Development history: the Department of Anesthesiology of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, was officially founded as an independent Department in 1978. Professor Min Longqiu acted as the first director of the Department; Professor Jin Defang and Professor Wang Quanyun acted as the second and the third directors, respectively, all of whom witnessed the fast development of the Department. In 1984, the anesthesiology master station was set up. In 1990, the ICU was established, with Professor Wu Shuhong from the Department of Anesthesiology acting as the first ICU director. In 1995, Professor Wang Quanyun opened the pain clinic. In 2000, Professor Liu Jin, was transferred to the Center from Beijing Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, to act as the director of the Department of Anesthesiology, the ICU and the Anesthesiology& Critical Care Medicine Teaching and Research Section. In 2015, the Anesthesia & Operation Center was founded by win-win cooperation of the Department of Anesthesiology and the operating room.
One of the largest anesthesia & operation center in the world: The Anesthesia& Operation Center now has more than 1200 staff members of different levels, including 22 with senior title, 25 with sub-senior title and 54 with mid-level title. In the list staff there are 8 doctoral tutors and 26 master tutors. In 2018, there were 307 resident physicians in training and 87 postgraduates in medical school. Totally 84 physicians were received from the country for advanced clinical anesthesia training. The Center also has 95 anesthesia nurses, 278 operating room nurses, 10 advanced study nurses, 9 technicians, 3 secretaries and 92 workers. It is one of the largest anesthesia & operation center in the world. 130,000 in operating room anaesthesia and 120,000 out of operating room anaesthesia were provided in 2019.
Anesthesia Recovery Room and Post-operative Analgesia: The Department has 11 anesthesia recovery wards consisting of 100 beds. In the list of staff of the anesthesia recovery nursing team there are 92 nurses, including 12% nurses-in-charge and 58% nurses; one nurse with master degree, 40% undergraduates majoring in nursing, 6 with CET-6 certificate, 8 with CIU specialist nurse certificate and 2 with pain treatment certificate.
Acute Pain Service (APS): APS has 1 attending physician and 6 resident doctors. The main task of APS is to provide acute pain services after surgeries, including individualized pain-treatment services for patients anticipated with moderate-severe pain after surgeries. Intravenously controlled analgesia, continuous epidural analgesia, continuous peripheral nerve block analgesia and paravertebral nerve continuous analgesia, are conducted based on surgery type.
Urologic Anesthesia Specialty Group: In 2019, the Group totally performed about 10,000 cases of surgeries for inpatients, including 462 cases of kidney transplantation. With the popular application of ultrasonic technologies in recent years, bedside ultrasonic technologies have been frequently applied in evaluating high-risk patients during the perioperative period, conducting diagnosis based on clinical findings, ultrasound-guided spinal anesthesia, and ultrasound-guided nerve block with strong characteristics.
General Surgery Anesthesia Specialty Group: The group conducts the most bases of surgeries among all subspecialties. In 2019, the group totally completed 25,000 anesthesia cases, including 150 cases of liver transplantation. The General Surgery Anesthesia Specialty Group initiatively promoted the ERAS concept covering varied forms of surgeries, including liver transplantation, to guarantee safety, painlessness and enhanced recovery of the patients.
Cardiothoracic Surgery Anesthesia Specialty Group: In 2019, the group completed 3,500 cases of all type cardiovascular surgeries and 3,578 cases of thoracic surgeries, including nearly 70 cases of anesthesia for aortic arch surgery and arterial dissection and nearly 60 cases of anaesthesia for complex pediatric cardiac surgeries such as transposition of the aorta and double outlets of the right ventricle. The group has started TEE monitoring during cardiovascular surgery since 2000. Currently, it has 6 sets of advanced ultrasound systems and 12 TEE probes. All cardiovascular surgeries are subject to intraoperative TEE diagnosis and monitoring by anesthesiologists. Besides, the procedure of ultrasound-guided vascular catheterization has been widely applied to infant patients weighed less than 10kg, including arterial and central venous catheterization in certain difficult circumstances. The group is the first to adopt superior vena cava bypass in lung cancer surgeries.
