This hospital was formerly known as Shanghai Yan’an Hospital before it was moved to Kunming in 1970. It is also the Yunnan Cardiovascular Hospital. It has 1,302 registered beds and 13 national-level, 20 provincial-level, and 30 municipal-level experts.984 This hospital’s heart and great vessels surgery department ranked 13th in China on the list of best clinical departments published by the National Medical Data Center in 2015.985
Its cardiothoracic surgery department conducted the first heart transplant in Kunming in 2003 and the first combined heart-lung transplant in southwestern China in 2004.986 The hospital performed the first combined single lung transplant and congenital heart disease correction surgery in the city in March 2006.987 In 2007, the Ministry of Health designated it the “Yunnan Province Heart Transplant Center.”988 The hospital began carrying out kidney transplants as a routine operation in 1987. 989
In 2005, this department established the “Yunnan Cardiovascular Hospital – Berlin Heart Center Technology Collaboration Center” and began a long-term relationship with the University of Pennsylvania Heart and Vascular Center and other well-known heart centers. It invited foreign experts for academic exchanges and business tutorials, and sent its key members to domestic and international heart centers to study, conduct research, and attend international academic conferences.990 This center has made over 50 research achievements and published more than 200 professional papers in provincial or higher journals (including 4 listed in SCI).991
Li Yaxiong, the hospital’s vice president and director of the heart and great vessels surgery department, mainly engages in surgical treatment of and clinical research for minimally invasive heart surgery and organ transplantation. Li has reached an advanced level in the field of heart-lung transplantation within China.992
Li performs over 800 cardiovascular surgeries each year. He has studied and conducted research at the Berlin Heart Center and the University of Pennsylvania. He has led various research projects under the National Natural Science Foundation and National Twelfth Five-Year Plan science and technology programs, received eight municipal and provincial science and technology progress awards, and published over 50 papers in major provincial journals, including 2 listed in SCI. He has mentored over 10 graduate students, trained over 200 people in 30 groups from 15 different hospitals, and helped more than 10 hospitals to perform over 1,000 heart surgeries.993