Department of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine of West China Hospital was founded in 1956. Now it is an excellent key discipline of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a National Key Clinical specialty (Surgery of TCM) of the National Health Committee, the post-doctoral research flow station of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the doctoral degree authorization point of the first level discipline of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, the National Regional Diagnosis and Treatment Center of TCM (Surgery of TCM), the key specialty (pulmonary disease of TCM) of the State Administration of TCM, The National clinical research base of drugs (TCM), and The National demonstration unit of TCM work in general hospital, Sichuan Acute Pancreatitis Prevention and Treatment Center of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, key specialty of Sichuan Administration of TCM (Anorectum of TCM). Ranking at the top of the first level discipline evaluation of the Ministry of education in China.
A brief introduction to the sub-specialty (Digestion) of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine
The treatment of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) and intestinal obstruction is mainly carried out at the Department of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine. We innovatively put forward the "theory of heat disease" which can systematically summarize the evolution rule of pathogenesis and syndrome types of SAP and the "yihuoqingxia" therapy under its guidance. A variety of characteristic therapeutic methods of TCM, such as combination of acupuncture and medicine, internal and external application of TCM, oral administration and enema, are adopted. We combined with the treatment technology and academic progress of Western medicine, forming a mature and comprehensive treatment system of combination of Chinese and Western medicine.
The digestion sub-specialty is the national leading unit of cooperation between Chinese and Western medicine for major and difficult diseases of National "Three Ministries" and the leading unit of "Sichuan Provincial Center for integrated prevention and treatment of acute pancreatitis with Chinese and Western medicine". We received more than 2000 patients with acute pancreatitis every year and are one of the largest single disease treatment centers in China. The curative effect ranks the international leading level, and we are recognized as a model of Chinese medicine treatment for critical and severe diseases in the industry. At the same time, we led three cooperative units -- Mianyang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Leshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Panzhihua Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine. Focusing on the core goal of improving clinical efficacy, we highlighted the characteristics and advantages of TCM, based on clinical practice, with the continuous optimization of TCM and integrated traditional and western medicine treatment scheme as the main line, and with the scale construction of prevention center and technical cooperation center, the improvement of the level and the construction of talent echelon as the main body, endeavor to explore the effective methods of TCM prevention and treatment of major diseases, and to construct the cooperation network of provincial technical centers. In addition, on the basis of the recognized curative effect of TCM in the treatment of the disease, through resourcing integration and multi-disciplinary cooperation, our department has initially established a multi-disciplinary integrated diagnosis and treatment mode of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of SAP, "Integrated" treatment center and the collaborative mechanism of cross transformation for AP research. Through the promotion of multiple medical centers / primary hospitals, the curative effect of SAP has been significantly improved. We aim to take roots on the West China and to radiate across the country.
Talents team construction
Professor Qing Xia of our department is the academic leader of the subject of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine of Sichuan University, the academic and technical leader of Sichuan Province, and the leader of health and family planning. For a long time, he has served as the Executive Director of the Chinese society of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine, vice chairman of the General Surgical Committee, vice chairman of the Chinese Medicine Working Committee of the General Hospital of the Chinese society of TCM, and Executive Director of the Chinese Acute Pancreatitis Medical Association.
