The education of international medical students is not only an important part of talent cultivation in universities, but also an important sign that the quality of higher education in China is internationally recognized [1] . Curriculum ideology and politics is an important way to expand the ideological and political education of international students. Teachers can integrate ideological and political elements in professional courses to help international students understand China, perceive and identify with the core socialist values with Chinese characteristics, improve their own moral cultivation, and enable them to not only be the bearers of Chinese stories, but also the disseminators of Chinese stories. At present, the implementation of ideological and political education in the curriculum for international medical students is still in the exploration stage. How to cultivate virtues and morality among international students and help them establish correct worldviews, outlooks on life, and values, making them important bridges and bonds for spreading Chinese culture, is one of the important issues in current international student education.

This article is based on the education situation of international students in China, relying on the pathology course, focusing on the issue of ideological and political education in the courses for international students, deeply analyzing the characteristics of ideological and political education in the courses for international students in China, exploring and condensing the elements of ideological and political education in the courses, with the expectation of promoting the high-quality development of education for international students in China.

As for the medical international students in our school, the main source countries are India, Ghana, Pakistan and some other countries where basic education is not very developed. However, there is a large gap in students’ learning ability, which poses a great challenge to the overall grasp of the teaching progress. In addition, due to the different political system, basic national conditions and social system from China, it is difficult to carry out ideological and political education. On the other hand, the teaching for international medical students in China is mainly conducted in English, which causes language expression barriers for the implementation of moral education work. Therefore, no courses related to ideological and political education have been offered to international students, or merely offer courses such as Medical Ethics and Psychology, which have negligible effects on ideological and political education for international medical students. Most medical universities conduct ideological and political education for international students through indoctrinating “explicit education”, such as stiffly imparting Chinese socialist culture, without considering the customs and cultural differences of students from different countries. Some mechanically applied ideological and political education may even cause some international students to have resistant and bored psychology, thus failing to implement ideological and political education effectively.

Pathology is a basic medical science and, at the same time, one of the important disciplines of clinical medicine. However, in their daily teaching work, teachers pay more attention to the cultivation of students’ professional knowledge and skills, while neglecting ideological and political education. Secondly, due to the particularity of the medical major, students find in the learning process that the major requires a high degree of mastery of basic knowledge and skills, which leads to students mistakenly believing that teachers of specialized courses should not take up time to teach ideological and political content. Therefore, students lack autonomy, enthusiasm, and feedback in learning the ideological and political teaching content, making it difficult to achieve the expected goals [2] . In addition, although some professional course teachers are aware of the importance of ideological and political education, due to the lack of systematic and perfect teaching content, teachers can not grasp the connotation of ideological and political teaching, and unable to grasp the teaching focus.

In view of the above reasons, there are still certain difficulties in integrating ideological and political education into the teaching of pathology for international students, which is not conducive to enhancing their cognition of China, making it difficult for them to better integrate into the life during their study in China, and is not conducive to the dissemination of Chinese culture and Chinese knowledge.

Pathology is one of the compulsory courses for medical students after they enter the medical field [3] . Before studying pathology, students have already established a foundational understanding of medicine. Following their study of pathology, they will proceed to specialize in clinical subjects. Consequently, pathology plays a pivotal role as a bridge between basic medical sciences and clinical medicine. In terms of curriculum design, the teaching content of pathology includes general pathology and systemic pathology. The general pathology mainly studies the universality, general laws of diseases and the common pathological basis in diseases. While the systemic pathology elaborates on the particularities, morphological characteristics, prognosis and outcome, as well as the clinical pathological correlations of diseases in each system. During the general pathology teaching process, many outstanding deeds of medical workers have become important materials for ideological and political education, and these materials have a significant promoting effect on the development of pathology. The systemic pathology, on the basis of the general pathology, further clarify and summarize the particularities of different systemic diseases, reflecting the relationship between commonality and individuality in Marxist dialectics, and the mutual transformation of commonality and individuality, jointly promoting the occurrence and development of things, which coincides with the pathological changes in diseases. These knowledge structures with humanistic characteristics constitute all the links in the teaching of the pathology major, which not only expand the levels and dimensions of professional knowledge but also imperceptibly sublimate the spiritual realm of students. Furthermore, the pathology department is highly distinctive among many departments in a hospital. The main reason is that the objects of diagnosis and treatment are specimens and paraffin sections, which cannot express their own feelings or subjective intentions. Instead, it requires pathologists to determine the benignity or malignancy of tissue specimens through the professional knowledge they have learned and the experience they have accumulated. At the same time, a comprehensive analysis and judgment need to be made in combination with relevant clinical data, laboratory tests, and imaging examinations. This requires pathologists to be more patient, careful, and confident. Moreover, pathologists need to have doctor-patient communication with patients or their families, which demands that pathologists not only possess superb medical skills but also have good humanistic cultivation to improve the level of doctor-patient communication. Unlike the quality-oriented education that Chinese students receive, which focuses on the all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics and labor skills, the current curriculum for international students leans towards specialized courses and neglects moral education, which is not conducive to the construction of their worldviews and values during their individual growth process. Integrating ideological and political teaching into medical education for international students can not only promote the concept of establishing oneself, conducting studies, and imparting knowledge with virtue, but also actively guide students to establish a correct world outlook, outlook on life, and values, cultivate the spirit of “cherishing life, saving lives, being willing to contribute, and having boundless love” among students, and place the cultivation of medical skills and the education of benevolence on an equal footing.

Medical colleges shoulder the important responsibility of delivering excellent medical workers to major hospitals. Ideological and political teaching plays a key role in the development of pathology courses in medical colleges, and is an important way to achieve the goal of classroom education in medical colleges in the new era. It is a long-term and arduous task and a systematic project to carry out “curriculum ideology and politics” for international students under the background of traditional Chinese medicine culture. In the teaching process of professional courses, pathology teachers should give full play to the role of classroom guidance, further strengthen the summary of teaching experience, explore the path of ideological and political construction of pathology courses for international students, and cultivate international talents who meet the needs.

The present study was supported by the Full English Teaching Course Construction Project of Yangtze University (Grant No. 202202).

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