BWFH hosts visitors from Chinese hospital

Over the past year, Brigham Health has been building its relationship with Jiangsu Province Hospital, a 3,000-bed public hospital in China, with the goal of assessing and planning for a potential longer-term collaboration. To learn more about this collaboration, click here.

Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs Peggy Duggan, MD, has visited Jiangsu Province Hospital several times as part of this initiative. Recently, she had the chance to return the favor, hosting visitors from Jiangsu Province Hospital here at BWFH over the course of several weeks.

The first delegation from China included surgeons who had the opportunity to visit with and observe Brigham Health breast cancer surgeons at BWFH, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. BWFH’s Section Chief of Breast Surgery Laura Dominici, MD, and breast cancer surgeon Faina Nakhlis, MD, both had the privilege of participating in the visit.

“It was wonderful to be able to discuss differences in approaches and processes of care,” says Dr. Dominici. “The visiting surgeons were able to attend our local regional therapy research meeting and appreciated how interwoven research is with our clinical care. They were also interested in observing true multidisciplinary care at work, whether it be our discussions with medical oncology in clinic or in the operating room with our plastic surgery colleagues as we coordinated efforts around a breast reconstruction.”

Dr. Nakhlis similarly found the sharing of best practices to be valuable. “I spent one day in the operating room with two surgeons from China. They asked very insightful questions about indications for various procedures and about patient management.”

A second delegation included hospital administration, including Jiangsu Province Hospital President Dr. Jinhai Tang, MD. This group of visitors toured BWFH and had lunch with hospital leadership, including Dr. Duggan, President David McCready, Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Care Services Cori Loescher, MM, BSN, RN, NEA-BC, and several chiefs. During the lunch, Dr. Duggan welcomed the group, saying, “I want to thank you for coming to visit us. I have spent a lot time in your hospital, learning how you do things and I am pleased that you are able to spend some time here with us to see how we do things.”

For Dr. Duggan and the other surgeons who spent time with the visitors from Jiangsu Province Hospital, the time spent was very successful. “During my visits to China, I have seen that the approach to care is much different there than it is in the United States,” says Dr. Duggan. “But we all have the same goal—to take the best possible care of our patients. Our visitors not only expressed interest in learning our ways, but also in bringing some of our best practices back to their patients. For me, that is truly rewarding.”