The Department of Gastroenterology of Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital Medical University formerly known as the internal liver disease group established in 1957, was renamed the infectious disease department in 2008. It is one of the liver diseases specialties with the longest history in Chinese traditional medicine hospitals. It is founded by Guan Youbo and Wang Hongshi, the experts of Yanjing School of TCM, who have made outstanding contributions to the treatment of liver diseases by traditional Chinese medicine, known as the "master of Chinese medicine for liver disease" and "vanquisher of complicated and severe disease". After more than half a century of development, our department now boasts a batch of famous experts including Wei Beihai, Chen Zengtan, Qian Ying, Li Qiangou, Xu Chunjun, Wang Guowei. Based on Wang and Guan's academic thought and clinical experience of treating liver disease, they have undertaken national key projects in the Sixth Five-Year Plan, Seventh Five-Year Plan and Eighth Five-Year Plan, and won more than 20 awards for scientific and technological progress at the national, municipal and bureau levels. Among them, four experts have received special contribution allowance from the State Council, and many served as Chairman, Vice Chairman and member of Beijing Association of Chinese Medicine, the Society of Hepatology of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine. Now, it is a Chairman Sponsoring Unit of the Society of Hepatobiliary Diseases of Beijing Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Chairman Sponsoring Unit of the Professional Apprenticeship Committee of Beijing Association of Chinese Medicine. Successive directors (group leaders) of the department are all committed to the inheritance and development of the Department, so that the Department of Infectious Diseases (Department of Gastroenterology) can continue to grow. They are: Wei Beihai, Chen Zengtan, Guan Youbo, Gao Yuhua, Zhao Bozhi, Wang Guowei, Xu Chunjun, Liu Wen and Sun Fengxia.
In recent years, based on the academic thoughts and clinical experience of famous experts of TCM, guided by scientific research and innovation, aimed at improving clinical curative effect, our department has been successfully developed into a clinical department with distinctive characteristics of TCM integrating medical education and research through critically inheritance, innovation based on the precious experience of the predecessors and the combination of old and new as well as Chinese and western medicine. On this basis, "Wei Beihai Famous Physician Studio", which was approved by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine; "Guan Youbo Famous Physician Studio" and Wang Hongshi Famous Physician Studio" are established, which were approved by Beijing Municipal Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. These studios have further inherited and developed Guan Youbo's theories of Shigang Bianzheng (differentiating the syndromes of a disease), phlegm stagnation, qi and blood, and deficiency and health, Chen Zengtan's three pathogenesis arguments of chronic hepatitis on toxin evil inside, deficiency and damage of healthy qi, and qi and blood disorder, and three treatment principles of invigorating, dispelling evil and regulating qi and blood, enriching the reservoir of ideas in treating liver diseases with traditional Chinese medicine.
Our department now has 3 tutors of doctoral degree candidates, 6 personnel of senior professional title, 4 personnel with doctoral degree and 5 personnel with master's degree. At present, it is mainly engaged in the integrated treatment traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine of various liver diseases, such as liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, fatty liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, autoimmune liver disease, drug-induced liver disease and so on. Our department also formed two famous medical teams with members from different departments, namely, "Sun Fengxia Famous Physicians Team" and "Qi Jing Famous Physicians Team". They would regularly visit patients in specific suburbs or communities, are good at treating "viral hepatitis", "fatty liver" and "liver cirrhosis" and have four special clinics for "fatty liver", "liver cirrhosis", "liver cancer" and "hypochondriac pain". The Department of Infectious Diseases not only attaches importance to the academic development, but also pays attention to the cultural construction of the department. The noble medical ethics of Guan Youbo, Wang Hongshi and other famous physicians of TCM have been handed down from one generation to another. Professor Guan Youbo's life motto of "being a physician with a human face, mastering the psychological state of patients and being proficient in medical science", has inspired generations of medical staff of gastroenterology discipline "to benefit mankind with medical skill and to save people with benevolence".
