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Mei-Shin Shih：A
Surgeon, Master，and
Mentor
Qun Wang M.D.1
Chunsheng Wang M.D.2 Lijie Tan
M.D.1 Jia Fan M.D.3
1
Department of Thoracic
Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan
University
2
Department of Cardiac
Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan
University
3
Liver Cancer Institute,
Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University
Studying medicine
Dr. Mei-Shin Shih was
born on January 5, 1918 to a literary family
in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province. In his
early years China was being plagued by years
of fighting among factional warlords, and
people were living in misery. He studied
very hard and was determined to get enrolled
into the Shanghai Medical College, now an
affiliate to Fudan University. His name
appeared on the school’s admission list
published by Shun Pao newspaper on August
18, 1936.
After the Anti-Japanese
War broke out, the school had to be
relocated again and again across the country
and he finally graduated in 1943 and worked
at the department of surgery as an assistant
resident and teaching assistant. In 1946, he
returned to Shanghai, and served as senior
assistant resident at the Red Cross Hospital
(now the Huashan Hospital), and later he
went on to work at Zhongshan Hospital.
In 1947 Prof. Chia-ssu
Huang established the department of
cardiothoracic surgery in the Zhongshan
Hospital and Shi soon became his right arm.
Under Prof. Huang’s instructions, Shi
embarked on an extraordinary journey of
medical explorations. It’s worth mentioning
that Prof. Huang personally performed two
surgeries (appendectomy and phrenic nerve
blockage) for Mei-xin Shi. The inheritance
of Prof. Huang’s medical legacy to Shi was
marked by the opening of the 7th annual
conference of the Chinese Medical
Association in 1947, when the two masters
jointly published an important article -
Experience on Surgical Treatment for
Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Preliminary Report.
This article was published on the Chinese
Medical Journal and later became
normative guidelines for Chinese thoracic
surgeons to treat tuberculosis. The
inheritance of their medical legacies later
became a much told tale.
Dr. Shi helped Prof.
Huang in the establishment of the department
of cardiothoracic surgery in Zhongshan
Hospital, and later he became director of
the department and head of Shanghai
Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases. Under
his leadership, Zhongshan Hospital has
developed into one of China’s largest and
most advanced diagnosis & treatment centers
of thoracic and cardiac diseases.
Innovations
Prof. Shi has been
treating cardiothoracic diseases for decades
and has dedicated his whole life to the
development of cardiothoracic surgery in
China.
In 1945 a US surgeon Leo
Eloesser, 19th President of the
American Association for Thoracic Surgery
(1936-37), was invited to China and make a
speech about the latest advances in the
surgical treatment of cardiothoracic
diseases. When talking about the surgery for
Tetralogy of Fallot, he joked to the
audience that he would cut off his head if
anyone else in the room could perform this
sophisticated surgery.
In the newly founded
China, the most sophisticated surgical
instruments were not availible from the
Western due to disembargoes. That made it
extremely difficult to carry out this
complicated surgery. In the first place, a
very tiny and specially curved needle must
be in place before the surgery can begin.
Even such a needle could not be produced in
China at that time.
Dr. Shih was determined
to make this kind of needle by himself. He
bought tiny crewel needles and heated them
on the alcohol lamp so that the needles
could bend. It’s easy saying than doing,
because quenched metals are prone to break
up. After numerous failed attempts in more
than ten days, he finally made a batch of
needles that could be used in the surgery.
He then used the needles to perform
surgeries on animals and gained confidence
after several successful practices. Early in
1953, a patient with Tetralogy of Fallot was
admitted in Zhongshan Hospital. After making
full preparations for the surgery, Dr. Shi
adopted new procedures and used the
self-made needles to perform the first
Blalock-Taussig shunt in China.
After successful
completion of the surgery on March 2, 1953,
Dr. Shih did neither make it public nor make
aggressive efforts to spread news about his
successful practice, because what he did was
not for personal gains. The surgery was not
known by the outside world as the first
Blalock-Taussig shunt for Tetralogy of
Fallot in China until the patient died 41
years later. When asked about this landmark
operation, Shi said there was no special
feeling after the surgery, but he indeed
felt a sense of relief for he did what was
once considered a mission impossible.
In addition to the first
Blalock-Taussig shunt for Tetralogy of
Fallot in China, he also performed the many
“firsts” in China’s history of
cardiothoracic surgery: resection of
pulmonary metastases (January 1948); primary
resection of lungs for the management of
empyema, thoracoplasty after lung resection,
ligation & division of the abberant right
subclavian artery, and substernal jejunal
interposition (1953); suturing and division
of the patent ductus arteriosus (1954);
primary radical treatment for the congenital
esophageal atresia and esophago-tracheal
fistula; and mitral commissurotomy via
interatrial groove through right thoracotomy
(1957); direct closure of atrial septal
defects under hypothermia (April 1958);
homograft repair of aortic arch aneurysm
(1959); direct repair of ruptured sinus of
Valsalva under cardiopulmonary bypass
(1960); resection of left ventricular
aneurysm under deep hypothermic
cardiopulmonary bypass, and mitral valve
repair under direct vision (1962); resection
of manubrium chondroma and allograft
transplantation for the cryopreserved
manubrium and bilateral sternoclavicular
joints (in cooperation with the Department
of Orthopedics) (1970);.
With his unique
innovations, Dr. Shi completed many
"impossible" missions for China.
