Online Student Exchange with the University of Trieste, Italy

Due to the global spread of COVID-19, universities in Japan and abroad have been forced to postpone or cancel most of their student exchange programs. 　Against this backdrop, the Shinshu University School of Medicine started a new initiative for international exchange, using ICT to enable an online student exchange with the University of Trieste in Italy (Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences and Life Sciences), our partner university since August 7, 2018.

On August 3, 2020, an online conference was held and students from both universities gave excellent talks on the topic "How has COVID-19 changed our daily life and student life?" from the perspective of medical students. 　The presentations led to discussions among the participating students, faculty members and doctors about the different practices in Japan and Italy, and also to the sharing of ideas about how best to organize subsequent online tutorials for our exchange students.

This was a great start for a new way of conducting student exchanges between the two universities. The Shinshu University School of Medicine also intends to implement this approach with other partner universities as a means of offering new learning opportunities to our medical students.