November 8, 2019

Bradford explores potential ENT collaborations during visit to PKUHSC

Dr. Bradford tours the ENT ward with Third Hospital resident Ruizhe Yang.

Collaborations between Michigan Medicine and Peking University Health Science Center (PKUHSC) continue to expand into new disciplines. The latest is otolaryngology following a visit to PKUHSC Third Hospital by Carol R. Bradford, M.D., executive vice dean for academic affairs and professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery.

Bradford traveled to China in late October for the annual symposium of the Joint Institute collaboration between the U-M Medical School and PKUHSC. As part of the visit, she met with Li Zhu, M.D., chair of the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) department at the PKUHSC-affiliated Third Hospital, and toured the ENT clinical ward. Bradford saw the dedicated ENT inpatient floor as well as outpatient services like audiology, vestibular function examination, and allergy testing. The Third Hospital ENT team sees more than 150,000 patients a year.

“I enjoyed touring their clinical space and grateful that Dr. Zhu and her team took time from their busy schedule to meet with me,” Bradford said. “Their range of services is comprehensive and the way they manage a large volume of patients is impressive.”

Established nine years ago, the Michigan Medicine-PKUHSC Joint Institute partnership comprises 60 collaborative research projects co-led by faculty at the two institutions. The projects come from a variety of disciplines. Zhu and Bradford discussed potential areas to explore joint research, including 3D printing and artificial intelligence applications in otolaryngology, head and neck cancer treatment, and more.

“This was a great first meeting,” Bradford said, adding that a next step could be to arrange introductions between other interested faculty to get a better sense of specific areas of complementary expertise and strengths. “Once we identify the right people and the right research questions, I’m confident that our teams would be able to learn a lot from one another.”

As part of her visit to Beijing, Bradford, a member of the Joint Institute’s board of directors, also spoke at a Medicine Youth Science Forum conference on the central Peking University campus, delivering a lecture on precision health treatment advances for throat and oral cancer patients.

Third Hospital ENT Chair Li Zhu tours Dr. Bradford through the otolaryngology outpatient services area of her hospital.