Emergency Medicine

In the early period after Beijing Friendship Hospital was founded in 1952, an emergency room was established. In 1994, the Department of Emergency Medicine was formally established, making it one of the earliest emergency departments founded in Beijing. Professor Liu Fengkui was its first director.

At the beginning of 2001, Professor Xie Miaorong, then director of the department, proposed the concept of “one-stop” services, advocating that emergency patients should receive treatment without leaving the department. This meant completing the entire process—including registration, examinations, treatment, payment, and medication collection—within the emergency department, establishing emergency wards and an emergency intensive care unit, and creating a complete disease-treatment system for critically ill patients, from resuscitation → critical care → recovery in general wards. The department was equipped with dedicated laboratories, CT, gastroscopy, ultrasound, and other facilities, becoming one of the best-equipped emergency departments among Grade III Class A hospitals nationwide. In the same year, the department took the lead nationally in establishing an in-hospital “120” emergency response system. Resuscitation teams composed of experienced doctors, nurses, and nursing assistants remained on standby at all times, providing round-the-clock safety assurance for patients seeking care in the hospital’s public areas. They successfully handled numerous emergencies and saved the lives of a large number of patients, becoming an indispensable part of the hospital’s medical safety assurance system. Promoted by the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau, this initiative strongly advanced the development of emergency medicine in Beijing.

In 2016, to further improve treatment capacity and fulfill the role of a “green channel for advantageous specialties and a rescue platform for acute and critical illnesses,” under the leadership of the hospital Party Committee, Director Wang Guoxing led the department in structural renovation and functional upgrading, achieving adjustments and improvements to its working model. On December 26, 2018, the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Tongzhou Campus of Beijing Friendship Hospital began operations. On December 26, 2023, the department moved to a new site in Phase II of the Tongzhou Campus, with a floor area of 5,000 m2. On April 26, 2024, the Shunyi Campus began operations, and the department there has a floor area of 5,500 m2. Thus, the Department of Emergency Medicine of Beijing Friendship Hospital established a multi-campus layout. The emergency departments at the three campuses receive 340,000–360,000 patient visits annually, have nearly 300 beds in total, and treat nearly 50,000 resuscitation cases. The department has developed a professional team of 96 doctors and 313 nurses, becoming one of the largest emergency departments in Beijing and one of those with the broadest service coverage.

The Department of Emergency Medicine has always pursued a strategy of emphasizing both disciplinary development and platform construction. In 2017, with the support of the hospital, the “Center for Acute and Critical Illness Treatment” was established, forming an academic team centered on Professors Li Chunsheng, Xie Miaorong, and Wang Guoxing. In recent years, under the leadership of Professor Wang Guoxing, and relying on the strengths of the National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases, the department has gradually developed distinctive expertise in the treatment of acute and critical digestive-system diseases. Its academic standards have continued to improve, and its ability to diagnose and treat difficult and critical illnesses has steadily increased. Patients transferred from other hospitals account for more than 30% of cases. The department identified and successfully treated the first human case of Cercopithecine herpesvirus infection in China (the 93rd case worldwide). In 2023, the department was approved as a National Key Clinical Specialty, and its disciplinary rankings (STEM and Fudan specialty reputation rankings) have steadily improved. The department’s academic leaders serve, respectively, as Standing Committee members of the Emergency Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, Standing Committee members of the Emergency Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Chair of the Emergency Medicine Branch of the Beijing Medical Association, and President of the Emergency Medicine Specialty Physicians Branch of the Beijing Medical Doctor Association, among other academic positions. They enjoy high academic standing and considerable influence in the field of emergency medicine.

The Department of Emergency Medicine is an accredited training site for doctoral and master’s students in emergency medicine at Capital Medical University. It has 3 doctoral supervisors and 4 master’s supervisors, and has trained more than 60 doctoral and master’s students. The department is a standardized residency training base for emergency medicine in Beijing and a certification base for emergency specialty nurses of the Chinese Medical Association and the Beijing Medical Association. It undertakes undergraduate and graduate teaching at Capital Medical University, as well as continuing-training programs for doctors and nurses from across China. In 2020, it undertook the China–Israel cooperation project, the “China–Israel Emergency and First-Aid Training Center,” introducing Israeli faculty and training content and cultivating 340 key emergency and first-aid professionals for Beijing. The department places great importance on research-led disciplinary development. It has undertaken 9 national-level projects, including projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, as well as numerous provincial- and ministerial-level projects. Within five years, it published 3 expert consensuses, 5 monographs, and more than 100 academic papers.

Over the 30 years since the department was established, the Department of Emergency Medicine has consistently upheld its departmental motto: “Save lives, devote our prime years, let life continue in our hands, and keep compassion in our hearts.” It respects life, cares for patients, and fosters a positive and progressive departmental culture. Through its high standards of medical ethics and professional conduct, it has received recognition from the vast number of patients it serves and from its supervising authorities. It has successively received honors including National Model Workers’ Pioneer Unit and Beijing Model Collective. More than 10 individuals have received honors including the Beijing May 1 Labor Medal and Beijing March 8 Red-Banner Holder.

After more than 70 years of development, the Department of Emergency Medicine of our hospital has grown into a specialized department and functional platform characterized by the treatment of acute and critical illnesses. It has saved the lives of countless patients and made outstanding contributions to safeguarding public health. We will continue to carry forward our traditions, uphold our departmental motto, and adhere to the principle of being “patient-centered,” striving to build a high-level, nationally first-class discipline of emergency medicine.