The Medical Dedication Awards is organized by the Foundation of Health and Welfare of Legislative Yuan as well as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and has been the highest honor for all healthcare workers in Taiwan. The 32nd Medical Dedication Awards were presented last year on October 22. Shuu-Jiun Wang, the Associate Dean of the College of Medicine at National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University (hereinafter referred to as NYCU), and alumnus Chang-Hsien Yu were honored for their commitment to providing quality medical care and their consideration for their patients. Both awardees not only devote themselves to domestic clinical practices but also actively engage in international academic events, making them the top medical figures in Taiwan.
Professor Wang received his Bachelor’s degree in Medicine from National Yang-Ming University in 1988. He is currently working as Head of the Department of Neurology, at the Neurological Institute of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, while he also teaches as a professor in the Department of Medicine of NYCU. He was the first scholar in Taiwan to study abroad with an emphasis on headache treatments and was also the first doctor to establish a headache-centered clinic.
In 1996, Wang returned to Taiwan from the U.S. from his training in medical treatments for headaches. Afterward, he established the first headache clinic in Taipei Veterans General Hospital which included a standardized hospitalization process for patients with intractable headaches, lowering the risks of headaches triggered by drug abuse. Furthermore, Wang introduced significant treatments such as intravenous injections, botulinum toxin, monoclonal antibodies injections, and nerve blocking, etc. More than 4,500 people have been hospitalized in the headache-centered clinic, and the overall satisfaction rate of incoming patients in the past three years has reached up to 92.3%. Since 2015, Wang and his team have also built a smart headache clinic by developing online headache questionnaires and a smartphone app called Headache Diary. Patients can keep track of their headaches from the app which help them to monitor their conditions. The app helps doctors make correct diagnoses, that significantly shortens patients’ waiting time in the clinic. Until now, the Headache Diary app has accumulated more than 10,000 downloads.
Prof. Wang also believes that the field of medicine can only progress well when accompanied by academic research. Aside from establishing the headache clinic, he also built the Headache Study Group in Taiwan to conduct clinical headache research. After more than 30 years of hard work, he has made Taiwan a leading country in Asia in terms of clinical headache treatments, especially in the field of thunderclap headaches and low-pressure headaches. His team was the first to publish a report on the clinical efficacy of calcium-channel blockers in the treatment of thunderclap headaches in 2004. The first large-scale survey was published globally in 2006 which greatly contributed to the headache classification standards on a global scale. In 2008 and 2010 consecutively, the team published works on the results of transcranial color doppler (TCD) and magnetic resonance angiography studies, providing important guidelines for the clinical treatment of thunderclap headaches. The team has treated over 900 patients with thunderclap headaches until now, with a treatment rate of 83% using calcium-channel blockers.
As in the field of low-pressure headache, Wang’s team has also collaborated with the Department of Radiology of Taipei Veterans General Hospital to develop the world’s first non-invasive, and non-radioactive “Heavily-T2 weighted magnetic resonance myelography” technique to locate cerebrospinal fluid leakage. They developed a diagnostic and treatment process based on this technique to improve the treatment rate for patients with low-pressure headaches.
Prof. Wang is also in charge of a multidisciplinary medical group that includes experts in electrical engineering, physics, and computer science. They collaborated with the School of Computing Science of the University of Technology Sydney to establish the research on changes of brain waves as predictions of migraine attacks. With an accuracy rate of 80%, such technology may alert physicians and patients of imminent migraine episodes, allowing patients to begin taking medicine earlier and receive the best care possible. The research was awarded the FutureTech Award last year by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The other awardee Chang-Hsien Yu is an alumnus of the College of Medicine from the former National Yang-Ming University and is currently a doctor of pediatric cardiology at Taitung Mackay Memorial Hospital. He is the only pediatric cardiologist in Taitung and has been devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric heart disease in Taitung for 18 years.
In the past, pediatric cardiac patients in Taitung frequently had to be referred promptly to the medical institutions in Hualien, Kaohsiung, or even Taipei for treatment; in extreme situations, long-distance travel could risk their lives. Concerned about the shortage of pediatric medical care in Taitung, Yu chose to stay in the Taitung branch of Mackay Memorial Hospital after two years of rotation out of his own will. “I hope children may grow up healthy so that they can fulfill their dreams in their lives as they grow up,” Yu stated. Such value of protecting younger lives from illness is more meaningful to him than anything else, it is the primary reason that he has chosen pediatric cardiology in the first place.
Yu established various pediatric subspecialties throughout his tenure as the department’s director at Taitung Mackay Memorial Hospital. He also established a 24-hour pediatric emergency clinic and a pediatric intensive care clinic, both of which were firsts in Taitung for pediatric medicine. In addition, he also collaborated with the Department of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei to perform the first pediatric heart surgery in Taitung. He has now completed more than 20 cases of heart surgery for pediatric patients in Taitung as well as 100 cases of cardiac catheterization surgery.
Due to the lack of awareness and knowledge of congenital heart disease among the people in Taitung, Yu has also been actively conducting screening programs among schoolchildren in rural regions since 18 years ago. His team conducts three-stage screenings in 16 towns in more than 100 elementary schools, and junior high schools every year, covering more than thousands of schoolchildren, which is helpful to discover possible cardiac diseases at an early stage.
While Yu was doing his one-year study in Philadelphia in 2016, he noticed that the American Academy of Pediatrics had listed blood lipid screening as an essential screening item for children. Since the obesity rate in Taitung is significantly higher in Taiwan, he then start working with the Taitung county government in 2020 to implement “the screening program for schoolchildren with hyperlipidemia and hyperuricemia” for fourth graders of elementary schools in Taitung county. After two years of screening, the team discovered that about 15% of the children as patients of hyperlipidemia, and they started medication for severe cases hoping to reduce the level of premature cardiovascular disease in the future. The study was later published in the journal Pediatrics and Neonatology. Yu expects to give suggestions to Health Promotion Administration after collecting enough data from the study that the screening program may be expanded throughout Taiwan, ultimately benefiting more children.
Aside from Shuu-Jiun Wang and Chang-Hsien Yu who received the Medical Dedication Awards this year, more alumni of NYCU are listed as former awardees including Niu Dau-Ming, Class of 2004 from Institute of Clinical Medicine, Allen Lien, Class of 2001 from Department of Medicine, 25th Ning-Sheng Lai, Class of 1982 from Department of Medicine and Class of 1995 from Institute of Clinical Medicine, the 1st Kao Cheng-Hui, Class of 1982 from Department of Medicine and Wu Ding-Jia, Class of 1983 from Department of Medicine. During the time of National Yang-Ming University before the merger, Professor Fan Ping-Chin was awarded the 6th Medical Dedication Special Award, and the Yang Ming Crusader was also awarded the 13th Medical Dedication Group Award. NYCU has nurtured talents and alumni dedicated to the medical care of Taiwan in both clinical and research practice. The awarding of Shuu-Jiun Wang and Chang-Hsien Yu demonstrates the university’s tradition of cultivating talents both locally and internationally in the realm of academia and practice, which is a great inspiration for NYCU to continue their devotion to cultivating medical talents in the future.