The Department of Cardiology of The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, was originated in the 1950s and formally founded in 1991. It is State Key Clinical Specialty, Key Discipline of Zhejiang Province, national training base for cardiology fellowship and cardiovascular interventions, and education base for American College of Cardiology.
We are staffed with 103 medical and technical personnel, including 20 professors/chief physicians, 12 associate professors/deputy chief physicians, 16 attending physicians, 8 doctoral student supervisors, and 15 master student supervisors. Our department currently has 114 beds, with annual inpatient and outpatient services of more than 7,500 and 210,000, respectively. We currently possess four cath labs and perform around 9,000 interventional procedures every year.
We took the lead in Zhejiang Province for cardiovascular interventions, being the first to carry out balloon mitral valvuloplasty and alcohol ablation on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. We were among the earliest centers in China to perform percutaneous coronary interventions, rotational atherectomy, pacemaker implantation, radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation, transcatheter aortic valve replacement, and left atrial appendage occlusion. We have accumulated rich experience in complex and intravascular imaging-guided coronary PCIs, structural heart interventions, as well as His bundle pacing, and three dimensional- and intracardiac echocardiography-guided ablations of complex arrhythmias.
We have accomplished dozens of National Natural Science Foundation-funded projects, including several Key Projects and International Cooperation Projects. We have also leaded and participated in a series of Five-Year Plan and National Key Technology R&D Program, as well as Major Projects of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Science. We have published more than 200 papers in world-renowned cardiovascular journals, including Circulation, JACC, Circulation Research, Hypertension, and etc. Our center has been nominated as one of the best national cardiology specialties for years, with our comprehensive strength of clinical practice, medical education and scientific research in the leading position in China.
