Neurological Critical Care Department

The Neurology Department was founded in 1969 at the Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical College and relocated to Dalian in 1986. In 1991 Professor Wang Naichang became director of the department, and in 1995 Professor Bao Liping became a specially appointed expert of the department. Under the careful cultivation and patient guidance of the two professors, the young physicians of the department grew continuously. At the same time, with the joint efforts of all physicians, the Department of Neuropsychiatry (teaching and research section) was established. Since 2000 the Neurology Department has run its own emergency duty with independent consulting rooms and dedicated staff, receiving patients 24 hours a day with a green channel in operation.

Thereafter the department flourished. In line with the needs of its development, three wards were set up in 2013, with Xin Shimeng serving as director of the Third Neurology Department, mainly devoted to specialized care of movement disorders and demyelinating diseases.

In August 2017 the former Third Neurology Department was formally converted into the Department of Neurological Critical Care Medicine. The department is divided into two areas, an intensive care ward and a general ward, with 22 open beds in total, of which 13 are ICU beds and 9 are general-ward beds. The ICU admits severe cerebrovascular disease, status epilepticus, severe encephalitis, myasthenic crisis and other difficult and critical neurological and neurosurgical conditions requiring ventilator support; the general ward admits difficult neurological cases and Parkinson's disease patients. As the former "Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders" subspecialty of the Neurology Department, the department has for many years been committed to standardized diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease. It runs a specialized Parkinson's disease clinic and regularly holds large-scale free clinics and joint diagnostic and treatment activities with alliance hospitals. Together with the Department of Neurosurgery it performs deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery for Parkinson's disease; our department is responsible for each patient's preoperative evaluation, postoperative programming and close follow-up.

The department currently has 8 physicians, including 3 with senior titles, 2 with associate-senior titles and 5 with doctorates; the 4 attending physicians all hold master's degrees and have all passed the general practitioner examination. All physicians have rich clinical experience and have pursued further training at renowned hospitals such as Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and West China Hospital, as well as at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.

The department has 3 master's supervisors, undertakes teaching for undergraduate, master's, doctoral and advanced-study physicians, and carries 1 Liaoning Province education reform project, attaching importance to individualized teaching and clinical skills training. Nearly 40 master's students have been trained.

The department also has a nursing team with rich clinical experience and superb nursing skills: 98% hold a bachelor's degree or above, with 4 supervising nurses and 28 nurses; more than 20 nurses of the department each have over 6 years of clinical work, and the department has successively sent nurses for further study in neurological critical care at Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University.

The department is equipped with 5 ventilators and 1 bedside ultrasound machine, and has mastered many critical care techniques, including endotracheal intubation, invasive ventilator operation, deep vein puncture, percutaneous tracheostomy, blind transnasal placement of nasointestinal tubes, three-lumen feeding tube placement and ultrasound-guided midline peripheral catheter placement, opening a new era for neurological critical care.

<Departmental Teaching and Research> The department undertakes 3 Young Scientists Fund projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, 2 Liaoning Provincial Natural Science Foundation projects, 1 project each from the Liaoning Provincial Department of Science and Technology and the Provincial Health Commission, 1 Dalian Natural Science Foundation project, 1 Dalian science and technology plan project and 2 municipal-level projects. It has published more than 100 papers, including more than 10 SCI papers.

<Departmental Honors> Excellent Residency Training Base of 2018; 2019 Rapid Growth Award for departments of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University; 2021 Medical Quality and Safety Service Award.

<Scope of Care> Acute cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, status epilepticus, severe intracranial infection, severe encephalopathy and Parkinson's disease.

<Vision> The department is committed to individualized and precise diagnosis and treatment of critical neurological diseases, continuously improving the quality of medical care and nursing and providing the most efficient services for critically ill neurological patients. At the same time, the department will keep accumulating experience, continue the diagnosis, treatment and DBS surgery for Parkinson's disease and related disorders, and strive to build the largest-scale, most specialized and most influential neurological critical care and Parkinson's disease center in southern Liaoning.