West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University (WCSM/WCH, SCU) was founded in 1892 and recognized as a national general hospital and a diagnosis and treatment center for complex and critical illnesses, as well as a renowned medical school in China. WCH is also a national base for top-tier medical research and technological innovation.

 

WCH boasts a strong and comprehensive range of medical disciplines and ranks highly in the world for clinical medicine, according to the Essential Science Indicators (ESI, top 0.297‰). The hospital is home to 9 national key disciplines, two key cultivation disciplines, and 39 national key clinical specialties, making it the hospital with the highest number of such designations in the country. It has received the highest rating of A++ in the National Performance Evaluation of Public Tertiary Hospitals for 6 consecutive years.

 

Medical Care

 

The hospital has three directly affiliated medical campuses, 4900 beds, 54 clinical departments (including 7 specialized disease centers). It has set up over 200 specialty clinics and specialized disease clinics, and carried out 95 complex and multidisciplinary joint clinics and 81 inpatient MDT programs.

 

In 2024, the WCH served 7.35 million patients for outpatient and emergency visits. The hospital successfully discharged 263, 000 inpatients and performed an impressive 197, 000 surgeries, with an average length of stay (ALOS) of 7.05 days. A significant proportion of patients admitted to the hospital, over 80%, had severe and complex medical conditions. This is reflected in the hospital’s high Case Mix Index (CMI) of 1.71, which places it among the top in the country. The hospital’s expertise in minimally invasive surgeries is evident, with 26.37% of all surgeries performed using this method. Additionally, the hospital’s fourth-level surgeries accounted for 39.34% of all surgeries.

 

WCH is a leader in adult living donor liver transplantation, lung cancer surgery and mini-invasive therapy, cardiac intervention, neurosurgery, minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgery, laryngeal allotransplantation, clinical anesthesia, FMRI, nuclear medicine, etc.

 

Medical Education

 

WCSM/WCH has a competency-based education system for aspiring medical students, encompassing undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs. Our undergraduate education program offers six majors, including Clinical Medicine (in 5-Year and 8-Year programs), Nursing, Medical Imaging Technology, Rehabilitation Therapy, Laboratory Science and Medical Technology, and Optometry and Vision Science. Our graduate education program boasts four first-level disciplines: Clinical Medicine, Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Nursing, and Medical Technology. It offers a wide range of master’s and doctoral degree programs, with 68 programs for the former and 67 for the latter. The school has a vibrant student population, with more than 7,100 students enrolled. 

 

WCSM/WCH places great importance on training clinical competence and innovation ability for medical students. Our students have won numerous awards, including the silver medal in the 10th China University Student Medical Technology Skills Competition and 17 gold medals in the Internet + Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

 

Since 2000, WCSM/WCH has been the first organization in China to conduct and promote residency training. The institution has trained over 6, 089 people for 645 hospitals and over 600 resident doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and pharmacists for Tibet free of charge. We welcome more than 4,000 advanced trainees to study here every year, and WCH’s distance education courses are studied about 2 million times annually.

 

Research and Innovation

 

WCH has established research campuses covering over 260,000 ㎡, including 9 national-level and 52 provincial/ministerial-level platforms such as the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, the 2011 Collaborative Innovation Plan, the National Facility for Bio-therapeutic Translational Medicine (Sichuan), the National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases and advanced shared platforms for animal imaging, chromatography/mass spectrometry, microscopic imaging, gene sequencing, flow cytometry, and electron microscopy. It is the only institution in China with a complete innovation and service chain, from target discovery to new drug screening, preclinical trials, clinical trials, and post-marketing evaluation, integrating basic, translational, and clinical research. 

 

WCH has made a significant impact in the healthcare industry with its numerous breakthroughs and innovations in medical technology. Over the past five years, the hospital has secured over 1,468 national projects with an average yearly funding of over 1 billion yuan for research. It has also been a front-runner in receiving more than 240 government science and technology awards at all levels. Our experts have published groundbreaking research in esteemed international journals like Cell, Nature, and Science.  

 

Medical Rescue

 

As a national team, WCH has been actively providing medical relief during major public health events, including the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the 2010 Yushu earthquake, the 2013 Lushan earthquake, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake, the 2019 Yibin earthquake, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and so on. In 2018, WCH established the world’s only WHO-certified non-military top-level Emergency Medical Team (EMT), which enables it to participate more effectively in global emergency medical cooperation.

 

In conclusion, WCH is a leading healthcare institution that excels in providing top-notch medical services to its patients, with a vast number of outpatient and emergency visits each year. The hospital has also established a competency-based education system for medical students, offering various undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Furthermore, WCH has remarkable scientific research capabilities, having won numerous national projects and awards and obtaining many patent approvals. These qualities showcase the hospital’s commitment to providing innovative and cutting-edge medical solutions to the global community.