The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University ranked 19th among the 100 most competitive hospitals in China in 2015.³⁰¹ It employs 631 senior professionals, 108 doctoral advisors, and 248 master’s advisors. The hospital has 3,500 registered beds.³⁰²

The hospital began performing multi-organ transplants relatively early in China, and has reached an advanced level domestically. It is one of the seven hospitals approved to carry out the most types of organ transplants—liver, kidney, heart, lung, pancreas, and intestine.³⁰³

The hospital performed the first cadaveric kidney transplant in Hunan Province in 1985. Its organ transplant center was established in September 2001. During a half-year period in 2002, the center conducted more kidney transplants than it had in total in all previous years. ³⁰⁴

Its urological transplant department was established in 2003. The number of kidney recipients also increased each year. As of January to May 2015, its number of DCD kidney transplants ranked second in the country; it ranked fourth in the total number of kidney transplants.³⁰⁵

The department has 52 beds, 11 ICU beds, and 11 specialists, 7 of whom hold more senior titles than attending surgeons, 9 of whom hold PhDs and two who are pursuing PhD degrees. ³⁰⁶

The director of the urological transplant department, Peng Longkai, has completed more than 2,000 kidney transplants.³⁰⁷ He served as a member of the Chiidney Transplant Science Registration System Management Committee, a member of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association Organ Transplant Subcommittee’s Kidney Transplant Professional Committee, and head of the Hunan Province Human Organ Procurement Organization Expert Group. Under his leadership, this hospital’s kidney transplant work gradually entered a standardized, scaled-up development track and reached an advanced level domestically.

A media report in 2005 stated, “The donor organ network has gradually extended to the north and south, and has established resource sharing relationships with more than 10 domestic organ transplant centers.”³⁰⁸ Its website stated that the kidney transplant department has been in close contact with other organ transplant organizations. It has built a nationwide organ source sharing network and maintains close relationships with other major organ transplant centers in the country.³⁰⁹

One could observe the volume of transplants from how busy the doctors were: “transplant surgeons often have to work for over 20 consecutive hours performing surgeries. They will start another round of operations after they rest for three or four hours. The surgeons are still at the operating table, while the scrub nurses have changed several shifts. They often conduct a dozen operations over a period of 2 ~ 3 days. They once performed 9 kidney transplants in one day.”³¹⁰

The organ transplant division under the General Surgery department was established in July 2005, which passed the assessment by the Ministry of Health in 2007 to get approval to become a national level liver transplant center. It has various groups to carry out liver transplants and other combined organ transplants. It assumes a leading role in the province. It has three professors, one associate professor, one doctoral advisor, and two master’s advisors.³¹¹

Department head Qi Haizhi began conducting basic research in liver transplantation in 1994. He has engaged in organ transplantation research and clinical work for more than 20 years. His team performed Hunan Province’s first orthotopic whole liver transplant, the first pediatric liver transplant, the first transplant for an acute liver failure patient, the province’s first combined liver-kidney transplant, the first pancreas-kidney transplant, and the first liver-pancreas transplant. In December 2010, he and his team successfully completed a combined transplant of 8 intraperitoneal organs, including liver, pancreas, spleen, and stomach; this was a first in China and the second case in the world, creating a sensation .³¹²

The hospital’s cardiothoracic surgery department was recognized as a key clinical discipline by the Ministry of Health in 1992, and was approved by the Ministry of Education as a national key discipline in 2001. It has successfully implemented heart, lung, as well as heart-lung combined transplantation, and has set the record for the longest survival time for its heart-lung transplant recipients. Its heart-lung transplantation capabilities are said to lead the country.³¹³

This department has conducted systematic research on key issues regarding the protection of the heart and lung and the prevention of long-term complications, in order to ensure the success of heart, lung, and heart-lung transplants.

With more than 230 beds, it is the largest thoracic and cardiovascular medical center in central China. Currently, the center conducts more than 4,000 heart surgeries annually. Its surgical volume and clinical scale rank first among general hospitals in China.

It has 40 teaching and research staff, including 11 professors, 12 associate professors, 15 lecturers, and 7 doctoral advisers. More than 60% of its instructors hold doctoral degrees.

Previously head of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department for 18 years, Hu Jianguo completed Hunan Province’s first combined heart-lung transplant and set a record for the longest survival time in Asia.³¹⁴

Yin Bangliang, former hospital president and director of the organ transplant center, studied in Germany and the United States on multiple occasions. He has engaged in clinical research in heart and heart-lung transplantation.³¹⁵

The hospital’s ophthalmology department was one of the earliest units in China to perform corneal transplants. It is a key discipline at Central South University. Currently, the department has 50 staff members, including surgeons / physicians, technicians, and nurses. Among them, 17 are associate professors or above. The department has one PhD advisor, 12 master’s advisors, and more than 80 open beds.³¹⁶