Surgical Critical Care Medicine Department

The Department of Surgical Critical Care of Shuguang Hospital Affiliated with Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine not only safeguards and treats critically ill surgical patients, but also shoulders the important responsibility of treating medical patients with acute and critical conditions. It has the configuration and functions of a central ICU.

I. “People-centered”: adhering to the concept of integrating Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of critically ill patients

The Department of Surgical Critical Care has inherited and developed the academic thinking and scholarly guiding principles of Professor Xiong Xudong, our hospital’s critical care expert. It has always remained “people-centered” and adhered to the concept of integrating Chinese and Western medicine. Dynamic treatment plans are developed for critically ill patients. The department specializes in applying advanced modern medical diagnostic and treatment technologies to provide critically ill patients with individualized organ-function support, anti-infective treatment, nutritional support, and other therapies. Using the department as a platform, it actively implements a multidisciplinary collaboration mechanism and makes full use of the hospital’s specialist strengths to create multidisciplinary treatment models and mechanisms for patients. It has repeatedly worked with sister departments to successfully treat numerous patients with difficult, complex, and critical conditions.

The department leverages the strengths of traditional Chinese medicine and, “in an emergency, treats the manifestations first,” while also applying the concepts of protecting healthy qi and regulating the balance of yin and yang throughout the entire treatment process. In coordination with modern medical treatment methods, it compensates for the shortcomings of Western medicine and, based on classical formulas, develops treatment plans with distinctive traditional Chinese medicine features for critical illnesses. It has focused on controlling the dysregulated inflammatory response during the acute infection phase in patients with severe infections, effectively reducing the resulting organ-function damage; using Chinese medicines, acupuncture, and other methods, it comprehensively maintains gastrointestinal function in critically ill patients and reduces symptoms such as aspiration, abdominal distension, and diarrhea, laying a foundation for shortening hospital stays and improving outcomes; through innovation, it advocates the concept of “no food, no water, but no prohibition of medication,” and uses Chinese medicines to open up new treatment approaches for severe acute pancreatitis, massive upper gastrointestinal bleeding, intestinal obstruction, complex intra-abdominal infections, and other conditions, effectively reducing the occurrence of enterogenous sepsis, lowering intra-abdominal pressure, and reducing traumatic diagnostic and treatment procedures; it achieves effective hemostasis in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding for whom endoscopic hemostasis cannot be achieved; taking phlegm, dampness, heat, blood stasis, and other factors as entry points, it develops a multidimensional treatment plan for severe pneumonia, selecting in stages the department’s agreed-upon formulas “Qingjin Pingchuan Decoction” and “White Lung Formula,” thereby effectively reducing the mortality rate of patients with “white lung” and shortening the duration of mechanical ventilation.

II. Grounded in clinical practice, with equal emphasis on research and teaching

In research and teaching, the department has established research groups for disease subtypes, focusing on research into severe pneumonia, acute lung injury, sepsis, acute gastrointestinal injury, severe acute pancreatitis, and other diseases. Grounded in clinical practice, it conducts scientific research starting from the need to solve clinical difficulties and pain points. At present, the department’s team is responsible for multiple research projects, including projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, and hospital-level projects. At the same time, it provides teaching guidance to physicians at all levels based on its clinical and research achievements, leads multiple curriculum-development projects of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and builds a teaching platform for the integrated Chinese and Western medicine treatment of acute and critical conditions.

III. Emphasizing team-culture development and enhancing humanistic qualities

In developing team culture, the department has always adhered to the original aspiration of saving lives and helping the injured and to the “way of medicine.” Team members constantly remain “humble and self-disciplined” and “diligently cultivate themselves” to improve their clinical skills. In the face of achievements, they follow the principles of “act without claiming credit” and “when the work is accomplished, do not take possession of it,” sharing the results. In the face of critically ill patients, they uphold the spirit of “cooking a small fish,” “being as cautious at the end as at the beginning,” and “upholding the right path while innovating,” maintaining propriety in advancing and retreating, and carrying forward the spirit of “the virtue of great physicians, the dawn of life.”

The department places great importance on humanistic care. In addition to routine diagnosis, treatment, and nursing, the medical and nursing team puts humanistic care into practice in its daily communication and interaction with patients and their families. It uses medical expertise to relieve patients’ suffering and humanistic compassion to heal the wounds of patients and their families. It has built a critical care team with warmth and compassion.

IV. Advanced facilities and comprehensive equipment

The Department of Surgical Critical Care is currently the hospital’s critical care unit with the largest number of beds, the newest facilities, and the most comprehensive equipment. It has 21 beds in total, including 3 single rooms and 2 negative-pressure rooms. Every bed is equipped with advanced monitors, precision infusion and injection pumps, and invasive, non-invasive, and high-flow ventilators. The department is also equipped with advanced devices including cooling blankets, mechanical sputum-clearance machines, ultrasound machines, bedside hemodialysis machines, bronchoscopes, pulse-contour cardiac-output monitoring systems, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation systems. It is proficient in carrying out advanced technologies including CRRT, bedside ultrasound, bedside bronchoscopy, tracheal puncture, PICCO, invasive arterial blood-pressure and central venous-pressure monitoring, and invasive and non-invasive ventilation.