From November 20th to 24th, Prof. Winking, Director of Spine Center of Osnabrück Hospital and former President of German Spine Society, visited Affiliated Hospital of Wuhan Sports University as an international visiting professor, and carried out a series of academic exchange activities in the hospital, including outpatient consultations, ward rounds, surgical guidance, surgical practice, internal lectures, discussions on department management and complex cases, and public lecture, etc.

Highlights

Unveiling Ceremony for "Sino-German Communication Center for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery"

On the morning of November 20th, a welcome ceremony for Prof. Winking was held at the Affiliated Hospital of Wuhan Sports University, which was attended by WANG Jing, Secretary of Party General Branch, LI Xugui, President of the hospital, ZHOU Shijing, Vice President of the hospital and the directors of the relevant clinical departments, and was chaired by XIE Wei, Vice President of the hospital.

On behalf of the hospital, President LI Xugui warmly welcomed Prof. Winking’s arrival.

President Li said that Prof. Winking is a famous German spine specialist and hoped that he could act as the "international power" to help to promote the high-quality development of the hospital through the one-week academic activities, and also hoped to take this opportunity to deepen the friendship with Prof. Winking and to promote further cooperation.

President LI Xugui and Prof. Winking attended the unveiling ceremony for the "Sino-German Communication Center for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery", and President LI issued a letter-of-appointment of visiting professor to Prof. Winking.

This establishment of the communication center means that the hospital will continue to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with orthopaedics departments at home and abroad, and will go deeper into clinical practice and research, so as to contribute to build the brand of "Orthopaedics of Wuhan Sports University " for the health of Hubei people.

XIE Wei, Vice President of Affiliated Hospital of Wuhan Sports University

Dr. TANG Jin of Department of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery gave a brief introduction of the department.

During the welcome ceremony, Prof. Winking introduced the city of Osnabrück and the hospital where he works, and said that he had traveled over 6,000 kilometers from Germany to Wuhan, China, to meet with the Chinese colleagues and hoped that both sides could spark new ideas and promote the development of spine surgery to a higher level.

In the afternoon, with the guide of the doctors and the head nurse, Prof. Winking visited the operating rooms of the hospital to know more about the equipment and surgical instruments and observe a spinal endoscopic surgery.

In just one day, Prof. Winking said that he saw many new things that are different from those in German hospitals, and he was very looking forward to an in-depth exchanges with Chinese colleagues in the coming days.

Outpatient Consultation

On November 21st, Prof. Winking and Dr. LIU Liu came to the outpatient clinic of the hospital for consultation, which attracted lots of patients.

Prof. Winking listened and asked every patient's complaints in detail, while Dr. LIU assisted in translation and did the detailed physical examination and film reading for every patient together with Prof. Winking. They cooperated well with each other.

Through the one-day outpatient clinic, Prof. Winking found that there is not much difference in the conditions of the patients between China and Germany, and most of them are complaining about shoulder, neck, waist and leg pains, and most of the patients can be relieved from pains through proper exercises and some conservative treatments. He also suggested that patients can swim, bicycle, do Tai Chi and other exercises to relax their muscles, so as to strengthen their body and relieve the pain at the same time.

Sino-German Global Live Broadcast on Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

At 9:00 am of November 22nd, the Sino-German Global Live Broadcast on Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery kicked off. The live surgery was a spinal endoscopic surgery for lumbar disc herniation via an interlaminar approach, which was performed by Dr. TANG Jin from the Dept. of MISS. Prof. Winking and Prof. ZHAO Zhou stood by side providing surgical guidance and Director LI Ying and Dr. LIU liu from Dept. of MISS gave live illustrations at the conference room.

The patient had lumbar disc herniation with ankylosing spondylitis at L5-S1, with calcification at the dorsal part of the vertebral body. Although the surgery was not that difficult, it was a great test of the surgeon’s surgical skills and patience.

