Neurology Department
Neurology department is one of the first-grade key disciplines of medicine in Sichuan which consists of four units (including the stroke unit and neurological intensive care unit) with 175 beds in total. There are 32 doctors, including 8 professors, 12 associate professors; 8 have got the degrees of Medical Doctor while 19 have got the Master degree;2 has been entitled to special government allowance from the State Council; 4 are science and technology leaders of the province and provincial ministry of health;2 have been the chairmen of provincial or municipal neurology committees;16 have held the post of members of national or provincial academic societies; 6 are master tutors.
All the staff make every effort to provide high-quality service to patients. In 2002, the department was approved to set up a first-grade key discipline of medicine in Sichuan and passed the quality assessment in 2005. The department obtained the national GCP qualification in 2005, got the official approval to be the resident standardized training base by Ministry of Health in 2007 and won the title of " National Advanced Medical Unit" awarded by Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Health and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 2010, it was approved to be the first batch of national top ten stroke base and awarded as Sichuan Provincial Advanced Medical Unit in 2013.
Over the past three years, the staff have been working on 23 scientific projects (6 with international cooperation, 1 "tenth-five" national tackle-key project and 5 provincial projects) and got more than 3 million research grant. More than 200 papers have been published in national core journals and 8 were included in SCI database; 8 monographs were published. The members have won several awards for scientific and technological advancement (including 1 national, 3 provincial and 1 municipal awards). Various interventional treatments have been regularly conducted, including endovascular carotid stenting for extra- and intracranial artery stenosis, spring coil embolization for subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by aneurysms, arterial thrombolysis therapy for acute cerebral infarction);other advanced technologies are also applied in clinical practice such as intravenous thrombolysis(r-tpa) or heparin therapies for acute cerebral infarction, stroke unit, neurological rehabilitation, varieties of neuropsychological scales, single fiber electromyography, video electroencephalogram and so on. There are specialized outpatient service for epilepsy, neuropsychological disorders and cerebrovascular diseases. The total amount of outpatient and emergency service reaches more than 150, 000 per year with over 7000 patients hospitalized per year.
There are seven maturely-developed subspecialties of neurology in practice: cerebrovascular disease, epileptology, neuroelectrophysiology, neuropsychology, neurorehabilitation, neuro- interventional technology and neurological intensive care unit. Each of them has formed a reasonable talent team.
The subspecialty of cerebrovascular disease is one of the national bases for the screening, prevention and treatment of cerebral stroke with 60 beds (including NICU, stroke unit).
The regular clinical practice includes: (1)evaluating acute ischemic cerebrovascular disease and conducting arterial/venous thrombolysis therapy; (2)conducting neuron-interventional treatment,i.e. the subspecialty of neuro-interventional technology which has been established for more than 10 years and regularly performing endovascular stenting for extra- and intracranial artery stenosis, spring coil embolization for subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by aneurysms, endovascular embolization for arteriovenous malformation of brain and spinal cord, etc; (3) setting up the specialized outpatient service for screening and follow-up of cerebrovascular disease with cooperation with multiple centers and disciplines, establishing a database for stroke registry and follow-up; (4) conducting professional neurological rehabilitation for hospitalized patients.
The subspecialty of cerebrovascular disease has a reasonable talent team with 3 master tutors. The members have hosted or participated in more than 10 international, national or provincial projects, published over 300 papers (10 included in SCI and MEDLINE). The academic leader, Professor Guo Fu-Qiang, has been long engaged in the clinical and scientific work regarding the diagnosis and treatment of cerebrovascular diseases and the application of interventional technology and neuro-rehabilitation. He has been the committee member of neurovascular intervention group, the branch committee of Neurology, Chinese Medical Association; that of the neuron-rehabilitation branch of Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine and held the post of the deputy chief of the cerebrovascular and interventional academic group in Sichuan. He has been honored with 6 provincial Science Progress Awards.
