In the medical profession, academic plays an important part. Without the academic support, a treatment derived will not be able to serve patients effectively. Modern cryoablation is an ablation technique developed in 1990’s. It needs a large number of academic researches for it to achieve its real clinical status. In July 2008, Dr. Franco, President of the International Cryosurgery Society, visited our hospital for a study on cryoablation. He hoped that our hospital could become a world-class’ cryoablation treatment centre of excellence; he told us that the Mayo Clinic of the United States was also aiming at that distinguished status.
Just by looking at it name, one might think that Mayo Clinic is a clinic or an outpatient clinic. In fact it is one of the top three private hospitals in the United States. They have nearly thirty-thousand employees. Can we be in the same class as the Mayo Clinic? Amid this concern, we attended the 15th World Cryosurgery Conference in October 2009 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
St. Petersburg, a historical city, was built by Peter the Great in the year of 1703. It is famous for its amazing scenery, a destination that Dr. Niu Lizhi and I have long wished for. We arrived at night. Early the next morning, we proceeded to the conference venue. We were all excited to find out from our hospital had been put in the first place followed by the Mayo Clinic in second place in the list of paper presentations by various organizations that afternoon with the phrase “Cryosurgery Centre with Excellence” written in the titles of the papers to be presented by the organizations. The time allocated for each paper was 20 minutes which was sufficient in an international conference such as this. Dr. Niu Lizhi represented our hospital to present a report on the establishment process and size of our cryosurgery centre and its performance.
As a world class cryosurgery centre, we were subject to scrutiny and challenges of the world. For the next three days and in different occasions, we answered many questions raised by the national representatives of numerous countries in the world. Questions such as: “Why were there little complications in percutaneous cryoablation conducted by your hospital?”, “How do we ensure there is complete ablation at the edges of tumors?”, “How to avoid recurrence after cryosurgery?”, “How can cryo-immunity effect be fully exploited?” and “How do we combine cryoablation with systemic treatment to prolong the survival of advanced cancer patients?” On the second morning of the conference, the topic for discussion was specifically on pancreatic cancer treatment. Our paper for discussion entitled “Pancreatic Surgery in Fuda Hospital” was subject to even more questions and scrutiny. We dealt with them calmly and confidently. As what Professor Korpan of Austria said, “As you have the most extensive experience in cryoablation, others will definitely look up to you as their role model!”