Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

The Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (formerly the Department of Pulmonary Diseases) of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University was established in 1952. It has now developed into a modern respiratory medicine specialty department integrating medical care, teaching, and research, with a certain level of recognition in China. The Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine is included in the National Key Clinical Specialty Construction Project, is a key discipline of Anhui Province, and is an authorized degree-granting site for doctoral training in internal medicine and master's training in respiratory medicine.

The department currently has 47 healthcare professionals, including 43 physicians, 6 doctoral supervisors, 13 master's supervisors, 28 doctoral degree holders, 1 doctoral student, and 12 master's degree holders; among them are 11 chief physicians, 10 associate chief physicians, and 10 attending physicians; there are 4 research personnel and technicians in total; and 98 nurses, including 2 chief nurses, 3 deputy chief nurses, and 20 charge nurses. The department has 168 beds in total, including 19 RICU beds; it sees approximately 140,000 outpatient visits annually, admits more than 7,000 inpatients per year, and performs more than 4,000 pulmonary interventional diagnostic and therapeutic procedures annually.

The department comprises six wards (Ward 1 of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Ward 2 of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Ward 3 of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Ward 4 of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, the North Ward of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and the Department of Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine (RICU)).

Advantageous Technologies

Advantageous technology programs and key development directions: (1) The RICU performs deep venous catheterization, tracheal intubation, tracheotomy, ventilator support, respiratory critical care interventions, bedside ROSE etiological diagnosis, bedside B-ultrasonography, bedside CRRT, bedside right-heart catheterization for monitoring pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary artery wedge pressure, continuous monitoring of right-heart output, and various vital-sign monitoring; (2) Interventional pulmonary medicine: endobronchial ultrasound diagnosis and treatment, interventional diagnosis and treatment under rigid bronchoscopy, cryoablation and thermal ablation of pulmonary nodules, interventional diagnosis and treatment under medical thoracoscopy, and particle implantation therapy for lung cancer; (3) Respiratory-sleep medicine: polysomnography and pressure titration, noninvasive ventilator-assisted treatment, and weight management; (4) Pulmonary function and pulmonary rehabilitation: bronchodilation and provocation tests, exercise pulmonary function testing, and rehabilitative treatment for pulmonary diseases.

Department Honors

Multiple members of the department have received first-, second-, and third-class Anhui Provincial Science and Technology Awards; a total of five department members have each received the Anhui Provincial May 1 Labor Medal; the department has received, on multiple occasions, the titles of Anhui Provincial Advanced Collective in Fighting COVID-19 from the People's Government of Anhui Province, Advanced Primary-Level Party Organization of the First Clinical Medical College of Anhui Medical University from the Communist Party of China, and Advanced Collective of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University. In recent years, the department has obtained more than 20 National Natural Science Foundation projects, 1 Central Subsidy for the Anhui Provincial Public Health Special Fund, 1 Health Public Welfare Industry Science and Technology Special Project, and more than 20 provincial- and departmental-level research projects; it publishes more than 60 papers annually, including 30 SCI papers and more than 10 papers in the Chinese Medical Journal series.