Nephrology

I. Department Overview

The Nephrology Department of Dongguan People's Hospital has a profound history; its predecessor can be traced back to the Blood Purification Centre established in 1986 and to the nephrology medical group of the hospital's Third Department. It was formally established as an independent department in 2003. After several decades of in-depth development, it has now become a distinctive clinical specialty prioritised for development by the hospital, with a leading scale. The department operates the Honglou and Puji campuses simultaneously, and integrates standardised inpatient wards, a large blood purification centre and a peritoneal dialysis centre into three diagnostic and treatment units. The overall layout is rational, the care environment comfortable and the diagnostic and therapeutic equipment complete, so that it can meet the needs of routine diagnosis and treatment of all types of kidney disease as well as of critical care, providing a solid medical safeguard for kidney patients in the region.

The discipline's comprehensive strength remains firmly at the leading position in Dongguan and at an advanced level within the province, and it has obtained a number of significant qualifications and honours. In 2011, the department's blood purification centre became Dongguan's first provincial-level haemodialysis training base for physicians and nurses. In 2013 it was successively recognised as a "Dongguan Key Specialty" and a "Guangdong Key Specialty", and in the same year became the host unit of the Dongguan Blood Purification Medical Quality Control Centre, setting standards and controlling norms for the quality of blood purification care across the city. In 2015 it was approved as a "Dongguan Specialty Nursing Training Base". In 2026 it was successfully recognised as a clinical education base for advanced internal medicine nephrology haemodialysis specialty nurses of the Guangdong Nurses Association. The discipline's outreach and industry influence continue to grow.

At present the department has 105 open beds and is equipped with 124 high-end haemodialysis machines. Its diagnostic and therapeutic scope covers all types of kidney disease, and it can provide standardised systematic diagnosis and treatment of common and difficult conditions including acute and chronic renal failure, chronic glomerulonephritis, diabetic nephropathy, lupus nephritis, hypertensive nephropathy, urinary tract stones and infections, congenital renal cysts, and rejection after kidney transplantation. At the same time it proficiently performs a series of high-precision specialty operations and interventional procedures, including renal biopsy puncture, autologous arteriovenous fistula creation, prosthetic graft arteriovenous fistula creation, peritoneal dialysis catheter placement, temporary (semi-permanent) deep vein catheterisation for haemodialysis, prosthetic vascular graft bypass/bypass grafting, ultrasound-guided percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of peripheral vessels, resection and reconstruction of arteriovenous fistula haemangioma, repair of arteriovenous fistula aneurysm, excision of arteriovenous fistula pseudoaneurysm, ultrasound-guided percutaneous transluminal balloon dilation, DSA angiography, DSA-guided balloon dilation of the brachiocephalic vein and superior vena cava, and upper limb vascular stent implantation. The blood purification centre routinely performs diversified blood purification treatments such as high- and low-flux haemodialysis, haemodiafiltration, haemodialysis combined with haemoperfusion, and plasma exchange, with its overall diagnostic and therapeutic technology leading in the region.

II. Team Building

The discipline has built a professional medical and nursing team with a well-developed echelon, a rational structure, excellent medical skills and a pioneering spirit. It currently has 118 medical and nursing staff, including 34 physicians and 84 nurses. The composition of education and professional titles is of high quality: 2 with doctoral-level education, 22 with master's-level education and 10 with bachelor's-level education; 6 holding full senior professional titles, 9 holding associate senior professional titles and 18 holding intermediate professional titles. Among physicians, those with a master's-level education or higher account for 70.59%; among nurses, those with a bachelor's-level education or higher account for 86.91%. Highly educated and highly titled personnel form the core strength of the department's development.

