Editor's note: Allan Farman's column, Talking Pictures, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.
Yes, "Peking" is the name of the leading university in Beijing, China. Alongside the delicacy Peking Duck and the cultural experience for which few understand what is being sung -- "Peking Opera" -- Peking University is the third designation for the word "Peking."
The university's School of Stomatology is worth the trip to Beijing as well. Early in October, the university opened a new multistory state-of-the-art clinical and educational facility in West Beijing, second to none anywhere in the world. (Schools of stomatology began appearing in the 1950s to indicate a wider role in treatment of maladies of the maxillofacial region than simply dental aspects of disease.)
As an honored guest professor of this institution, I was one of nine foreign guests to be invited to participate in the preopening scientific seminar. Arriving a few days in advance to lecture to the graduate students, I was able to spend some time in the Radiology Clinic with professors Xuchen Ma (immediate past chair and senior professor) and Zuyan Zhang (chair), as well as other faculty members as they examined and operated upon patients.
They have a medical multislice CT system and also two active cone-beam CT systems (QR NewTom and J. Morita Accuitomo 3D) with a third on order. Each of the cone-beam CT systems has a throughput of approximately 50 patients per day. They also have ultrasound for examining the head and neck, and have developed the art of videosialography for removal of salivary gland stones and correction of ductal strictures. Image-guided procedures make up a substantial portion of the work in the advanced imaging center.
The opening ceremony was attended by deans from all of the stomatology schools in China and many other countries. Opening addresses by China's minister of health and the vice chair of the Chinese Communist Party, among others, emphasized the importance of the new facility for healthcare in China and as an example to be emulated by other institutions.
Peking University is to be congratulated on its new facility, which will undoubtedly become a major example for other institutions to follow -- and from which many "talking pictures" will be produced in the oral and maxillofacial radiology arena. The old school will now be dedicated to faculty offices, meeting rooms, and basic research.
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