Lecture by Professor Su Zhongzhen: Bedside Ultrasound Shows Superiority Over Human in Fighting against COVID-19 Pandemic
On the evening of April 23rd, 2021, Professor Su Zhongzhen, vice president and director of the Division of Ultrasound of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), is a distinguished expert of the cross-disciplinary teaching team for international medical language service of the School of International Studies (SIS). He was invited to give a lecture at the No.6 Haiqin Building on Zhuhai Campus of SYSU.
Professor Su shared his experience of scientific research when working on the frontlines amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the lecture “Bedside Ultrasound Shows Superiority Over Human in Fighting against COVID-19 Pandemic”. The lecture attracted varied audiences including the medical workers from the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU, teachers and students of SIS and alumni of SYSU. Dr. Guo Cong acted as the host of the lecture and Lin Hong, head nurse of the Phoenix International Medical Center of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU also attended the lecture with her colleagues.
Professor Su sharing his experiences in fighting against COVID-19
Head Nurse Lin Hong and Her Colleagues
Beginning with the role transition from a clinician to a researcher, Professor Su gave a detailed introduction to clinicians’ three steps to do scientific research – selecting the topic, conducting the research, and summarizing the results. He reviewed how he had led his team to do research on lung ultrasound at the early stage of the pandemic. During the research process, they made overall observations on the characteristics of COVID-19, summarized the imaging findings about the lungs of COVID-19 patients, and compared the effectiveness of many types of medical imaging in disease assessment. Based on such practices, the team selected a topic that could contribute to clinical medicine, fill research gaps and meet actual needs. Then the team carefully planned each step for the research conduction and creatively made use of the ultrasound to examine the lung segments. At last, they generalized the special value of bedside ultrasound in the assessment of critically ill patients. During the lecture, Professor Su stressed the critical role of the research results in the paper. He explained how to make a comprehensive presentation of research results with diagrams and data so as to draw a well-founded and practical conclusion.
He also believed that a qualified researcher should master skills in literature handling, experiment design, experiment operation, academic writing, and team communication. This interpretation of a qualified researcher by Professor Su indeed inspired the students present, especially the first-year postgraduate students and the senior undergraduate students who were about to select their own research topics for dissertations.
Professor Su emphasized the significance of being aware of doing clinical work with the thought for scientific research and illustrated how a paper was written from data collection to publication on top international journals. Actually, before being admitted, the paper would be returned and revised many times for various problems ranging from the choice of punctuation to the adjustment of the research content. The students majoring in languages were encouraged to improve the professional quality, enrich cross-disciplinary knowledge and cooperate with other authors to write high-quality international papers with scientific thoughts. Also, the students got to know that they should enhance the sense of social responsibility and take a serious attitude towards their work, with a goal in mind to cultivate virtues and serve the society.
When the first part of the lecture was finished, many attendees asked Professor Su some questions. From the perspective of thesis writing, Liang Yingwen, a student from Class B of the 2019 English majors, asked the professor how to select a topic, whether he met difficulties in topic selection and how to overcome them during the research. From a more professional perspective, some attendees who were doctors and professors from the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU joined a discussion on medical knowledge and Professor Su gave wonderful answers to all questions.
Liang Yingwen asking questions
In the second part of the lecture, Professor Su focused on the “the vision of SYSU” highlighted by the health workers from the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. He introduced the great contributions of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU to the frontline fight against pandemic in respects of party building-guidance, epidemic prevention and treatment, logistical support, sci-tech innovation, and commitment to shoulder the social responsibility. When he mentioned the medical workers fighting the pandemic on the frontlines, Professor Su had tears in his eyes. All attendees were also moved and impressed by the selfless dedication of the frontline workers. In terms of sci-tech innovation, Professor Su stressed the timeliness of medical research papers during this special period. For example, during the outbreak of the COVID-19, timely and authoritative results in medical research were especially significant to the fight against the pandemic. The research results of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU were cited by many authorities and thus helped to defeat the virus with the vision of SYSU. What’s more, Professor Su introduced the development of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU in recent years, which demonstrated the great health care services and the promising future of the hospital.
The lecture scenes
In the end of the lecture, Professor Yang Chengshu and Professor Su Zhongzhen discussed the new-stage cooperation between SIS and the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU on the program of international medical language service. They hoped that more and more students of SIS could have opportunities to learn more and work as an intern in the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU so as to give full play to students’ proficiency in foreign languages to meet the increasing demands for translation services in the medical field.
