The Department of Pediatric Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University (the former First Affiliated Hospital of West China University of Medical Sciences), one of the earliest centers for pediatric surgery in the country, was founded on October 1, 1960 by Professor Hu Tingze, a nationally well-known pediatric surgery expert. With unremitting efforts of four generations of medical staff in the past 60 years, the Department has currently developed into the Medical Center for Children's Surgery in the fields of medical care, teaching & learning and scientific research. It is also the chairman unit of Pediatric Surgery Committee of Sichuan Medical Association and Chengdu Medical Association, and the Diagnosis and Treatment Center of Complicated Diseases in western China. Both of its overall strength and academic influence rank top in the country.
Currently, the Department of Pediatric Surgery consists of six main subspecialties, namely Pediatric General Surgery, Pediatric Urology, Pediatric Orthopedics, Pediatric Thoracic Surgery, Neonatal Surgery and Pediatric Oncology Surgery. The Department has 9 on-duty professors, 9 associate professors, 12 attending physicians and professional medical team of over 70 medical staff. In the main campus, the Department has 112 beds, and it received 78,969 outpatients, admitted 9,169 inpatients and performed 8,354 cases of surgeries in 2018. In Shangjin Branch Campus, the Department has 26 beds, and it admitted 1,533 inpatients and performs 1,297 cases of surgeries in 2018.
The Department was one of the six earliest approved master's and doctoral programs in pediatric surgery in China and has trained more than 100 extraordinary master stuednts in pediatric surgery for the country. Currently, the Department has over 20 doctors and postgraduates at school. It became one of the first national pediatric surgery specialist training centers under the Ministry of Health in 2006. In 2007, together with the Department of Pediatric Medicine, West China Women’s and Children’s Hospital, the Department was awarded the National Key Discipline. And in 2012, the two departments co-established the West China Children's Medical Center of Sichuan University. In 2018, the Department was listed as a designated institute under the National Fund for Congenital Structural Anomalies. In 2019, it became the training base for advanced study of thousands of pediatric medical staff in western China under the Ai You Foundation - Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Firefly's Dream Project.
Not only the training of common ailments of pediatric surgery can the Department implement, including standardized treatments of acute abdomen in children, inguinal hernia and hydrocele, thoracic deformity, genitourinary deformity and congenial malformations of bone and joints, but the Department also keeps abreast with the latest international trends in the area of pediatric surgery, such as children's minimally invasive surgery, children's organ transplants and Da Vinci robotic-aided surgery.
Meanwhile, the Department is also conducting exchanges and cooperation with education institutions in various fields from countries and regions including the U.S., Australia, Japan and Chinese Hong Kong, and regards "interdisciplinary" and "translational medicine" as an important path to academic development, so as to keep up the pace with international developments, further promote its capabilities in clinical practices and benefit children patients in Southwest China and even the entire country.
The Pediatric Surgery Nursing Team adheres to the concept of "Care & Service" and provides high-quality nursing services for children patients to realize the objectives of "guaranteeing patients' safety to their parents' satisfaction". The team has rich clinical experience in pediatric urology, general surgery, general chest, orthopedics and neonatal care, and works actively to follow the latest international practices by carrying out a series of coordinated nursing services for minimally invasive surgery of the chest, abdomen and posterior peritoneum as well as for liver transplantation surgeries. The team has also initiated featured outpatient services including consultation, education and examination of Anorectal malformation in children served by nurses as well as long-term pediatric surgery-featured subspecialty nursing services: 1. pediatric colostomy home nursing 2. pediatric wound care 3. pediatric vein treatment care 4. pediatric pain assessment care 5. community screening and care for pediatric common ailments.
The team has abundant experience in teaching & learning and offers regular programs of pediatric surgery internship, normalized training and advanced study for nurses. These efforts have contributed greatly to cultivating nursing specialist to southwestern China and have been successively granted 2 nursing scientific research projects under the Sichuan Provincial Health Commission and Sichuan Provincial Science and Technology Department, with several papers published in core and statistical-source journals and multiple utility model patents. The team ranks top of the pediatric surgery nursing in southwestern China with its strong scientific research strength.
