Pediatrics / Department of Pediatric Research and Teaching

Sichuan University West China Second Hospital is the only national Health Commission-administered Grade III A specialized hospital for women and children in western China. West China Pediatrics originated from the Renji Hospital for Women and Children, founded in 1896. Building on a century of West China medicine and culture, and the efforts of Du Shunde, Zhang Junru, Tang Zeyuan, Liao Qingkui, Qian Youqiong, Yao Yujia and other generations, it has achieved outstanding results in care, teaching, research and training. It is an authorized national key discipline and National Excellent Resource-Sharing Course provider; it has a Ministry of Education key laboratory and China’s only pediatric innovation team of Changjiang Scholars; it has received National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Excellent Young Scientists Fund and key-project support; it is the western referral center for critical pediatric disease, the regional center for childhood leukemia and congenital heart disease in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing and Tibet, and the National Children’s Regional Medical Center (Southwest). It hosts and edits national textbooks and professional journals including Chinese Journal of Women and Children Clinical Medicine (Electronic Edition) and International Journal of Blood Transfusion and Hematology. Pediatric master’s authorization was obtained in 1981, doctoral authorization in 1986, and a postdoctoral station in 1991. It became a Sichuan key discipline in 1999, established the interdisciplinary discipline Maternal and Infant Medicine in 2005, entered the Ministry of Education’s 211 Project in 2006, became a national key discipline in 2007, and obtained a national excellent course in 2010. Neonatology became a national clinical key specialty in 2011; the West China Children’s Medical Center was established in 2012; the Sichuan Pediatric Quality Control Center was attached to the hospital in 2012; a national excellent resource-sharing course was approved in 2013; the Sichuan Clinical Research Center for Pediatric Diseases was approved in 2017; a national standardized neonatology training base was approved in 2018; in 2020 it was approved as the Southwest National Children’s Regional Medical Center and national key base for standardized resident training; in 2021 it became the Sichuan infant-care standards center and designated tuberculosis institution; in 2022 it became several provincial and national training and demonstration bases; in 2023 it became a national first-class undergraduate-course institution, a pediatric respiratory endoscopy training partner, and a Sichuan University West China Second Hospital genetic-metabolic screening subcenter. In 2023 pediatric infectious diseases, respiratory immunology, neurology and cardiovascular medicine became national clinical key-specialty projects. The team has published high-quality papers in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, BMJ, Lancet Oncology (IF 41.316), The Lancet Infectious Diseases (IF 25.071) and other international journals, including one paper in Cell in 2013 (IF 31.957). It has received 32 scientific awards, including national and ministerial/provincial awards. The department has 317 physicians, including 82 senior and 94 intermediate professionals, 132 doctoral and 179 master’s students, 20 doctoral and 54 master’s supervisors; 660 nurses, including 11 senior, 173 intermediate, 1 doctoral and 38 master’s professionals; and 40 medical technicians, including 3 with master’s degrees. Pediatrics operates at the West China and Jinjiang campuses and includes neonatology, pediatric neurology, gastroenterology, nephrology, genetic-metabolic endocrinology, respiratory immunology, cardiology, hematology/oncology, infectious diseases, child healthcare, pediatric critical care and general wards, with relevant endoscopy, dialysis, bronchoscopy, ECG, immunology and hematopoietic-stem-cell-transplantation units. Professor Qiao Lina directs the department; Professor Wang Yibin is deputy director for medical care; Professor Dong Liqun is deputy director for standardized training; secretaries are Gao Xiaolin, Yang Ting, Guang Zhang, Du Yuxi and Tie Libing. There are 724 operational beds, about 20,653.96 m² of ward space and more than 1.2 million annual outpatient and emergency visits. As the western women’s and children’s difficult-and-critical-disease center, it receives referrals from Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan and other regions. Cardiovascular medicine performs over 1,000 congenital-heart and structural interventions annually. Hematology/oncology, a national designated pediatric hematologic-disease hospital and solid-tumor collaboration unit, pioneered cord-blood stem-cell transplantation for leukemia in southwest China; complete remission exceeds 95%, five-year survival is 70%, and more than 100 cases are treated annually. Nephrology dialysis has been crucial in emergencies including the melamine-milk crisis and Wenchuan earthquake. Infectious diseases has a dedicated isolation ward and led treatment during H1N1, severe hand-foot-and-mouth disease, COVID-19 and other epidemics. Neonatology, a provincial and municipal critical-neonatal center, has a full-life-cycle preterm-infant platform, admits nearly 7,000 critical newborns annually, with about 80% difficult cases and 99% critical cases; survival of extremely and very-low-birth-weight infants reaches 99%. Teaching covers undergraduate, eight-year, international-student, medical-technology, laboratory-medicine and nursing programs, forensic and basic medicine, preventive medicine and health administration, and Tibetan distance education. It also trains master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral personnel, over 60 pediatricians and about 50 visiting doctors annually. During the past three years it compiled 15 national textbooks and 39 other textbooks/monographs, published nearly 100 teaching papers, obtained nearly 20 education-reform projects and won 2 national, 9 provincial and 9 university teaching awards. In five years it trained 3 Ministry of Education New-Century talents and sent 3–5 staff annually for further study. In research, during the past three years it published 607 papers, including 300 SCI and 63 core-journal papers; obtained 119 national/provincial projects with ¥38.2477 million, including one Distinguished Young Scientists project, one Excellent Young Scientists project, one key project, nine NSFC projects, one international cooperation project and eight national key research projects. It won national, Chinese Medical Science and provincial awards. Ministry of Education Changjiang Scholars, key laboratories for women’s/children’s diseases and birth defects, developmental and women’s/children’s diseases, and chronobiology provide a strong foundation. The department will continue to uphold “Compassion, Professionalism, Innovation and Dedication,” serve patients wholeheartedly, keep pace with the times and create a new chapter in pediatrics.