impact of international collaborative training programs on medical students’ research ability

International collaborative training programs for graduate students are widespread, but studies on their educational impact are limited. as an advanced cancer institute in china, cancer hospital chinese academy of medical science (chcams) attaches great importance to international exchanges and cooperation within graduate education. the department of epidemiology of chcams has been involved in several existing international training programs and has also launched a short-term training program in cooperation with foreign universities and institutes from 2008. fogarty international clinical research scholars and fellows (ficrs-f) program and the fulbright-fogarty fellowship program are the most typical examples of our practice in international cooperation on graduate education over these years. our department has gained substantial experience in graduate-level international collaborative training, focused on cancer epidemiology. this paper is a brief introduction to the practice of different programs in our department and students’ achievements during and after training. moreover, we attempt to serve as a reference and help promote the training of graduate students pursuing careers in cancer research or global health by other universities or research institutes.