Professor Liu Guohui, the discipline leader, is a supervisor of master's degree students at Guangdong Medical University and a part-time professor at Southern Medical University, and has trained more than 10 graduate students. Professor Liu also serves as an expert group member of the Guangdong Blood Purification Medical Quality Control Centre, director of the Dongguan Blood Purification Medical Quality Control Centre and head of its expert group, and chair of the Nephrology Branch of the Dongguan Medical Association, and has been recognised as a Category 1 "Dongguan Famous Physician", leading the high-quality development of the department's discipline building, technological innovation and industry quality control work.

The discipline adopts sub-specialty grouping and a training model in which senior physicians mentor junior colleagues, and regularly selects key medical and nursing staff for further study at renowned top hospitals in China and abroad, continuously absorbing frontier diagnostic and therapeutic concepts and techniques. Drawing on extensive clinical practice experience, it devotes itself to research and innovation, having successfully obtained 1 municipal key research project and 3 municipal general projects, and has published multiple SCI and core journal academic papers, with its research and innovation capability and academic influence steadily improving.

In academic exchange and teaching, the discipline adheres to an open development philosophy, regularly holding provincial- and municipal-level nephrology sub-specialty academic conferences, inviting renowned domestic experts to lecture and give guidance, and actively conducting academic exchanges and cooperation within and outside the province, so as to broaden the discipline's development horizons. At the same time, it participates deeply in a number of multi-centre clinical trials, with fruitful clinical research results in the field of chronic kidney disease; the number of clinical trial projects and the scale of their funding rank among the top in the hospital.

In teaching, the department undertakes the core teaching tasks of standardised residency training, of refresher physicians and of interns. Upholding the teaching philosophy of "solid theory, empowered practice", it comprehensively develops trainees' professional knowledge, operational skills and doctor-patient communication abilities, continuously supplying high-quality reserve talent for the field of nephrology and building a sound development system that integrates clinical care, teaching and research.

III. Five Featured Sub-Specialties

The discipline has precisely subdivided its sub-specialty fields and devotes itself to refined diagnosis and treatment, establishing five featured sub-specialties - chronic kidney disease management, haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, renal pathology and vascular access - thereby achieving full coverage of all kidney disease types and of the entire disease course.

(I) Chronic Kidney Disease Management Sub-Specialty

The department has formed a dedicated diagnosis, treatment and nursing backbone team for the chronic kidney disease sub-specialty, has opened a dedicated chronic kidney disease clinic, and has innovatively built a three-tier linked diagnosis and treatment service system of "physician + specialty nurse + health educator". For diabetic nephropathy, lupus nephritis, acute kidney injury, uraemia and all kinds of complications, it formulates personalised diagnosis, treatment and nursing plans, and has established a continuous nursing model of "precise in-hospital treatment + full-course home follow-up", achieving standardised whole-process management from inpatient treatment and postoperative recovery to home rehabilitation. According to the department, the improvement rate in the treatment of difficult and critical kidney diseases exceeds 72.5%, greatly improving the long-term prognosis and quality of life of patients with chronic kidney disease.

(II) Vascular Access Sub-Specialty

As the department's core advantageous sub-specialty, it provides full coverage of the whole chain of services for the establishment, maintenance and repair of dialysis vascular access, routinely performing autologous/prosthetic graft arteriovenous fistula creation, ultrasound-guided balloon dilation, DSA angiography, DSA-guided balloon dilation of the brachiocephalic vein and superior vena cava, upper limb vascular stent implantation and other high-precision minimally invasive interventional procedures. The department performs complex vascular access interventional treatment at scale and in a standardised manner, filling the technical gap in the interventional treatment of complex central venous lesions in Dongguan and in the provincial region; the number of several high-difficulty procedures performed and the diagnostic and therapeutic standards achieved rank among the advanced ranks in China and are in line with international frontier standards. The department has opened a dedicated vascular access clinic and established a long-term access quality tracking and follow-up mechanism, precisely ensuring the patency of dialysis patients' vascular access and ensuring dialysis adequacy, effectively reducing the incidence of complications and significantly improving patients' long-term quality of life.

