Urology

The Urology Department of Renji Hospital, affiliated with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, has a long history and a profound heritage.

In the 1950s, through the unremitting efforts of Professor Chen Bangdian and Professor Wang Yijing — members of China's first generation of urologists — the rudiments of urology at Renji Hospital gradually took shape; in the late 1960s, Professor Jiang Yu established an independent Urology Department at Renji Hospital. Under the leadership of successive department directors — Professor Jiang Yu, Professor Wu Jiajun, and Professor Wang Yixin — the department matured step by step. Entering the 21st century, under the leadership of Professor Huang Yiran and the current director Professor Xue Wei, the department has achieved leapfrog development. In 2022, Renji Urology decisively stepped out of its "comfort zone," gradually shifting the center of its work to the old campus on the west bank of the Huangpu River; this "westward move" became a new starting point for Renji Urology's second entrepreneurial undertaking.

Renji Urology is currently a National Health Commission clinical key specialty, a key discipline of the Ministry of Education's "Project 211," a key discipline of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the host unit of Shanghai's only clinical quality control center for urology, the leading department of the national strategy for integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and the president unit of the Yangtze River Delta Urology Alliance. The department also houses the Shanghai Institute of Andrology and the editorial office of the Chinese Journal of Andrology. In Fudan University's rankings of Chinese hospitals' distinctive specialties and in the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences' rankings of the scientific and technological influence of Chinese hospitals, Renji Urology has consistently ranked among the nation's leaders.

The discipline is vast in scale, with 238 open beds and currently the most complete array of urological subspecialties in China: renal tumors, prostate tumors, bladder tumors, urinary stone disease, andrology, voiding dysfunction, urological reconstruction, pediatric urology, kidney transplantation, and urological emergencies — 10 major subspecialties in all. In recent years, the department's clinical workload has grown steadily year by year: in 2023, total outpatient and emergency visits approached 446,000 and the total number of operations reached 27,000, while all medical quality indicators continue to improve. According to statistics on the management of key disease categories in Shanghai, the department's surgery volume for renal tumors and bladder tumors has ranked first in Shanghai for five consecutive years, and its prostate tumor surgery volume has stably ranked among the top two citywide. Its da Vinci robotic surgery volume ranks first in the nation.

In research, Renji Urology cooperates on the one hand with top scientists at home and abroad, and on the other focuses on strengthening the construction of discipline laboratories, achieving a series of original results. Over the past 5 years it has undertaken 52 national and provincial/ministerial research projects related to urological tumors, including a National Natural Science Foundation key instrument project and key projects of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission; the related results have been published as 258 SCI papers in leading international journals such as Nature Cancer, Nature Communications, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation; and its members have served as chief or associate chief editors of 7 monographs on urological tumors. The department has won a series of awards, including the First Prize of the Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award of Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education, the Shanghai Science and Technology Progress First Prize, and the Shanghai Medical Science and Technology First Prize.

At the same time, a rigorous training system for young physicians has cultivated a cohort of clinician-scientists with an international perspective, injecting vitality into the discipline's sustainable development. The department also maintains long-term, in-depth cooperation and exchange with globally renowned medical centers and urology departments such as the MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Mayo Clinic.

Looking forward, Renji Urology will continue to focus on high-quality clinical service as its development priority, with clinical and translational research as its academic support, its discipline backbone at the core, and its subspecialties as the framework — continually refining its internal structure, introducing advanced technologies and methods, daring to innovate and boldly experiment, and striving to become an internationally first-class diagnostic and treatment center for urology.