The hospital has a history of over 100 years. Its 4 locations have a total of 3,579 beds and over 5,000 personnel, including over 730 senior technical staff, 78 doctoral advisors, over 400 PhD degree holders, over 1,200 staff with master’s degrees, and over 100 staff who have studied abroad.243

The hospital began performing kidney transplants in May 1993 and was one of the first hospitals in China to conduct kidney transplantation. After establishing kidney transplantation as an independent department, it developed rapidly, with the number of transplants completed increasing year by year. It has already formed an integrated system of kidney transplantation for medical treatment, teaching and research. Its kidney transplant patients come from Shanxi, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Hunan, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and other regions.244

Liver transplantation is a routine surgery for its hepatobiliary surgery department. In 2012, the flight inspection group on organ transplantation of the Ministry of Health highly commended this department for its excellent work.245

In February 2014, the Organ Transplant Center was established. A top organ transplant team, led by Professor Zang Yunjin, the former deputy Director of the Institute of Liver Transplantation at Beijing Armed Police General Hospital, will focus on liver, heart, kidney, and pancreas transplants.

Zang Yunjin is the vice president of the Qingdao University Hospital Group and the director of its Organ Transplant Center. Its website claimed that, in less than half a year, the center had risen to a leading position in China, especially in liver transplants, and predicted that the organ transplants conducted at this hospital would rank among the top 10 in the country in 2014.246

In 2004, the department completed the first lung transplant in Shandong Province. 247

Its ophthalmology founder Professor Pan Zuoxin is a well-known ophthalmic specialist. Professor Xie Lixin, the current leader of this discipline, is the only academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering in the field of ophthalmology. The hospital’s technique in preserving corneas and the construction of its eye bank are leading the field in China. It has carried out more than 10,000 cornea transplants so far.248