by Lulu Zhang, MD, and Yuping Ning, MD
Dr. Zhang is from the Department of Psychiatry and Dr. Ning, renowned expert in psychiatry and neurology, is Director, Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
Psychiatry (Edgemont) 2010;7(6):53–53
Key words: Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, psychiatry, China
Abstract: Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital is the oldest hospital in China that specializes in psychiatry. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital plays a crucial role in mental healthcare in southern China. This article briefly discusses the general characteristics of Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital.
Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital: The Oldest Psychiatric Hospital in China
Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, also referred to as Guangzhou Brain Hospital, was founded in 1898 by Dr. J. G. Kerr, an American physician from the Presbyterian church. Dr. Kerr originally named the hospital Hui-Ai Hospital, which was changed to Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital in 1973 to conform to overall hospital planning. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital is the oldest psychiatric hospital in China and the only one of its kind in the Guangdong Province to receive “top confirmation,” the maximum rating of qualification for hospitals.
The hospital is also one of the largest facilities of its kind in China. The Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital campus encompasses a land area of about 100,000 square meters and has a staff of 1,100 personnel and a maximum capacity of 1,920 beds.
Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital has three outpatient clinics located in different districts of Guangzhou, with more than 300,000 outpatients visiting annually. The hospital has nine clinical departments, 20 wards, and two affiliated research centers (Guangzhou Mental Health Research Center and Guangzhou Crisis Research and Intervention Center). The hospital has departments in schizophrenia, mood disorders, early intervention, geriatric psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, forensic psychiatry, traditional Chinese medicine, and rehabilitation.
In addition to providing mental healthcare for the local community and the Guangdong province, the hospital provides research and teaching in the field of psychiatry and is a clinical pharmacology research base of the National Ministry of Health in China. Many clinical trials, including pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic studies (e.g., bioequivalence studies on new drugs) and global, multicenter, pharmacological trials, have been conducted in recent years at Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, with more than 10 Phase 1 clinical trials and 20 Phase 2 clinical trials conducted annually.
In addition to clinical trials, the hospital is the teaching practice base of Guangzhou Medical College, Sun Yat-Sen University, and Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, with many large-scale studies being carried out here. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital is also the psychiatry residency training base in the Guangdong province.
Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital provides an array of services for the people of southern China, such as medication, education, and disease prevention, and is also the quality control and community prevention center of psychiatry in southern China. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital is critical to the development of treatment options and research in mental health for today’s China.
