Rheumatology Department

The Department of Rheumatology of Renji Hospital was founded in 1979 and is one of our hospital's traditional preeminent disciplines. As one of the earliest departments in China to carry out research, diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic diseases, it currently hosts the China-Australia Personalized Immunotherapy Center, a National Clinical Key Specialty, a Shanghai Top-Priority Clinical Medical Center, a Shanghai Clinical Key Specialty, a Characteristic Discipline of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, one of the first units authorized to confer master's and doctoral degrees in rheumatology together with a postdoctoral research station, the Shanghai Institute of Rheumatology, the Shanghai Clinical Quality Control Center for Rheumatic and Immune Diseases, a National Drug Clinical Research Base (rheumatology and immunology specialty), and the standardized training bases for internal medicine residents and rheumatology specialists. It has consistently ranked among the top three nationwide on the Fudan University specialty ranking list and holds important academic influence both at home and abroad. It currently has 126 official beds, including 8 beds in the only rheumatology ICU in the country and 10 GCP research beds; annual discharges exceed 5,000, and the proportion of key diseases treated is >70%, among which the volume of admissions for difficult and critical conditions such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and dermatomyositis ranks first in Shanghai. Annual outpatient volume is 300,000 visits, ranking first nationwide for many years. The rheumatology biobank is the unit of the chairperson of the Rheumatology and Immunology Branch; it undertakes more than 40 projects year-round, including national multicenter studies (as lead unit), international multicenter clinical research, and large-scale and original investigator-initiated trials (IIT), among which there are more than 10 cutting-edge cell therapy projects. The Rheumatology Department of Renji Hospital comprises: the Institute of Rheumatology, the Rheumatology and Immunology Clinical Research Team, the China-Australia Personalized Clinical Research Center, and the Clinical Biobank. In the past 5 years it has undertaken 45 provincial and ministerial-level projects; in the past 5 years team members have published nearly 300 SCI papers as first author or corresponding author, including 50 SCI papers with an impact factor above 10, and have been invited repeatedly to give plenary presentations at major domestic and international conferences. It has established long-term cooperative relationships with internationally renowned universities and research institutions such as Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in the United States, Stanford University in the United States, the University of Washington in the United States, the Australian National University in Australia, the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, the University of Zurich in Switzerland, the University of Erlangen in Germany, and the University of Strasbourg in France. The discipline has carried out a series of national and international multicenter clinical drug trials and has participated in the formulation of multiple domestic and international clinical diagnosis and treatment guidelines for rheumatic and immune diseases. As the Shanghai Clinical Quality Control Center for Rheumatology, it is fully responsible for guiding and managing the standardization of clinical diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic diseases throughout the city. The discipline has an outstanding talent team combining senior, middle-aged and young members with strong capabilities in clinical care, teaching and research. There are 7 doctoral supervisors and 4 master's supervisors, 46 clinical physicians, 8 full professors/chief physicians, 13 associate professors/associate chief physicians, and 17 attending and resident physicians; all of the young and middle-aged physicians hold a master's degree or above, and more than half of the physicians have studied or received advanced training abroad. The discipline's echelon is full of vitality, with 85% of members under the age of 45. Through continuous development, it strives to achieve further breakthroughs in the most cutting-edge clinical research, the construction of high-quality cohorts for major rheumatic and immune diseases, the diagnostic and therapeutic capability for difficult, complex and critical rheumatic diseases, and the training of outstanding young talents, so that the discipline may continue to maintain its leading position in China in overall level, enhance its domestic reach and international visibility, and become an Asia-first-class rheumatology diagnosis and treatment center with certain international influence.