Third Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of T.C.M. & Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital

Today we had a busy day visiting China Pharmaceutical University, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital and The Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. Breakfast at the Xuanwu Lakeview hotel was awesome. They had a mix of Western dishes along with Chinese dishes. I enjoyed the red bean congee splashed with some sugar. We started touring China Pharmaceutical University's Xuanwumen campus. When we arrived we were greeted by our guide Zhixiang Shi, the associate professor of English. He also serves as a simultaneous interpreter. Shi holds a lot of positions such as Deputy Directory in the Office of International Exchange & Cooperation; Director of the Department of Pharmaceutical English, and English Reviewer and Editor of various medical journals on campus. The campus was very large and reminded me a little of Shanghai University but nicer. They just recently built a building for key labs which was quite impressive. It was mentioned that they have a larger campus about 30 minutes away where we will have our activities with the students. After a short tour on campus we went to the Nanjing Hospital of T.C.M. (Traditional Chinese Medicine) which was established in 1956 near the Qinghuai river. We started our tour in a lecture hall where they gave a presentation of the hospital. The Nanjing Hospital of T.C.M. is the third affiliated hospital of Nanjing University of T.C.M. The hospital is a Class A Grade 3 general hospital specialized in TCM. It has over 1000 faculty and staff memers and 700 beds.It has 600,000 out-patient clinical services at 300 million RMB/year. In 1956 it served as a Teaching Hospital of Nanjing University of T.C.M and in 1996 it became the Third Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of T.C.M.The teaching practices that they have are acupuncture and moxibustion.
After the introductory presentation we were given an herbal charm that smelled funny and it's supposed to "help prevent disease". We were taken to unit 8 to look at a museum on colorectal treatment. All the posters were in Chinese so I could not understand much. A lot of the pictures were hilarious so I took a couple pictures of them. Next we visited the brewing area for traditional medicines. The room was very wet and it smelled like herbs. A lot of the workers had a lot of fun with us when we were taking pictures of them. We were then taken to the place where they dispense herbal products which looked exactly like a regular pharmacy with a lot of greens.
After visiting the herbal dispensary we visted the Regimen and Health Care Center and the House of Celebrity Doctors. When patients talk to the physicians in a room they are accompanied by four medical students on the side. We finished our visit of the TCM hospital at the Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department. Expert Dr. Chan showed us the practice of acupuncture and moxibustion. Some students wanted to know what an acupuncture needle felt like so he demonstrated the acupunctural technique on a couple students.
After we ate lunch, we visited the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital which is another rotation site under China Pharmaceutical University. First we were given a warm welcome by a couple directors of the hospital, Dr. Floriddia, and Dr. Li. Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital is a unique hospital because it is one of the hospitals in China that adapts the "clinical pharmacist system" issued by the Ministry of Health in December 2007. The specialties provided in the hospital are cardiothoracic surgery, endocrine, antibiotics, and enteral/parenteral nutrition. The cardiotoracic surgery department was established in 1953 and it carried out its first Open Heart Surgery since the 1950s. The hospital has the largest cardiothoracic surgery center in Jiangsu province and the Eastern region. THe endocrine department was established in 1978 and has over 1200 inpatients and more than 40,000 outpatients per year. It is the largest endocrine department among hospitals in Jiangsu. The duties of a clinical pharmacist in the hospital is to verify physician orders and prescriptions, take part in clinical rounds and consultations, and they contact physicians if any pharmaceutical problems are discovered. They provide complete information and consultations for doctors, nurse, and patients. Clinical pharmacists in China play an important role in evaluating research and educating discharged patients.
After the presentation we toured the hospital. The hospital was a lot cleaner than the TCM hospital, and had a very similar set up as hospitals in America.

from: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/JLim/