3. Renal Pathology Sub-Specialty

The renal pathology sub-specialty has a mature diagnosis and treatment system. Renal puncture biopsy pathology diagnosis can cover the full spectrum of kidney diseases, and the accuracy of pathological diagnosis for common and difficult kidney diseases such as membranous nephropathy, IgA nephropathy and lupus nephritis is high; the annual number of cases diagnosed is growing steadily, and diagnostic quality has reached the advanced level in China.

At the same time, grounding itself in regional discipline development, the department hosts the Dongguan Renal Pathology Seminar every year, integrating regional medical resources, unifying case diagnostic standards and standardising diagnostic and therapeutic processes, continuously driving the homogenisation and standardisation of pathological diagnosis in Dongguan, and laying the pathological foundation for precise diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease in the region.

4. Haemodialysis Sub-Specialty

Drawing on the city's earliest blood purification centre, established in 1986, and after more than forty years of development, this sub-specialty has now become the haemodialysis centre with the largest scale, the strongest technical capability, the most advanced equipment and the widest reach in Dongguan. It also serves as the host unit of the Dongguan Blood Purification Medical Quality Control Centre and as a provincial-level haemodialysis training base for physicians and nurses, undertaking the work of industry quality control, technical guidance and personnel training for the whole city.

The centre is equipped with 4 sets of professional reverse osmosis water treatment systems for haemodialysis, and has introduced dialysis equipment from first-line international brands including Fresenius, B. Braun and Gambro from Germany, with a total of 124 haemodialysis and haemodiafiltration machines, enabling a full range of standardised blood purification treatments. The department has innovatively introduced bedside ultrasound-guided fistula puncture, which can precisely locate the position, depth and blood flow status of the vessel, overcoming puncture difficulties caused by obesity, deeply located vessels and insufficient blood flow, and achieving precise puncture with a single successful needle pass, effectively reducing complications such as vascular intimal injury and haematoma, and improving the safety and comfort of dialysis treatment.

As the only provincial-level haemodialysis training base for physicians and nurses in Dongguan, the department receives refresher physicians and nurses from within and outside the province all year round, and, relying on the medical consortium, regularly goes down to town and subdistrict medical institutions to carry out ward-round guidance and technical training, continuously supplying professional talent to grassroots dialysis centres and improving the regional haemodialysis service system.

5. Peritoneal Dialysis Sub-Specialty

The department has been deeply engaged in peritoneal dialysis technology for more than twenty years, and has accumulated rich clinical experience in the establishment of peritoneal dialysis access, in catheter maintenance and removal, in the prevention and treatment of dialysis complications, and in intelligent home dialysis management. It routinely performs automated peritoneal dialysis, which enables automated dialysis fluid exchange while the patient sleeps at night, so that the catheter can be disconnected in the morning and the patient can return to normal work and life; through precise volume control and remote data monitoring, it effectively reduces the risk of complications such as peritoneal infection and heart failure.

The department runs a dedicated peritoneal dialysis clinic every Tuesday and Friday, and works together with the hospital's nutrition department to formulate personalised nutrition and rehabilitation plans for patients, improving patients' nutritional status and quality of life in all respects. The nursing team includes a number of provincially certified peritoneal dialysis specialty nurses, forming a tiered specialty nursing talent echelon; the team is proficient in the standardised maintenance of dialysis catheters and in the whole-process management of home peritoneal dialysis, routinely carries out online and offline health education and home-visit nursing services, and has established a standardised quality control system and a long-term follow-up mechanism to safeguard the continuity, standardisation and safety of home dialysis treatment.

At the same time, the department actively promotes the transfer of peritoneal dialysis technology to the grassroots level, and undertakes technical guidance and promotion work for grassroots medical institutions in Dongguan, so that kidney patients in the jurisdiction can receive high-quality, standardised peritoneal dialysis services without leaving home, genuinely improving the accessibility of kidney disease care in the region.