In the battle against COVID-19, Hu Yu, Head of the Wuhan Union Hospital (affiliated to the First Clinical College), led the whole hospital in a prompt response to the sudden outbreak. To save as many patients as possible, his hospital established three special zones and two field hospitals, treating over 5,200 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 20,000 suspected cases, making it one of the busiest theatres in the battle against the virus. His strong leadership and fearlessness, risking his own life to save others, inspired many of his students to dive into battle to perform different roles. Through his action he practices his tenet: the best moral education is teaching by your own example.

As the pandemic made face-to-face instruction impossible, Hu developed a virtual clinical training system featuring a large pool of cases, vivid diagnosis simulation and intelligent human-computer interaction. The system is just one example of his years of efforts in integrating IT technologies into medical education. He has also actively explored the O2O teaching models combining SPOC and MOOC, in a way to optimize clinical teaching.