General Practice

The Department of General Practice of Dongguan People's Hospital (formerly the Comprehensive Department) was established in August 2002 and was officially renamed the Department of General Practice in July 2014. It is an independent clinical department integrating medical care, teaching and research, and has received a number of honours, including the "Dongguan Youth Civilized Unit" (东莞市青年文明号), the "Women's Model Post" (巾帼文明岗) and the "Guangdong Provincial Youth Civilized Unit" (广东省青年文明号).

The department runs an outpatient clinic and an inpatient ward. The ward is located on Level 2 (second floor) of the Comprehensive Building at the Wanjiang Campus. The care environment is pleasant, and two-bed rooms and single rooms are provided to meet the different needs of patients. The department has strong professional and technical capacity: it currently has 24 medical and nursing staff, including 2 chief physicians, 2 associate chief physicians, 3 attending physicians and 3 resident physicians, as well as 3 staff at doctoral level and 4 at master's level.

The department's physicians are technical backbone staff from general practice, endocrinology, respiratory medicine, cardiovascular medicine, gastroenterology and rehabilitation medicine, and have extensive clinical experience in the comprehensive diagnosis and treatment of common and frequently occurring diseases of the internal medicine system, as well as in chronic disease management.

General practice emphasises a knowledge base that is "broad and deep". It provides long-term care for patients in periods of health, in the early stages of disease, and for the various conditions that cannot be cured after specialist diagnosis and treatment. It addresses the person's overall health comprehensively and across the whole cycle — not only the disease — with the aim of ultimately achieving physical and mental recovery, and it plays an irreplaceable role in the healthcare system.

Scope of diagnosis and treatment

The Department of General Practice diagnoses and treats common, frequently occurring, difficult and critical diseases of the internal medicine system. The scope of patients accepted includes:

1. Common and frequently occurring clinical diseases; 2. Diseases involving multiple systems and multiple organs; 3. Undifferentiated diseases, that is, diseases whose specialty cannot be determined; 4. Patients whose condition has stabilised after treatment and who need only rehabilitation therapy, or who are in a stable phase; 5. Postoperative rehabilitation, and patients with poor healing of the surgical wound; 6. Routine health check-ups, health consultation and health assessment; 7. Care navigation, helping patients choose the specialty and department they need quickly and accurately.

The specific scope of diagnosis and treatment includes:

Respiratory diseases: respiratory diseases are highly prevalent among older people, have distinctive clinical manifestations and are difficult to treat. The department has carried out in-depth research and has extensive practice in the scientific diagnosis and treatment of upper respiratory tract infection in older people, acute and chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary heart disease, respiratory failure, various pulmonary infections, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary embolism, lung cancer and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Endocrine diseases: at present, the incidence of endocrine diseases common among older people, such as diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, hyperlipidaemia and gout, is rising steadily. The department has extensive experience in diagnosing and treating diabetes mellitus, disorders of lipid metabolism, gout, metabolic bone disease, menopausal syndrome, and pituitary, thyroid, adrenal and other endocrine and metabolic diseases. It has greater technical strength in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes mellitus and its complications, osteoporosis, hypertension, thyroid disease and menopausal syndrome.

Nervous system diseases: the department has several neurology specialists and is skilled in the diagnosis and treatment of cerebrovascular disease (stroke), epilepsy, Parkinson disease, muscle diseases, mental disorders of various causes, insomnia, headache, dizziness, numbness, weakness and pain of the limbs, convulsions and other nervous system diseases. Together with the Department of Neurology, the department performs neuroelectrophysiological examinations, ambulatory electroencephalography, and electromyography/evoked potentials.

Circulatory diseases: diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, coronary heart disease, various arrhythmias, heart failure, valvular heart disease, cardiomyopathy and peripheral vascular disease.

Digestive diseases: diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic gastritis, reflux oesophagitis, functional dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, cholecystitis, pancreatitis and gastrointestinal bleeding.

Urinary system diseases: the department has extensive clinical experience in the early diagnosis and prevention of acute and chronic nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, cystitis and prostatitis, gout and uric acid nephropathy, acute and chronic interstitial nephritis, renal tubular acidosis and other tubulointerstitial diseases, urinary tract stones, acute and chronic renal insufficiency, renal bone disease and secondary hyperparathyroidism.

Featured techniques and services

Diagnosis and treatment of undifferentiated diseases

Undifferentiated disease refers to a category of conditions in which the clinical symptoms or examination results do not meet existing clearly defined disease classification criteria; such conditions may be at an early stage with atypical symptoms or may fall within the category of rare diseases. Their diagnosis and treatment need to be combined with multidisciplinary assessment and dynamic monitoring. Diversity of clinical symptoms: common non-specific manifestations include joint pain, fatigue, low-grade fever, rash (for example Raynaud phenomenon) and mucosal ulcers, and may involve several systems (for example the skeletal, skin, blood and digestive systems).

