Orthopaedics

The Department of Orthopaedics of Fudan University Affiliated Huashan Hospital was jointly founded in the 1930s by Professors Ren Tinggui and Li Hongru. Over nearly a century of development, the department has continuously explored and innovated, achieving fruitful results. As early as the 1950s, Huashan Orthopaedics began performing lesion debridement for spinal tuberculosis through an anterior approach. In 1967, it was the first in China to perform artificial cervical spine replacement and received the Ministry of Health Major Scientific and Technological Achievement Award. From 1970 onward, it began performing anterior cervical spine surgery and anterior decompression for spinal fractures, and in the 1980s it carried out surgical correction of scoliosis.

In the 1960s, Huashan Orthopaedics successively participated in establishing the departments of orthopaedics at Chongqing Medical University and Xinjiang Medical University. In the 1980s, it gave rise to the independent Department of Hand Surgery and Microsurgery of Huashan Hospital, and in 1981 it established one of the earliest foot disease units in China. Under the leadership of successive department directors Professors Li Hongru, Zhou Gongnan, Jiang Zhijie, Zhang Zhiyu, Huang Huangyuan and Jiang Jianyuan, as well as the current department director Professor Ma Xiaosheng, Huashan Orthopaedics has continued to develop in medical care, education and research, formed distinctive clinical characteristics, and achieved numerous original educational and scientific research results. It successively became a Shanghai Municipal Key Clinical Specialty and one of the first key specialties of the Ministry of Health.

Group photograph of the entire department

The department currently has 58 employees distributed across three campuses—the Main Hospital, Hongqiao Campus and Baoshan Campus—including 12 holders of senior professional titles, 21 holders of associate senior professional titles, 6 doctoral supervisors and 5 master’s supervisors. The department currently comprises the subspecialties of spine, joints, trauma, foot and ankle, and bone tumours. Its medical services cover not only the routine diagnosis and treatment of various orthopaedic diseases, but also the comprehensive treatment of various severe deformities and neoplastic diseases of the musculoskeletal system. It has gradually developed a series of clinically distinctive, technologically leading services, including “precision diagnosis and treatment of difficult and complex spinal diseases,” “functional correction of complex foot and ankle deformities,” “standardised stepwise treatment of joint diseases,” and “comprehensive intervention for osteoporotic fractures in older adults.” The department currently provides outpatient and emergency diagnosis and treatment for nearly 200,000 visits for various orthopaedic diseases each year and performs more than 8,000 operations annually. In addition to its routine medical work, Huashan Orthopaedics has long undertaken medical aid to Africa, counterpart medical assistance to Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and other remote western provinces, as well as medical support and various rescue missions for numerous events, including the “F1 Chinese Grand Prix,” “IAAF Golden Grand Prix,” “Figure Skating Championships” and “World Swimming Championships.”

Huashan Orthopaedics has long focused its research on applied anatomy of the spine and limbs, the mechanisms of bone and joint degeneration, and the development of new instruments and devices. It has successively undertaken a series of major national and provincial/ministerial projects, including projects under the Ministry of Science and Technology Key Research and Development Program, National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, and key projects of the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission. It led the formulation of a number of guidelines and consensuses, including the “International Guideline for Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment Standards for Pingshan Disease” and the “Chinese Expert Consensus on the Surgical Treatment of Hallux Valgus.” Its related achievements have received such scientific and technological awards as the Ministry of Health Major Scientific and Technological Achievement Award, the Second Prize of the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award, the First Prize of the Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award, and the Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award for Achievement Promotion. The department has published hundreds of papers in SCI-indexed journals and authoritative domestic journals. The Atlas of Applied Anatomy of the Spine, compiled under its organisation, was selected for the first “Three Hundreds” Original Book Publishing Project of the General Administration of Press and Publication of China because of its originality and novelty.

October 2004: The first “Spinal Applied Anatomy and Surgical Techniques Training Course” was held.

Huashan Orthopaedics not only focuses on its own development, but is also committed to building a high-quality continuing medical education platform for clinical orthopaedists nationwide. With the support and assistance of the university and hospital leadership, the department successively established the “Fudan University Spine Surgery Center” and the “Huashan (International) Practical Anatomy Research and Training Center (Practical Anatomy Research and Training Institute, PARTI).” It developed a mature professional training team and pioneered in China a branded course featuring hands-on practice with specimens, thereby establishing a training philosophy that emphasises clinical practice and skills. Since 2004, the “Huashan Orthopaedics Applied Anatomy Series Training Courses” have been running for exactly twenty years. In total, they have trained more than 8,000 clinical orthopaedists from across China, enabling many clinical specialists to genuinely improve their surgical skills and better serve local patients and benefit the public.

Professor Jiang Jianyuan demonstrates and explains procedures to trainees during a training course.

The “Huashan Orthopaedics Applied Anatomy Series Training Courses” have not only attracted widespread attention from colleagues in the field, but have also been favoured by well-known universities, academic organisations and other healthcare-related institutions in China and abroad. The department has successively established long-term and stable continuing education cooperation programmes with internationally renowned medical institutions, including Mayo Clinic in the United States and NASS. The “HUASHAN-MAYO Spine Forum,” jointly held with Mayo Clinic, became the first long-term transnational China–United States joint training programme and was recognised by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). In addition to receiving national continuing medical education credits, domestic trainees participating in this programme can also receive a training certificate and continuing medical education credits issued by the ACCME for the first time in China.

Through years of exploration and effort, Huashan Orthopaedics’ clinical specialist training model has not only earned praise from colleagues in the field, but has also received high recognition from Academician Han Qide, then Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology. He praised and encouraged the Huashan Orthopaedics team for its sustained efforts and spoke highly of its achievements in continuing medical education: “The applied anatomy training courses in orthopaedics organised by Huashan Orthopaedics focus on clinical practice and hands-on operation. They have accumulated successful experience for the training of clinical doctors, especially the specialist training of orthopaedists, and also represent a highly successful experience for higher medical education as a whole.”

In 2013, Huashan Orthopaedics became one of the first standardised training bases for specialist physicians in Shanghai. A complete teaching echelon, abundant teaching resources and excellent teaching traditions have laid a solid foundation for the orderly implementation of specialist training. The department organically integrates the six core competencies targeted by specialist training with its clinical, teaching and research work, matches resources accordingly, and establishes a clear orientation of “precise alignment with objectives, effective training and overall improvement.” It continuously identifies problems and optimises its systems during training, ensuring the homogeneity and standardisation of the teaching process and completing its training tasks to a high standard. In 2017, Huashan Orthopaedics was selected as one of 16 national backbone faculty training bases. In July 2023, the Huashan Orthopaedics residency training base was approved and established, making it one of the first five specialised bases for standardised orthopaedic residency training in Shanghai. The department will continue to strengthen faculty development, continuously improve its training system and enhance teaching quality, so as to train highly qualified and highly skilled orthopaedic residents for Shanghai and the country as a whole.