Plastic Surgery Department
Plastic Surgery at Peking University Third Hospital was established in September 1949 by Professor Zhu Hongyin, one of the founders of plastic surgery in China, and became the first specialized plastic surgery department established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. With a commitment to innovation and pragmatic action, Plastic Surgery has created multiple “firsts” in the history of the development of plastic surgery in China since its establishment, and is a pioneer and builder of Chinese plastic surgery.
Plastic Surgery is an internationally renowned and domestically leading specialty department that integrates clinical care, teaching, and research. The department currently has nearly 100 staff members, including 36 physicians, 18 staff with senior professional titles (8 at the senior level and 10 at the associate-senior level), 17 with intermediate professional titles, 3 postdoctoral fellows, and 6 supervisors of doctoral and master’s students, forming a rigorous, truth-seeking, pragmatic, and dedicated medical team.
The department has always adhered to the principle of taking tissue repair and organ reconstruction as the foundation of the discipline while also embracing the development of aesthetic surgery, with a focus on minimally invasive, individualized, and precision-oriented treatment.
In recent years, the department has broken down disciplinary barriers and promoted multidisciplinary integration, opening up multiple areas with Plastic Surgery as the link: it established the Peking University Third Hospital Wound Treatment Center in collaboration with the Department of Vascular Intervention and the Department of Nursing; established China’s first MDT medical team for gender dysphoria and, two years later, set up a specialized outpatient clinic for gender dysphoria; created an MDT diagnosis and treatment system for hemangiomas; and launched emergency plastic and aesthetic repair services for trauma. These initiatives have greatly met the public’s increasingly high demands for medical services. On this basis, a craniofacial trauma MDT team was established in 2022, and the department was the first in China to propose the concept of plastic and aesthetic repair of craniofacial trauma.
In recent years, the department’s research work has made substantial progress. In 2023, Plastic Surgery ranked fourth in both China’s hospital five-year aggregate science and technology value (ASTEM) and science and technology value (STEM) rankings. Over the past five years, more than 170 SCI papers have been published with the department as the first institutional affiliation, and more than 70% of these papers were published in high-level SCI journals in the 01/02 zones. The department has published multiple high-quality papers in the areas of scars, wound repair, cartilage tissue engineering, and gender-affirming sequential treatment. Over the past five years, it has received 6 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Beijing Natural Science Foundation, achieved the transfer of 4 research outcomes, and obtained authorization for 4 invention patents and 49 utility model patents. In 2024, two projects were selected among the “Top Ten Advances in the Field of Plastic Surgery in China for 2023.” In the results of the 2024 Research Hospital Evaluation and Selection, the department was rated as a research-oriented discipline.
Since its founding, Plastic Surgery has undertaken the mission of training plastic surgery professionals for the People’s Republic of China. As the cradle of plastic surgery talent development in China, it not only undertakes the clinical teaching responsibilities of Peking University Health Science Center, but is also the longest-established domestic hospital for the further training of plastic surgery physicians. It is currently a standardized training base for plastic surgery specialists of Peking University Health Science Center, fulfills its continuing medical education responsibilities every year, and offers relevant elective courses to Peking University undergraduates. As a leading medical teaching institution in the field, it houses a doctoral program and a postdoctoral research station in plastic surgery. It has trained numerous graduate students and cross-century talents; to date, 3 postdoctoral fellows, 45 doctoral students, 74 master’s students, and 5 cross-century talents have graduated, while more than 700 physicians have received further training and 69 students have completed standardized professional training. Over the years, the department has continuously organized and co-organized multiple sessions of professional continuing medical education courses and academic conferences, working hand in hand with colleagues to accelerate the development of the field.
Building on the past and opening up the future, as society progresses and public needs continue to rise, Plastic Surgery has always taken serving public health as its mission and continues to pursue the highest level of disciplinary development!