Diagnosis and treatment of coexisting multiple diseases

Older patients usually have many chronic diseases, multiple coexisting conditions and many complications, so most are in a more serious condition and their causes are more complex. For a single disease, a single-disease diagnosis and treatment guideline is a good approach; but for patients with multiple coexisting diseases, the limitation of "railway police, each guarding only his own section" easily arises.

For example, a patient may simultaneously have hypertension, diabetes mellitus, stroke, pulmonary infection and several other different diseases. Such patients need not only individual treatment but, more importantly, unified management and comprehensive treatment by a general practitioner. General practitioners can address problems of different organs and systems in a coordinated way and treat the patient as an integrated whole.

Therefore, coexisting multiple diseases require coordinated treatment that is continuous and comprehensive. The medical and nursing team of the Department of General Practice is made up of technical backbone staff from several specialties, and can optimise the treatment plan as a whole and provide patients with more comprehensive medical services.

Chronic disease management

Chronic disease has become a focus of attention. Many patients with chronic disease need medical care that is almost lifelong, and the service model of general practice arose in response.

The Department of General Practice organically integrates prevention, treatment, nursing, rehabilitation and education, guiding patients in self-management, improving lifestyle habits, strengthening control of their condition and preventing all kinds of complications, reducing relapse and ultimately promoting patients' health and improving quality of life.

Taking diabetes mellitus as an example: at present the Department of General Practice admits nearly 600 patients with diabetes each year and, on the basis of specialist treatment, provides patients with humanistic care and continuous follow-up management. After discharge, the department carries out telephone follow-up to keep track of patients' subsequent treatment. For hypertension, the Department of General Practice likewise provides continuous services through whole-course management and community-based management.

For subsequent treatment after the acute phase of cerebral infarction, the Department of General Practice has introduced for patients limb rehabilitation therapy, acupuncture and physical therapy, psychological rehabilitation therapy and other services. By establishing a two-way referral mechanism with community hospitals and providing relevant training for community doctors, the department continues to provide relevant treatment guidance after patients return to the community for rehabilitation. It performs nearly 600 such treatments each year.

Health education and disease prevention

In the treatment of many diseases the role of prevention first is often overlooked. Health education uses educational activities to encourage people to voluntarily change unhealthy behaviours and the factors that influence health behaviour, preventing disease before it occurs. The unbalanced and inadequate development in China's health field is reflected not only in medical care but also in the dissemination of health knowledge; only when the public has mastered the knowledge and skills for preventing disease can the occurrence of disease be reduced.

The Department of General Practice attaches great importance to health education for community hospitals and community residents. Every month it goes down to the grassroots level to carry out education on disease prevention and health care, and since 2018 it has undertaken the great majority of general practice post-transfer training in Dongguan, developing examination question banks and assessment standards and training examiners, thereby raising the awareness rate of common disease prevention knowledge among Dongguan residents through multiple channels.

Nursing features

Technical backbone staff have taken part in the "Gold Nursing" programme (金牌护理) of Hong Kong United Medical (香港联合医务). Upholding the service philosophy of "putting the patient at the centre", the team continuously explores and innovates, improving the quality of nursing services and building a nursing service brand:

1. Continuously optimising nursing service processes — taking patients' needs as the orientation and patient satisfaction as the standard of action, building a smoother service chain and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of services. This includes revising the admission and reception process for newly admitted patients, the process for sending patients to investigations, and the bedside shift handover process.

2. Health knowledge education: nursing safety and nurse–patient communication run through the whole of the patient's hospital stay. To further standardise health education, a "health education pathway for newly admitted patients" and templates have been developed, the quality control functions of the head nurse and team leaders have been put into effect, nurses are assessed, and patients are urged to complete health education.

3. Humanistic care: providing convenient services for patients and striving to create a quiet rest environment for them. Working with social workers, the team regularly organises caring activities so that patients experience a feeling of home. A fruit garden has been planted to provide a comfortable leisure area for patients, and the inpatient environment is continuously improved so that patients can stay comfortably.

4. Improving the quality of nurses: strengthening training in nursing etiquette to shape the image of nursing staff, and strengthening theoretical and procedural study to raise nurses' professional theoretical level and practical skills.

5. Discharge follow-up: within one week after discharge, the responsible nurse makes a telephone return visit to provide professional health guidance.

We adhere to the concept of "whole-person health": we pay attention not only to your illness but also to your psychological and social needs and your long-term quality of life. Whether it is health consultation, preventive screening, chronic disease follow-up or comprehensive geriatric assessment, the general practice team puts the patient at the centre and tailors continuous, attentive medical care for you.

Features: precise triage at first visit by symptom / diagnosis and treatment of undifferentiated diseases / diagnosis and treatment of coexisting multiple diseases / individualised long-term follow-up plans / whole-person, whole-course care.

Here, what you have is a doctor, and even more a health partner!

The general practice clinic of a Grade A tertiary hospital guards the health of you and your family at every stage.

Group photo of the department's medical and nursing staff The department's medical and nursing staff in training and study