COLLEGIAL COMMENTARIES

Dr. Edwin O. Reischauer, once the American Ambassador toJapan, claimed that Japanese group consciousness was relatedto its culture of rice cultivation. But young Japanese today do nottend to be as group-oriented as their parents. That is becausethey have grown up in an industrialized society influenced byWestern individualism. Rapid modernization in China is takingplace under even more drastic circumstances.

It is no surprise in Japan that every value cultivated by Confucianethics was completely rejected after the War. In China, it startedwith the late Deng Xiaoping’s open economic policy as repre-sented by the remark, “let’s become rich from the people whocan become rich.” Although the reasons for this developmentwere completely different in Japan and China, the people of bothcountries are being swallowed by the same wave.

Although we Japanese have very regretful memories of ouractions toward China in the past, we now have to work togetherto cope with the drastic changes that come with economicdevelopment through globalization, and that have led us to placea high significance on money. It is extremely difficult for anyoneeither in China or in Japan to counteract this loss of social ethics.However, we neurosurgeons should take care not only to con-duct treatment of poor patients in a bioethical way, but also notto fall into indifference to general ethics. In fact, it reminds methat a medical doctor in the premodern period in Japan wasreferred to as a “Jui,” which means a medical doctor with amastery of Confucianism.

1878-8750/$ - see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1016/j.wneu.2011.12.016

Wai S. Poon, M.D.Professor and Chief in Neurosurgery,Department of Surgery, Division of

Neurosurgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, People’sRepublic of China

I have known Professor Liangfu Zhousince the late 1980s. A long-term relation-ship between the Huashan Hospital and

the Prince of Wales Hospital of more than two decades has beenestablished. As the person in charge of the largest neurosurgicalservice in mainland China and an elected Fellow of the presti-gious Chinese Academy of Engineering, Professor Zhou’sachievements in academic neurosurgery have been listed andelegantly described in articles and other commentaries in thisissue of WORLD NEUROSURGERY. In this short commentary,features of his lifestyle that account for his success will bedescribed.

Liangfu is now fondly addressed by the Chinese neurosurgicalcommunity as Academician Zhou. His extremely modest person-ality has made him popular yet effective; effective in the sensethat he has been successful in expanding the neurosurgicalservice from within Huashan Hospital to multiple campusesservicing patients in Shanghai and internationally. His choiceof young partners to take charge of subspecialties and teamsis also insightful and successful. This is reflected by his highlydisciplined and healthy lifestyle: a nonsmoker and nondrinker,

he has always started work early, arriving on his bicycle (until

230 www.SCIENCEDIRECT.com

recently, due to the busy traffic in Shanghai making cycling inthe street unsafe). He is one of the few accomplished,academic neurosurgeons from mainland China who attendsinternational conferences to present and actively participate indiscussions, pushing the frontiers of the neurosurgical sci-ences. His choice of research topics is also insightful andclinically relevant.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to enjoy the opportunity ofdiscussing with Academician Zhou many of his areas of exper-tise, including surgical nutrition, surgical trials of magnetic reso-nance tractography, intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging,the establishment of neurotraumatology, and laboratory neuro-surgical research as full-time subspecialties. While it is impres-sive to list Huashan Hospital’s achievements over the last twodecades in all areas of clinical and laboratory neurosurgery, thecontributions made by Liangfu are beyond doubt. He leads byexample, and his unassuming and inclusive leadership style issomething for all of us to consider.

1878-8750/$ - see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc.DOI: 10.1016/j.wneu.2012.01.036

Renzhi Wang, M.D., Ph.D.Professor and Chief, Department ofNeurosurgery, Peking Union Medical

College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College andChinese Academy of Medical Science (PUMC &CAMS), Beijing, People’s Republic of China

P rofessor Zhou is one of the most presti-gious leading experts in the field of con-temporary neurosurgery China. Since be-

coming the Chief of the Department of Neurosurgery at HuashanHospital (affiliated with Fudan University) in 1984, he has dedicatedhis excellent clinical skills, noble medical ethics, and outstandingleadership to the pursuit of upgrading the original department to oneof the largest neurosurgery centers in the world.

Professor Zhou has been practicing neurosurgery for nearly fivedecades, and has conducted tens of thousands of operations. Hehas accumulated rich experience in the treatment of three maindiseases in the area of neurosurgery.

As a pioneer of microneurosurgery and the cranial blood vesselreconstruction technique, he has achieved remarkable success inthe treatment of irregular and huge aneurysms. With the aim ofimproving the outcome of current aneurysm treatment tech-niques, he established a new standard for the diagnosis andtreatment of aneurysms in China.

In the area of skull base tumor treatment, Professor Zhouadopted exclusive operative approaches and treatment tech-niques. His “sandwich approach” enables the effective preven-tion of both cerebrospinal fluid leakage and intracranial infectionswithout the necessity of bone implantation.

In recent years, Professor Zhou has played a pivotal role in theprogress of establishing a system of comprehensive treatmentfor brain trauma and has also participated in several large-scale,multicenter, prospective epidemiological studies on cranial

trauma.

77 [2]: 226-232, FEBRUARY 2012 WORLD NEUROSURGERY