As the largest 3A general hospital in southwestern Fujian Province, this facility has 1,909 beds and over 1,700 professionals with intermediate and senior titles, including more than 600 staff who hold doctoral and master’s degrees.735
Its Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery was established in 2003. Its annual surgical volume leads Fujian Province. It has accomplished many provincial firsts in organ transplantation. This department has successfully performed emergency liver transplants, and has actively developed multi-organ transplantation.736
The department hired academicians Wu Mengchao, Huang Zhiqiang, Tang Zhaoyou, Zheng Shusen, and Liu Yunyi, as well as Professor Dong Jiahong and other leading experts in the field, as chief experts of its academic committee for hepatobiliary surgery. Meanwhile, it maintains close relationships with well-known hospitals in China, including the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital in Shanghai, the No. 301 Hospital in Beijing, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Fujian Provincial Hospital, the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, and Fuzhou General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command. It has also established long-term training plans with the Oregon Health & Science University, the Southwest Medical Center in Washington state, and the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.737
The department currently has 2 chief physicians/professors, 4 deputy chief physicians/associate professors, 3 attending physicians, a scholar holding a degree from overseas, 3 PhDs, and 6 members with master’s degrees. Its director Li Bin was the first academic and technical leader of organ transplantation in Xiamen. He studied at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and Southwest Medical Center in Washington state.
The hospital’s website no longer has information regarding liver transplants. However, we found some clues from early news reports.
On August 12, 2003, the Xiamen Evening News published a report titled “New Breakthrough at Xiamen First Hospital: Two Liver Transplants in One Day:” In the morning of August 12, the hospital simultaneously completed liver transplants for two patients. Li Bin, director of the vascular hepatopancreatobiliary surgery department, revealed that if there are sufficient organ sources and recipients, they can perform three liver transplants in one day. The hospital obtained two donors at the same time from the largest organ transplant center in eastern China–the affiliated hospital of Zhejiang University. It also received technical support from academician Zheng Shusen. According to the report, the department had reached an organ sourcing and technology sharing agreement with the affiliated hospital of Zhejiang University. The affiliated Zhejiang hospital has a nationwide system of organ sources and basic research in key laboratories, both of which could be borrowed by the First Xiamen hospital.738 However, it is apparent that its newly detached vascular hepatobiliary surgery department can in fact perform three liver transplants per day.
The hospital’s website stated in 2008 that its vascular hepatopancreatobiliary surgery department had completed more than 20 liver transplants in its first five years of operation, or 4 transplants per year.739 However, since the department can carry out 3 transplants in a single day, it would have finished its entire year’s transplant volumn in less than two days. The transplant numbers on its website are not compatible with the level of investment and number of personnel in the hospital.