Critical Care Medicine Ward II

Ward 2 of the Department of Critical Care Medicine (ICU-B) at the Second Hospital of Harbin Medical University was initially established in 1981. It is a clinical unit that has continued to grow and advance alongside the development and expansion of cardiac surgery at the Second Hospital of Harbin Medical University. Initially, it was a cardiac surgery intensive care unit with only 2 beds and 5 nurses, primarily responsible for monitoring and treating patients after cardiac surgery. In 1991, the number of beds was increased to 5. In 1992, the unit participated in the treatment of the first heart transplant patient, who survived for 18 years after surgery—the longest survival in Asia at that time. In 1996, it became an independent ICU ward, with Professor Sun Chenguang as its first director; the number of beds increased to 8, and the ward began to have dedicated physicians and nurses. It was one of the earliest independently operated ICU wards in Heilongjiang. With the establishment of the general ICU ward at the Second Hospital of Harbin Medical University in 2003, critical care medicine at the hospital underwent further development. In 2006, under the leadership of Professor Yu Kaijiang, the hospital formally established the Department of Critical Care Medicine, and the cardiac surgery ICU was officially renamed Ward 2 of the Department of Critical Care Medicine (ICU-B area). The department subsequently established Ward 3 and Ward 4 in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

ICU-B is led by critical care physicians and has a specialized medical and nursing team that is well trained, technically highly competent, theoretically well grounded, highly experienced, and capable of responding effectively to changing conditions. The unit has a designed capacity of 26 beds and currently operates 25 beds, including 2 single-room isolation rooms. It currently has 12 ICU specialists, including 2 chief physicians and 7 deputy chief physicians. There are 50 specialist ICU nurses, including 1 respiratory therapist, 3 wound therapists, 2 PICC specialist nurses, and 1 blood-filtration specialist nurse. The unit brings together the most advanced medical equipment and technical approaches to provide patients with continuous, dynamic, and quantitative monitoring, enabling timely assessment of pathophysiological changes and responses to treatment and detailed tracking of changes in the condition of critically ill patients. It accurately assesses the organ function of critically ill patients and provides effective treatment to prevent deterioration and promote recovery.

Alongside the development of cardiac surgery, hemodynamic and respiratory-system monitoring and treatment have become specialties of this unit. It can perform a range of invasive and noninvasive hemodynamic monitoring techniques, including pulmonary artery catheterization, PiCCO, and NiCAS. It is one of the earliest units in the province to introduce IABP and ECMO, and it currently serves as the lead institution of the Extracorporeal Life Support Professional Committee of the Heilongjiang Medical Association. With the continued advancement of the three-tier diagnosis-and-treatment system, the number of critically ill patients in various clinical specialties has continued to increase, as have the demand for critical care resources and the technical requirements. On the basis of continuously strengthening its traditional advantages in circulatory and respiratory support, ICU-B has in recent years developed its comprehensive critical care capabilities in multiple areas. It actively performs various bedside blood-purification techniques, including CRRT, hemoperfusion, and plasma exchange, as well as artificial liver therapy, bedside ultrasonography, EIT, and bronchoscopy. It can now meet the treatment needs of acutely and critically ill patients from all clinical specialties.

ICU-B is a department with an outstanding tradition and a record of honors. In March 2005, the nursing team received the honorary title of “Women’s Civilized Post,” awarded by the Leading Group of the national “Women Making Contributions” campaign. In 2007, it received the title of “National Youth Civilization Unit.” During the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, despite an excessive clinical workload and other difficulties, the department successively dispatched 5 medical and nursing personnel to provide support in the distant disaster area. This attracted widespread attention from all sectors of society and brought the team the cordial condolences of Premier Wen Jiabao. When the H1N1 influenza outbreak occurred in 2009, ICU-B successively dispatched 3 physicians and multiple nurses to participate in the rescue of critically ill patients in H1N1 isolation wards, gaining valuable experience in the treatment and nursing of critically ill patients in isolation wards for respiratory infectious diseases. When the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly broke out in 2020, during the three arduous years of combating the epidemic, the physicians and nurses of ICU-B did not shrink from risk and willingly shouldered their responsibilities. All physicians and nurses in the ward joined the frontline epidemic-control effort. They appeared on the front lines at Wuhan Union Hospital, the Heilongjiang Provincial Center for the Treatment of Severe COVID-19, the designated hospital for COVID-19 patients in Heilongjiang Province, and in Jilin, Heihe, Jixi, Suihua, and other places during outbreaks. They were also present at every frontline within the hospital, including fever wards, isolation wards, and nucleic acid collection sites. The medical and nursing staff of ICU-B truly put into practice the medical oath of saving lives and healing the injured.