The subspecialty of epileptology has been set up for over 20 years and focusing on the development of the trinity of medicine, teaching and scientific research. The subspecialty now has the most advanced technology and equipments in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy with 30 beds assigned specifically to patients with epilepsy and 8 beds for patients taking the examination of video EEG. A specific research room for epileptology has been set up for the daily clinical and research affairs. The regular clinical practice includes: (1) the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy: providing specialized outpatients service for epilepsy; screening for difficult and complicated cases or patients with sever ictus and providing them inpatient service; (2) Consulting for difficult and complicated cases (every Monday afternoon); (3) preoperative evaluation and surgical treatment for epilepsy: neurosurgeons in our hospital who have learned and practiced in China's best epilepsy center are capable of relevant operations for intractable epilepsy with promising efficacy; (4) establishing the database and follow-up system for patients with epilepsy: over 5000 patients have been included in the database and provided with regular follow-up and online consulting services; (5) conducting patient education and free clinics twice per year for 5 years; (6) conducting over 10 clinical trials of antiepileptic drugs since the subspecialty got the national GCP certification in 2005; (7) recruiting graduate students and carrying out basic and clinical research on epilepsy in cooperation with Luzhou Medical College, Chengdu University of Chinese Traditional Medicine and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China;so far, 30 graduate students were recruited and over 20 have got a master degree.
The staff is professional with reasonable talent echelon and has been working on over 20 scientific projects. More than 200 papers and 4 monographs have been published and 4 were included in SCI /MEDLINE databases. The academic leader, Professor Hong-Bin Sun, has been engaged in the clinical and scientific work on epilepsy for 30 years. He has been the head of the neurology department with the title of professor, master tutor and the director of the institute of neurology. Meanwhile, he has got the membership of epileptology group, the branch committee of Neurology, Chinese Medical Association; that of the neurology branch of Chinese Medical Doctor Association; that of China Association Against Epilepsy and China Association for Sleep Disorder. He held the post of the 5th and 6th chairman of Neurology branch of Sichuan province (has been elected to be the 7th chairman); the chairman of neurology branch of Sichuan Medical Doctor Association; the deputy chief of Sichuan Association against Epilepsy. He is a national important- contribution expert and granted a Special Allowance from the State Council. Professor Sun has been working on several national and provincial Tackling-key Projects as the academic and technical leader in Sichuan. He has published over 80 papers and 4 monographs as the editor-in-chief as follows: the theories and practice of nervous system diseases, intractable epilepsy, epilepsy therapy and so on. He has been honored with 3 national and provincial Science Progress Awards.
The subspecialty of Neuroelectrophysiology was founded in 1989. The staff includes 12 people and has established a system of the normal reference for each neuroelectrophysiological test. Hundreds of tests are performed each day including stroke screening and forensic tests for neurotrauma. The members are all graduated from medical colleges and completed standard training. Meanwhile, there are various high-end equipments which enable the staff to provide neuroelectro-physiological evidence for all kinds of neurological disorders. So far, hundreds of thousands of cases have been accumulated and more than 50 papers have been published.
The subspecialty of Neuropsychology (the center of diagnosis and treatment for neuropsychological disorders) has strong technical force and reasonable talent team. The academic leaders, Professor Jun Xiao has been the deputy chief of the neurology department with the title of professor, master tutor and the academic leader of Sichuan Ministry of Health. He has been the member of Neurology branch of Sichuan Medical Association and Sichuan Association for Mental Health. He has been the deputy chief of Neurology branch of Sichuan Integrative Medicine Association and participated in the draft of national expert consensus on vascular dementia. The staff mainly focuses on the research on neuropsychology, dementia, aphasia, etc. Dozens of neuropsychological scales have been regularly conducted to assist the diagnosis of relevant disorders and new software for the evaluation and analysis of cognitive function are also applied. The staff are planning to carry out the rehabilitation for cognitive decline and aphasia.
The subspecialty of Neurological Rehabilitation was founded in 2002.The staff has studied specialized knowledge of rehabilitation in Beijing, Hong Kong for many times and has held the national and provincial academic conferences or training courses on neurological rehabilitation more than once. They have accumulated abundant clinical experiences and conducted early, systematical and integrated rehabilitation for the patients with acute cerebrovascular disease using the mode of stroke unit. In the subacute and chronic stage, they mainly performed a standardized treatment in order to reduce the degree of disability and improve patients’ quality of life.
The subspecialty of Neurology Intensive Care(NICU) is an independent unit composed of specialists and nursing team on neurological intensive care. The NICU ward has been founded for more than 30 years with 13 beds. At present, it is one of the best NICU wards of Sichuan province with advanced facilities and technologies such as invasive/noninvasive intracranial pressure monitor, monitor of the cerebral blood flow, EEG monitor, multi-functional electrocardio-Graphs, respiratory monitor, invasive and noninvasive ventilator, invasive arterial and central venous pressure monitoring, temperature control instrument, intravenous infusion pump, trace injection pump, drip pump, and so on. With the help of the above facilities, the capable staff has been making every effort to stabilize the critically ill patients and the success rate of rescue has reached more than 95%.