In 2017, our department introduced a first-level talent of Sichuan University, the talent in the "young thousand talents plan" of Sichuan Province -- Wei Huang from University of Liverpool in the UK, as a key member of our research team. Since then, the AP clinical research system and biological sample database were established, and the integrated research unit of traditional Chinese and Western medicine was established at the same time, forming a management system for each scientific research post. Currently our team has 40 researchers working in clinical and laboratory, including three senior researchers, three deputy senior researchers, five postdocs, seven PhD students, nine master students, one standardized training technician, and nine clinical / experimental technicians. In the past 10 years, our department has jointly trained a large number of clinical research amphibious talents in the AP field with the University of Liverpool in the UK, the University of California in the US and the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
International co-operation
Since 2007, our department has carried out extensive and in-depth international cooperation with the world's top research teams from many developed countries, greatly improved the international influence of the AP-team from West China Hospital. Trough collaborating with Robert Sutton (University of Liverpool), We have reached in-depth cooperation on the construction of biological database, cooperative research and personnel training, and established the West China-Liverpool Biomedical Research Centre, with Professor Wei Huang as the secretary-general of the center. The two sides have extensive cooperation in the fields of inflammation, tumor and infection, as well as biological sample bank, clinical scientific research talents training and postgraduate training courses. We held several West China Hospital - Liverpool clinical scientific research talents development forums. Both sides have signed strategic cooperation agreements at the school level to guide more in-depth cooperation and exchanges in the future, creating a solid win-win cooperation for both sides. We jointly published more than 40 SCI papers.
Meanwhile, we have reached a deep cooperation relationship with Professor John A. Windsor (University of Auckland, New Zealand) on cooperative research and talent cultivation. We jointly applied for and obtained the China - New Zealand intergovernmental cooperation project in 2016 and NSFC project based on the cooperation in 2017. The former is the first intergovernmental cooperation project obtained by West China Hospital and thus obtained related funding. In 2018 and 2019, Professor Wei Huang and associate Professor Dan Du, the core members of Qing Xia research group, respectively, were sponsored by "China - New Zealand scientist exchange program" to visit world-famous universities such as The University of Auckland, Otago University and Dunedin University, among which they mainly visited Professor JAW research team and conducted in-depth exchanges on future cooperation between the two sides, and jointly published more than 10 SCI papers.
Besides, 4 SCI papers were published in cooperation with Johns Hopkins University in the United States, and 1 SCI paper was published in cooperation with Jagiellonian University in Poland.
Academic achievements
Funding projects
Our department has won more than 20 international, national, provincial and ministerial level projects, and the research achievements have won the first prize of Sichuan Science and technology progress and the second prize of science and technology progress of Chinese Medical Association as early as 10 years ago. It includes the Ministry of Science and Technology national key research and development plan, SAP project of clinical cooperation pilot of Chinese and Western medicine for major and difficult diseases of the State Administration of TCM, Sichuan Provincial Department of Science and Technology International Science and Technology Innovation cooperation project, 1·3·5project of excellent development of discipline of West China Hospital of Sichuan University and general project of NSFC.
Participation in international conferences and guidelines
Researcher Wei Huang, the core member of Qing Xia’s research group, serves as secretary of the International Pancreas research group. Professor Qing Xia and researcher Wei Huang were invited by David C. Whitcomb, the international top pancreatic expert, the father of pancreatitis gene and director of the center for precision medicine of the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. The professor invited members of the top pancreatic center in China (Navy hospital, Eastern theater general hospital, Jiangsu People's Hospital and the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University) to attend pancreas-fest meeting, and made a special report on the current situation of acute pancreatitis research in China. In addition, researcher Wei Huang, lecturer Tao Jin and Dr. Xiaoying Zhang made oral presentations at the top academic conferences such as the Asian Pancreas Association, the European Pancreas Club and the annual meeting of the American Pancreas Association. Professor Qing Xia and researcher Wei Huang were invited by the international acute pancreatitis guideline revision group in 2020 to serve as vice chairmen of "acute recurrent pancreatitis" and "acute pancreatitis pain treatment", and participated in the writing of "acute pancreatitis organ failure" guidelines. 14 articles of our team were cited in 12 international guidelines / consensus.
Publications
In the past five years, the research team of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine digestive subspecialty has published 76 papers in journals included in SCI, of which 8 are high-quality journals in the fields of digestion, surgery, critical medicine, molecular biology, pharmacy and traditional Chinese medicine: Gastroenterology (1, IF 20), Gut (3, IF 17), Br J Surg (1, IF 5.9), Crit Care Med (1, IF 7), Cell Death Dis (1, IF 5.5), Phytomedicine (1, IF 4.2) and J Ethopharmacol (2, IF 3.1).
