Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) in Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine

Overview

The Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine(Respiratory Medicine) of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine was established in 1979. In 2003, it became a key construction unit of respiratory specialty in Guangdong Province. In 2007, it became a key construction unit of respiratory specialty by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 2011, it passed the acceptance of the key respiratory specialty construction in the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and was officially listed as a national key respiratory specialty of traditional Chinese medicine. In 2018, it became one of the first batch of national regional (traditional Chinese medicine) diagnosis and treatment center construction units and the first traditional Chinese medical institution to obtain excellent evaluation in the national standardized construction project of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM). During more than 40 years of development, while introducing advanced diagnosis and treatment technologies, the Department has continuously developed the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine in treating respiratory diseases, becoming a nationally leading traditional Chinese medicine pulmonary specialty with distinctive characteristics and significant clinical efficacy. The Department has four wards (including Dade Road General Hospital, Fangcun Hospital, University City Hospital and Zhuhai Hospital, with a total of 140 beds), three pulmonary function test rooms, four bronchoscopy rooms, smoking cessation clinics, respiratory specialized clinics, comprehensive respiratory outpatient TCM treatment room, sleep respiratory disease diagnosis and treatment rooms as well as innovative research teams for “traditional Chinese medicine prevention and treatment of chronic cough and dyspnea diseases”, specialized laboratories and other departments. The respiratory specialty outpatient clinic serves about 200 thousand patients per year and nearly 4000 inpatients per year. In 2020, it was selected as the best research-oriented specialty in China’s TCM hospital ranking by ELPIS. In 2022, it ranked first in the national academic influence evaluation research report of Chinese medicine hospital disciplines (specialties) jointly issued by the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 2023, it won the first place in the competition of respiratory specialties in Chinese medicine hospitals in the 2022 national hospital competitiveness ranking organized by ELPIS.

Talent echelon

There are currently 142 staff members in the department, including 42 physicians, 11 senior physicians, 11 associate senior physicians, 10 intermediate-level physicians, 1 doctoral supervisor and 10 master supervisors. The specialty has two national famous old Chinese medicine academic experience tutors, one famous provincial Chinese medicine expert, one famous municipal Chinese medicine expert, two young and middle-aged famous Chinese medicine experts selected by The China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, one talent won the title of provincial “thousand-hundred-ten talents program”, two provincial outstanding Chinese medicine talents, one provincial outstanding young Chinese medicine talent, one national expert of pulmonary function group and two famous hospital-level Chinese medicine doctors.
According to the development needs of sub-specialties, the specialty has cultivated a group of young and middle-aged specialists with solid traditional Chinese medicine foundation, excellent clinical skills and active scientific research thinking, such as respiratory clinical talents, respiratory intervention talents, pulmonary function talents and respiratory scientific research talents.

Specialty characteristics

The specialty takes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchial asthma, subacute/chronic cough, respiratory infectious diseases and other diseases as the main research direction, aiming to reveal the connotation of TCM theory in diseases, improve the content of theory and improve clinical efficacy. Our department has two famous doctor studios (Zhou Zhongying National Chinese Medical Master Famous Doctor Studio and Lin Lin Famous Doctor Studio), inheriting the experience of national Chinese medical masters and famous Chinese medicine doctors, transforming the experience of famous doctors into clinical results. At present, our department has developed respiratory Ba Duan Jin combined with respiratory rehabilitation therapy and can use nearly 30 other traditional Chinese medicine therapies. We inherit the “cultivate soil to produce gold theory”, develop the “Zongqi” theory, and develop in-house preparations such as spleen-tonifying and lung-benefiting I formula and II formula. The latest Western medical diagnosis and treatment technology has been introduced. Interventional treatment technologies such as tracheoscopic biopsy, brushing examination, TBNA, TBLB, stent placement, argon plasma coagulation, high-frequency electric knife airway tumor resection, cryoablation technology and lung volume reduction surgery have been carried out. Multiple technologies such as lung ventilation, ventilation function, residual gas volume measurement, airway resistance function measurement, exercise lung rehabilitation, exercise cardiopulmonary function detection, FENO detection, induced sputum cytology examination, sleep breathing monitoring and right heart catheterization are available.
Our department was the first to set up the pulmonary rehabilitation room in the Lingnan area, and pulmonary rehabilitation was integrated into chronic disease management. The characteristics of chronic disease management work are remarkable. The outpatient department of chronic disease management adopts a team form to provide patients with disease diagnosis and treatment, health consultation, dietary guidance and respiratory treatment by combining clinical medical services with preventive health care. It forms an integrated professional diagnosis-treatment-nursing model in which doctors, patients and nurses participate together.
The chronic disease management system is becoming more and more perfect. At present, nearly 1,500 patients have been registered, with nearly 6,000 outpatient visits per year and 10,000 follow-up visits per year. The center takes the Guangdong Provincial Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine Respiratory Disease Professional Committee and the Lingnan Traditional Chinese Medicine Respiratory Disease Medical Alliance as platforms. Every year, it carries out chronic disease management training to guide the construction of chronic disease in subordinate hospitals and form a demonstration effect in the region. The comprehensive traditional Chinese medicine chronic disease management plan integrated with pulmonary rehabilitation has achieved good social effects after clinical promotion and verification and won the third prize of scientific and technological achievements of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Research achievements of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Since 1997, the specialty has undertaken more than 150 research projects, including 18 national research projects, 2 international cooperation research projects, and 67 provincial and ministerial research projects. The accumulated research funding is more than 30 million yuan. In the past decade, the specialty has published more than 300 papers, including more than 30 SCI papers with the highest impact factor of 10.307. One of our Research achievements have been nominated for one National Science and Technology Progress Award by the Ministry of Education. We also won one third prize for scientific and technological progress in Guangzhou, and won two second prizes for science and technology progress from the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The specialty processed more than 30 patents and academic achievements , also has edited a total of 11 academic monographs.

Specialty influence

Our department led the establishment of the Lingnan Traditional Chinese Medicine Respiratory Disease Medical Alliance. The alliance aims to gradually realize a closely integrated specialty medical alliance with the diagnosis and treatment model of “primary-level first diagnosis, two-way referral between primary hospitals and higher-level hospitals, up-down linkage, and teaching-research integration” with the goal of “joint development and progress”. The alliance relies on the resource platform of the Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine to integrate the advantageous resources of alliance units, radiating Lingnan region with the Pearl River Delta as the center and fully playing its role in the regional medical network. Currently, there are more than 60 member units in the alliance, covering three provinces of Guangdong, Hainan and Hunan from primary hospitals to tertiary A-level hospitals.
Our specialty has also established counterpart cooperation relationships with five hospitals inside and outside Guangdong Province, regularly sending experts to the cooperative hospitals for consultation, free clinics, and ward rounds. And signed agreements to establish famous doctor studios in two cooperative hospitals. The specialty actively carries out external exchanges and has formed a friendly cooperative relationship with research institutions in the Australian region for long-term exchanges.