas along Yangtz River.

The program is launched on the occasion of the reform of China's health care system. On April 6, Chinese government has issued a guideline on fixing the ailing health care system after over five months of debate and revision. It kicked off the long-anticipated reform to ensure health care service is more accessible and affordable to the country's 1.3 billion people. During the summer field trip period, SEM students will visit the health care departments of local governments with different levels, approach and interview the rural doctors and patients there and conduct relevant surveys.

Before the students’ trip, Tsinghua SEM has invited relevant officials from health care section of the government as well as experts from health care community to provide professional training to the participating students. Topics included “Relevant reports on medical health”, “The past and current situation of doctors in Chinese rural areas”; ”Attentions on academic research”; “How to do indoor-interview”; and “Explanation on Questionnaire ”.

All the research work is expected to be accomplished before July 15; students will present their final research reports based on the data collected through the field trip on July 16.