Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Department (Pulmonary Diseases Department)

Department Overview Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Nanqiaosi Campus) established its Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in 1956 and is now a development unit for the inheritance work of Famous TCM Physician Studios under the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a unit meeting the standards for standardized development of the national Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) discipline, a partner institution of the respiratory medical consortium of China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, a development unit for standardized management of chronic airway diseases, and a development unit for a key TCM discipline in Chongqing. The department has 30 physicians, including 6 chief physicians/TCM physicians, 6 deputy chief physicians, 14 attending physicians, 1 resident physician, and 3 TCM technicians; 6 staff members with doctoral degrees, 19 with master's degrees, and 5 with bachelor's degrees; 2 municipal-level renowned TCM physicians, 1 hospital-level renowned TCM physician, 1 high-level young and middle-aged medical professional in Chongqing, 3 hospital-level top-tier professionals, 1 high-level young and middle-aged medical professional in Chongqing, and 2 TCM physicians apprenticed to Zhang Xijian, a nationally renowned TCM physician. The department currently has 2 wards and an independent respiratory intensive care unit (RICU), with 98 beds in total. The wards have a bronchoscopy examination room, a sleep and respiratory monitoring center, and a TCM physiotherapy and pulmonary rehabilitation room (Tiaoxi Pavilion). The outpatient department has specialty clinics for pulmonary nodules, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, bronchiectasis, pulmonary interstitial fibrosis, and TCM smoking cessation, as well as specialist clinics and clinics of renowned senior TCM physicians (Famous Doctors' Hall); it also has a pulmonary function testing room, a chronic disease management clinic, and a TCM comprehensive treatment room, and sees more than 80,000 outpatient visits annually.

The department has various advanced equipment and instruments, including noninvasive, invasive, and transport ventilators; a large pulmonary function testing system; a portable pulmonary function testing system; a sleep monitoring system; an ultrasound bronchoscope; an ultrafine bronchoscope; a FeNO meter; radial ultrasound; bedside critical-care ultrasound; a high-flow respiratory humidification device; a four-diagnostic instrument; a diaphragmatic pacemaker; an ultrasound drug-delivery device; a pulse acupuncture therapy device; a medium-frequency therapy device; an electronic moxibustion therapy device; and others.

The department uses an integrated Chinese-Western approach to diagnose and treat common and frequently occurring respiratory diseases, such as pulmonary nodules, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer, pneumonia, pneumothorax, and pleural effusion. Transbronchial interventional diagnostic and therapeutic techniques are performed year-round, including bronchoscopic bronchoalveolar lavage, endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial lung biopsy (EBUS-TBLB), endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA), endobronchial ultrasound via a guide sheath (EBUS-GS), electric snare resection of airway tumors under electronic bronchoscopy, carbon dioxide cryotherapy, argon-knife resection, airway stent placement, balloon occlusion for endobronchial bleeding, balloon-catheter dilation of airway stenosis, bronchial artery angiography and embolization, percutaneous lung biopsy, medical thoracoscopy, and others. These techniques have improved the diagnosis, treatment, and staging of endoluminal airway diseases and malignant tumors and have enhanced the treatment and rescue of patients with airway stenosis.

The department's distinctive TCM strengths include: 1) smoking-cessation tea and smoking-cessation lozenges to relieve symptoms of tobacco dependence and aid smoking cessation; 2) individualized treatment integrating disease and TCM syndrome for interstitial lung disease (pulmonary fibrosis); 3) Sini Biejia Decoction for treating pulmonary nodules; 4) whole-course TCM management of chronic airway diseases: early relief during the acute phase, prevention of recurrence during the remission phase, delaying the decline of pulmonary function, and improving quality of life; 5) TCM pulmonary rehabilitation techniques. Distinctive TCM techniques and preparations include: the intradermal-needle Shu-Mu point combination method, wind-dispersing and lung-draining acupuncture, moxibustion with an intervening medium using the “strengthen Earth to generate Metal” method, cross electroacupuncture at the neck for sputum clearance, the Chinese herbal iontophoresis method for descending qi and transforming phlegm, Fujiu patches, a Chinese herbal poultice formula for resolving (pleural) fluid, cough-relief patches, hemostatic patches, and others.

In recent years, the department has undertaken more than 20 national and provincial/ministerial clinical research projects and published more than 100 academic papers. It is a teaching and internship base of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a standardized training base for Chinese and Western medicine, and has trained large numbers of standardized trainees, interns, and advanced-study trainees. Address: No. 6, Panxi Qizhi Road, Jiangbei District, Chongqing. Inpatient Department: Floors 10–11, Building C, Nanqiaosi Campus, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Outpatient Department: 1st Floor, Outpatient Department, Nanqiaosi Campus, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Contact information: Inpatient Department 023-67067473/67711925; Outpatient Department 023-67551445.