Prof. Winking and Prof. ZHAO Zhou were on the side to provide guidance during the whole surgery and interacted with Director LI Ying and Dr. LIU Liu to discuss on the key steps of the surgery and to share with each other the similarities and differences between China and Germany in terms of the selection of surgical instruments, the dealing of the ligamentum flavum, and the range of decompression, etc.

The surgery was very successful. After the surgery, Prof. Winking praised Dr. TANG Jin for his impressive surgical demonstration and said that his composed personality will help him to become a better spine surgeon in the future.

Discussion on Training of Young Surgeons and Department Management

In the afternoon of November 22nd, Prof. Winking gave a lecture titled "The Training of Young Surgeons and Specialization for Spine Surgery in Germany".

He shared that in Germany, spine surgeons mainly come from neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons. After completing the 6-year training of residents required by German Medical Association, these two types of doctors can participate in the primary and advanced courses designed by the German Spine Society (DWG), learning the conservative and surgical treatments for various spinal diseases step by step, from easy ones to difficult ones.

During 2 years of specialization in spine surgery, the doctors need to learn about the knowledge of emergencies, intensive care, rehabilitation, pain treatment, trauma, deformity, tumors, infection, and ventral and dorsal approaches to the whole spine, and they should independently complete 215 spine surgeries before they could become a spine specialist.

After the lecture, Prof. Winking had a heated discussion with the heads of administration departments and doctors of clinical departments of the hospital, and he hoped that the German experience on training of spine surgeon could be an inspiration to Chinese colleagues.

Case Discussion

On the morning of November 23rd, Prof. Winking had case discussion with the team from the Dept. of MISS. The team presented a case that they removed a neurinoma by endoscopy via a transforaminal approach. The team also 3D-printed a model of the spinal segment invaded by the tumor before the surgery and used the model for surgery simulation before performing the surgery.

Prof. Winking agreed with their surgical plan and said that the transforaminal approach is usually chosen when the tumor is located more laterally, and this kind of tumor has to be removed thoroughly to prevent recurrence.

In the afternoon, four departments of spine surgery of the hospital sent young doctors to present their cases to Prof. Winking and discussed each case with him in detail.

They were discussing in a warmly atmosphere with various topics, including the treatment methods of infection after internal fixation, the timing of antibiotic treatment, the differences in the treatment of osteoporotic fracture in the elderly between China and Germany, when the patient could get out of bed after surgery, and how to prevent venous thrombosis in lower limbs after surgery, etc.

Prof. Winking then shared three cases of cervical spine, which were very complicated and difficult to operate, and some of the surgeries had to be performed through uncommon approaches such as transoral approach or far lateral approach. One patient with cervical myelopathy, who had undergone 5 surgeries before, approached Prof. Winking again for the 6th revision surgery. It was very successful and prevented the patient from suffering from the pain of re-operation again.

After Prof. Winking’s case report, there was thunderous applause in the conference room, and the attendees all said that Prof. Winking is a real master of spine surgery, who is at the forefront of the world, and his sharing let everyone know that there is a master with superb surgical skills living thousands of miles away in the world.

Public Lecture

Good times always fly by, and November 24th was the last day of Prof. Winking's visit to Affiliated Hospital of Wuhan Sports University.

In the public lecture, Prof. Winking gave a lecture on "Dose Technical Progress Improve the Treatment In Spinal Surgery?”, introducing the development of spine surgery from different perspectives, including surgical methods, evolution of implants, change in surgical goals, and development and use of different technologies. He concluded that robotic spine surgery will be the trending in the next 10 years. And at the end of his lecture, he also asked a thought-provoking question: "If in the future through technology everything becomes easier and better, what are the duties of a spine surgeon?"

During the event, the teams of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, Neck, Shoulder and Low Back Pain Ward, Spine Surgery Ward I and Spine Surgery Ward II all took a group photo with Prof. Winking respectively.