A professor from Mater Dei Hospital delivers a speech at the Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine Meeting in Msida, Malta, on May 18, 2019. The first ever Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine Meeting was held at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta's state hospital, on Saturday. (Xinhua/Yuan Yun)

VALLETTA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The first ever Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine Meeting was held at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta's state hospital, on Saturday.

The meeting aims to foster academic communication between Chinese and Western medicine in Malta, to further promote Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) therapies, and to improve the level of understanding and academic exchanges between Chinese and Western medicine.

Around 70 participants, including doctors from the Mediterranean Regional Centre for TCM, doctors from Mater Dei Hospital and Saint James Hospital, professors and students from the University of Malta, therapists and nurses, attended the meeting.

Focusing on the theme of how to combine Chinese and Western medicine in European countries, and apply them in practice, the participants held a warm discussion and put forward some suggestions and proposals on teaching, system construction,training mechanism and so on.

Charles Savona Ventura, head of the department of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the center for TCM of the University of Malta, actively participated in the meeting and acknowledged the significance of the meeting.

It could help to bring western doctors in touch with traditional Chinese medicine professionals and the value of traditional Chinese medicine, said Charles Savona Ventura.

"I do believe that we should be more open and I think it is a very important conference," said Alex Manche, chairman of Cardiac Surgical Department of Mater Dei Hospital,"Try to understand things as we grow older as there is more knowledge. It is an opportunity to see the knowledge of a very different kind."

This meeting was organized by China's Jiangsu health commission and the Mediterranean Regional Centre for Traditional Chinese Medicine.