Surgical Anaesthesia

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology of Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Health Hospital undertakes the hospital’s clinical work in surgical anesthesia, perioperative analgesia, intensive care management, emergency treatment, and resuscitation. Its Surgical Center is distributed across two campuses and has 21 inpatient operating rooms (including 2 Da Vinci operating rooms), 2 delivery-room operating rooms, 2 outpatient surgery centers (15 operating beds), 2 post-anesthesia care units (16 beds), and an intensive care unit (ICU; 7 beds). It also has an anesthesia and pain clinic and a Department of Anesthesiology teaching and research office. Its clinical specialties include high-risk obstetric anesthesia, labor analgesia, minimally invasive gynecologic anesthesia, and obstetric critical care management. The department has developed emerging technologies including ultrasound visualization, obstetric autologous blood salvage and transfusion, continuous noninvasive cardiac output monitoring, optimization of labor analgesia techniques, ERAS for cesarean section, and ERAS for gynecologic oncology surgery. Over the past 3 years, the hospital has performed an average of more than 30,000 inpatient surgical anesthetics, more than 10,000 outpatient surgical anesthetics, and more than 10,000 cases of labor analgesia annually; the labor analgesia rate has reached over 90%. The ICU managed centrally by the Department of Surgical Anesthesiology admits more than 60 patients per month on average.

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology is currently an authorized doctoral-degree program and postdoctoral station in anesthesiology at Tongji University, a specialist training base for obstetric anesthesiology of the Shanghai Medical Association, and a principal member institution of the Institute of Anesthesia and Brain Function Research of Tongji University School of Medicine. The anesthesiology discipline has considerable recognition and influence in China in obstetric anesthesia and labor analgesia. It was among the first national pilot institutions for labor analgesia, and is an excellent base for obstetric anesthesia and labor analgesia of the China Maternal and Child Health Association, a member of the Pan-Yangtze River Delta Obstetric Anesthesia Alliance, and a core member of the Shanghai Perioperative Organ Support and Function Protection Center. It has received numerous honors, including the Shanghai Youth Civilization Award, the March 8th Red-Flag Collective, the Shanghai “Women’s Model Post,” and first place in professional quality control among Shanghai anesthesiology departments.

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology currently has 43 physicians; more than 70% hold master’s or doctoral degrees. Six physicians have studied or received training at institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard University, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Cleveland Clinic. The department has 3 doctoral supervisors, 3 master’s supervisors, and 11 lecturers. It has trained 2 postdoctoral fellows who completed their programs, 10 doctoral students, and 12 master’s students. Two staff members were selected for the Shanghai Outstanding Academic Leaders Program and the Shanghai “Rising Stars of Medicine” Young Medical Talents Program, respectively, and 3 were selected for the hospital’s “Talent Reserve Pool Program.”

Over the past 5 years, the department has received 6 grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and 32 projects from the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Science and Technology, the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, and other bodies. It has published more than 80 papers, including 52 indexed in SCI; 3 papers had an individual impact factor above 10. It has edited 3 monographs, obtained 2 national invention patents, and more than 10 utility model patents. In recent years, the research team has established in-depth collaborations with the Laboratory of Geriatric Anesthesia at Harvard University, the CAS Key Laboratory of Receptor Structure and Function at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, and the School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University, jointly publishing multiple high-quality academic papers. It has accumulated extensive expertise in neuropharmacology, the etiological mechanisms of depression, molecular dynamics simulation, and drug design. The team has received numerous honors, including the third prize of the Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award, the second prize of the Shanghai Science and Technology Popularization Award, and the second prize of the Shanghai Science Popularization Contribution Award.

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology emphasizes clinical implementation and academic exchange. Since 2013, it has held 6 national continuing-education training sessions on advances in high-risk obstetric anesthesia and labor analgesia, and, together with the Department of Gynecology, 4 hysteroscopy crisis-event learning courses. More than 500 trainees from across China have been trained, representing general and specialist hospitals with obstetrics and gynecology departments in most provinces, municipalities, and regions. Every year, numerous visiting physicians come to the department for study and exchange. The department’s united, progressive culture and attentive teaching have received widespread praise from visiting physicians.

First Maternity and Infant Health Hospital has the facilities of the largest specialized medical simulation and practical training center for obstetrics and gynecology in China and undertakes training in the management of critically ill pregnant and postpartum women in Shanghai and Pudong New Area. The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology has an excellent teaching faculty: 3 instructors hold simulation-training instructor certificates from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada; 2 instructors have received clinical teaching faculty training at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in the United States; 2 instructors hold ISIM simulation-teaching and research training certificates; and 1 is a PBL instructor. The department has conducted more than 10 national MDT (multidisciplinary team) simulation-training camps and has extensive teaching experience. Each year, this team undertakes the teaching of simulation training for the rescue of critically ill pregnant and postpartum women in Shanghai and Pudong New Area.

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology is grounded in clinical research and actively encourages physicians to conduct research based on clinical problems, with particular support for high-quality clinical studies. It maintains daily morning handover learning sessions focused on literature from authoritative international journals, holds special case discussions every Thursday, and conducts brief professional lectures every Friday. Clinical research meetings are held regularly. In obstetric anesthesia and analgesia and obstetric critical care management, the department has established several research directions, including innovation in labor analgesia techniques, optimization of cesarean anesthesia, perinatal thrombosis, and perinatal depression. Relatively stable research teams have been formed, producing sustained output.

The Department of Surgical Anesthesiology of First Maternity and Infant Health Hospital is devoted and focused, with patients’ health always in mind. It safeguards lives beneath the operating lights and strives to build a first-class perioperative safety platform through outstanding technology, thereby leading the frontier of obstetric and gynecologic anesthesia.

Eastern Campus: 2699 Gaoke West Road, Pudong New Area　Western Campus: 536 Changle Road, Jing’an District.