Another extraordinary
contribution by him was the development of
artificial heart-lung machine. Due to
political reasons, Western countries barred
export of such machines into China at that
time. Prof. Shi came up with a bold idea of
independently developing the machine. He
drew schematics of the machine and brought
the drawings to machinery plants in Shanghai
to consult experts. After more than one year
of relentless efforts and 191 animal tests,
China’s first static vertical screen
artificial heart-lung machine finally rolled
off the production line. With this machine,
Zhongshan Hospital had carried out a series
of open heart surgeries since September 1959
and the safety of these surgeries was
substantially improved. These
domestically-made machines were later used
in many medical institutions across the
country and saved numerous lives.
Given Prof. Shi’s
remarkable contributions, the Chinese
Medical Association’s Society of Surgery
decided in 1975 to dispatch him to attend
the 26th conference of the International
Society of Surgery at Edinburgh, UK. Only
three Chinese attended this conference.
Role model
In the 1950s, Mei-xin Shi
was the first to open training courses for
thoracic surgeons in China and a large
number of thoracic surgeons acquired skills
and expertise from these training programs.
Prof. Shi was president
of Shanghai First Medical College from 1978
to 1984. As a man of dedication, candor,
integrity and simplicity, he had been making
every effort to restore order at the college
disrupted during the ‘Cultural Revolution’.
As a mentor of postgraduates, he had been
tireless in teaching and trained roughly 300
thoracic surgeons from China as well as
Indonesia, Mongolia and Vietnam.
Prof. Shi has been a
rigorous scholar with many works to his
credit. He has published nearly 100
scientific articles. He was chief editor of
medical publications like Practical
Surgery, Illustrated Cardiothoracic
Surgery, Atlas of Vascular Surgery,
and Manual for Grassroot Doctors.
He
also participated in the compilation of
professional medical textbooks including
Surgery, James Shen’s Textbook of
Surgery, Chia-ssu Huang’s Textbook of
Surgery, Vascular Surgery, and
Cardiothoracic Surgery. He was nearly 90
years old when editing Practical Surgery, a
textbook that had been revised seven times.
He reviewed scripts of millions of
characters and carefully read every sentence
before making any revision. He would not
miss any mistake, even a punctuation mark or
a typo. He said even the slightest error was
not acceptable for a reference book that
every young doctor would have to use.
Prof. Shi was also deputy
chief editor of major dictionaries like
Cihai, Da Cihai, and Chinese Medical
Encyclopedia, and he was in charge of
reviewing the definition of medical terms.
What impressed us most is
Dr. Shih's care and support to younger
doctors. In January 2013 the Ministry of
Health planned to publish Color
Illustrations for Cardiothoracic Surgery, an
important book under the key national
publishing project (2011-2015). The
publishing house had already decided to name
Dr. Shi as chief editor, but he insisted
this honor should be granted to his student,
Prof. Chun-sheng Wang. He wrote an ebullient
preface for the book, saying ‘the book, with
exquisite pictures, accurate descriptions
and prominent practicality, will definitely
play a positive role in conducive to deeper
study on cardiothoracic diseases’. In the
preface he expressed a sincere hope that the
younger generation can really excel their
masters in terms of academic achievements.
Life in the late years
Dr. Shi has also spent a
colorful life in his late years. He set and
repeatedly renewed his own record of being
the oldest doctor joining in expert
consultations. He and his beloved wife,
Prof. Zhong-nian Chen, who is also a medical
professor, accompanied each other and led a
peaceful life in their final years. Their
residence was just a few meters away from
Zhongshan Hospital, and students of the
medical school had always met them on the
way between the hospital and their house.
Compared with doctors ‘in
the modern times’, Prof. Shi looked more
like a doctor of the past. He cares much
more about creation and giving than
receiving or self-consummation. Once there
was a proposal that he should apply to be an
academician of either the Chinese Academy of
Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering,
and his application, if submitted, stands a
good chance of being approved given his
reputation and contribution. However, he
flatly rejected the proposal. His rejection
is apparently unimaginable in today’s world.
This might be what is supposed to be for a
master of thoracic surgery.
Several months after his
wife passed away, Prof. Shi also left the
world he had been loving so deeply, with his
wisdom and his hands. Definitely, the legend
of the master continues, as the Memorial
Chia-ssu Huang Lecture will be held to pass
down the story between the two giants in
thoracic surgery in China, which was a deep
wish from Prof. Shi. A Chinese’s journal on
thoracic disease would be honored to have
their legend continue, and world widely
spread.
The life of Dr. Mei-Shin Shih
January 5, 1918, born in Fuzhou, Fujian
1933-1936, studied in Gezhi High School,
Fuzhou
1936-1943, studied at Shanghai School of
Medicine
1943, assistant resident and teaching
assistant at the Affiliated Hospital of
Shanghai Medical College
1948, surgeon and lecturer at Affiliated
Hospital of Shanghai Medical College
1950, medical officer during the Korean War
1951, helped Prof. Chia-ssu Huang establish
the department of cardiothoracic surgery
1954, Professor of surgery, director,
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at
Zhongshan Hospital, and head of Shanghai
Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases
1978-1984, president of Shanghai First
Medical College
January 10, 2014, passed away
Drs
Yaxing Shen, Hao Wang, Zhen Yang, and Weiguo
Ma contributed partly to the manuscript.
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