Thoracic Surgery

The thoracic surgery specialty was established at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. From its establishment, the Department of Thoracic Surgery maintained a high starting point: in 1953, it performed lobectomy and radical surgery for esophageal cancer; in 1956, mediastinal tumor resection; and in 1958, colon interposition for esophageal replacement in radical surgery for esophageal cancer. At that time, the hospital was among the earliest hospitals in China to perform such operations. After nearly half a century of development, successive generations of thoracic surgery professionals have carried on the fine traditions of the older-generation founders—fearlessness in the face of hardship, courage to innovate, rigorous scholarship, and bold pursuit of the heights of medicine—keeping the medical and nursing standards of thoracic surgery consistently at an advanced level in China. For example: China's first allogeneic sternum transplantation (1990); Shandong Province's first video-assisted thoracic surgery (1995); Shandong Province's first lung transplantation (2004); China's first thoracoscopic tracheal tumor resection with end-to-end anastomosis (2013); Shandong Province's first da Vinci robotic surgery for esophageal cancer (2014); Shandong Province's first thoracoscopic bronchial and pulmonary artery double-sleeve lobectomy (2014), etc.

At present, the Department of Thoracic Surgery admits more than 3000 patients annually, and the average annual number of operations exceeds 2000, of which 80% are minimally invasive procedures. Compared with the beginning of the department's establishment, both the department's scale and its volume of services have increased severalfold. The Department of Thoracic Surgery of Qingdao University Affiliated Hospital has become a center for the diagnosis and treatment of thoracic surgical diseases in eastern Shandong, while minimally invasive technologies such as thoracoscopy and the da Vinci robot remain leading in the province and at an advanced level in China. More importantly, the Department of Thoracic Surgery of Qingdao University Affiliated Hospital is a united, progressive, and academically rigorous team. During the department's weekly medical-record discussions, the experts help and communicate with one another without reservation, jointly contributing ideas for patients' treatment. The department has also established long-term friendly exchange and cooperation with thoracic surgery centers at first-class hospitals in China and abroad, providing a solid guarantee that the people of Qingdao can enjoy China's most advanced thoracic surgery diagnosis and treatment technologies without leaving Qingdao City.