Neurosurgery Anesthesia Specialty Group: In 2019, the group completed nearly 5,500 cases of anesthesia, including 30 cases of anesthesia for intraoperative wake-up and 26 cases of anesthesia for application of abdominal aortic balloon occlusion to giant palate tail tumor. To meet the requirements for electrophysiological monitoring during different types of surgeries, the group has developed diversified standard anesthesia solutions. Meanwhile, to mitigate post-operative pains of the patients, the group has regularly applied the procedures of scalp nerve block in neurosurgical anesthesia.
The hospital has 4 special operating rooms for pediatric anesthesia (excluding the ambulatory operating room), and performs more than 25 cases of surgeries on a daily average basis, 6 days of surgery each week. In 2019, totally 7,500 pediatric surgeries with anesthesia were performed, involving a wide range of surgeries such as all types of thoracic and laparoscopic surgeries, various trauma emergency surgeries, neonatal congenital deformity surgeries, abdominal cavity, thoracic cavity, lung, mediastinal surgeries, limb and spine surgeries and urogenital surgeries. Among the 7,500 cases of surgeries, there were 10 cases of pediatric liver transplantation surgeries, nearly 300 cases of complicated neonatal surgeries and 800 cases of pediatric thoracic and mediastinal surgeries. A post-operative analgesia rate of 80% was guaranteed. In 2018, new technologies including pediatric intraoperative cerebral oxygen monitoring and electroencephalogram (BIS) monitoring were introduced.
Eye, Ear, Nose, Pharynx and Throat Anesthesia Group: In 2019, the group totally performed 17,483 cases of anesthesia, including 232 for fundus surgeries for neonates and preterm infants, 1,441 for self-retaining laryngoscope, 186 for throat cancer and 26 for carotid body tumor. Resident physicians gain an easy access to practicing awake tracheal intubation under local anesthesia, video laryngoscope intubation, fiberoptic bronchoscope intubation and the use of laryngeal mask (for the management of premature babies and newborns in particular).
Orthopaedics Anesthesia Specialty Group: In 2019, the group totally performed 7,554 cases of anesthesia for selective surgeries for orthopaedic patients, including 1,500 cases for ultrasound guided nerve block. Almost all anesthesia methods are adopted in orthopaedics anaethesia practices: general anesthesia, spinal anesthesia and peripheral nerve block. Anesthesiologists also play active roles in post-operative pain treatment and adopt varied forms of nerve block to facilitate early functional exercise and recovery of the patients after surgeries.
The Department of Pain Treatment now has 4 medical groups and 63 beds. In the list of staff there are 1 professor, 4 associate professors, 2 attending physicians, 2 postgraduates and 16 nurses. In 2019, the number of discharged patients and accepted outpatients of the Department registered 1,817 and 24,041, respectively. The number of interventional surgeries reached 1,560, up by 20% from 2017. Totally 61 cases of spinal endoscopy surgeries were performed, up by 50% from 2017. In 2018, the Department of Pain Treatment strengthened medical safety management when total numbers of patients and surgeries increased rapidly, and also realized zero mistake, zero dispute or compensation throughout the year.
The Extracorporeal Circulation Special Group has 1 professor, 1 associate professor and 7 full-time extracorporeal circulation medical and technical personals in its list of staff. The group totally completed 2,863 cases of extracorporeal circulation surgeries, 452 cases of standby cardiovascular surgeries and 13 cases of ECMO surgeries. Currently, the group is capable of maturely carrying out extracorporeal circulation technologies for adult and pediatric cardiac macrovascular surgeries, applying extracorporeal circulation technologies to non-cardiovascular surgeries while applying extracorporeal lift support in the treatment and rescue of critical patients.
Out of operating room anesthesia group: the Department of Anesthesiology started regular painless gastrointestinal and electric shock treatment in 2003 and painless bronchoscopy in 2009. The group currently has 35 sites for out of operating room anaesthesia for performing painless gastrointestinal anesthesia, painless bronchoscopic anesthesia, painless electrical shock anesthesia, and interventional anesthesia. In 2019, more than 120.000 out of operating room anaesthesia cases were provided.
