Professor Sun Baochen passed away, the founder of the discipline of low vision in China!

The Low Vision Clinic offers people with severe eye diseases one last chance to improve their vision.

Written by | Wan Shunshun

Source | "Medical Community" public account

According to the obituary released by the "Beijing Eye Research Institute", Professor Sun Baochen, chief physician, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, beijing Tongren Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, died in Beijing on May 3, 2022 at the age of 89 due to ineffective treatment of heart disease.

As the founder of the discipline of low vision in the mainland, Professor Sun Baochen opened the first low vision clinic in the mainland in the Department of Ophthalmology of Beijing Tongren Hospital in 1983, introducing the discipline of low vision to China for the first time, and making outstanding contributions to the prevention of blindness and the rehabilitation of low vision in the mainland.

Professor Baochen Sun

A pioneer in the rehabilitation of patients with low vision

Low vision is a visual disability that refers to the optimal corrected vision of a good eye in both eyes between 0.03 and 0.5. The causes of low vision in children are congenital hereditary eye disease, refractive error, amblyopia, corneal disease, optic neuropathy, and the main cause of low vision in adults is high myopia.

Rehabilitation for low vision was completely blank in the mainland until the early 1980s. In 1982, Professor Sun Baochen conducted an ophthalmic epidemiological survey of more than 10,000 people in accordance with the WHO standards for blindness and low vision in the suburbs of Beijing, China, which promoted the standardization of epidemiological surveys of visual disabilities in mainland China.

In 1983, Professor Sun Baochen created the low vision major and established the first low vision clinic in mainland China in Beijing Tongren Hospital.

When he went out of the clinic, he took a suitcase with a variety of gaze mirrors, far and near, and filled the table for low-vision patients to try, so that patients with low vision could read with the help of gaze mirrors and improve the quality of life of patients.

Foreign countries have begun to study the rehabilitation of low vision very early, not only developing and producing a series of high-quality optical visual aids, electronic vision aids and other low vision aids, but also developing and producing a series of speech systems and scanning systems and other visual aids to help patients who are completely blind to live and learn. However, few people in China pay attention to people with low vision. In 1986, Sun Baochen successfully developed the first set of domestic visual aids, which became a rehabilitation device for patients with low vision in the mainland.

In the same year, Tongren Hospital held the country's first low vision training class; in 1988, he published the first monograph on low vision in mainland China, "Clinical Low Vision"; in 2004, he was invited by the Ministry of Education of China to edit the first national higher textbook on low vision in mainland China, "Low Vision".

Under his impetus, the rehabilitation of low vision in China has begun to receive attention from ophthalmology and all sectors of society. Professor Sun Baochen has been engaged in the research of low vision and fundus diseases all his life, published more than 50 papers, compiled nearly 10 foreign low vision monographs, and helped establish about 1,000 low vision rehabilitation clinics across the country.

Young children's ability to judge spatial orientation develops later, while the ability to recognize various geometric shapes develops earlier. Compared with the standard logarithmic eye chart, the graphical eye chart has more visual marker patterns, which is easy to stimulate children's interest.

The most common children's eye chart now, namely the graphic eye chart on the right with cups, five-pointed stars, alarm clocks, flags, ducks, fishes and flowers, was designed by Professor Sun Baochen in 1985.

A professor of a unique style

"Suit and leather shoes, personable", Wei Wenbin, currently vice president of Beijing Tongren Hospital and an ophthalmologist, still remembers his first impression of Professor Sun Baochen when he first entered Tongren Hospital. In 1986, in the early days of reform and opening up, people's dress was still rustic, and the clothing was basically unified, and Sun Baochen "stood out from the crowd".

He was returning from visits to the University of Western Australia and the University of Melbourne in Australia, tall and burly, with gold-rimmed glasses, rings on his hands, shiny hair, and a tie suit and leather shoes.

According to Wei Wenbin's recollection, after returning to China, he assisted Zhang Xiaolou and Professor Li Rongde in establishing the WHO Anti-Blindness Cooperation Center, and often accompanied the two seniors on business trips. Professor Li Rongde was thin and slender, followed by a unique professor Sun Baochen. People often make jokes about him as a "leader" and ignore the real leader, Professor Li Rongde.

Before carrying out the rehabilitation of low vision, Sun Baochen also experienced the adversity of life.

In 1956, he graduated from Beijing Medical College and worked in a colleague, and in 1963 he was transferred to Huairou County Hospital in Beijing, where he stayed for 16 years. During this period, Sun Baochen did not give up studying, and purchased some ophthalmic foreign language reference books and three English photocopied ophthalmology magazines. Take advantage of sunday breaks to check the library of Concordia and Tongren Hospital.

In his free time, Sun Baochen collaborated with others to translate two books- "Eye Syndrome" and "Ophthalmic Therapeutics and Pharmacology", and published a number of literature reviews and translations. "Through animal experiments and clinical work, he published 3 papers in the Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology, which was unique in the county hospital at that time." Professor Wei Wenbin commented.

In his later years, due to unsuccessful surgery, Sun Baochen had to use a wheelchair for a long time. He remains optimistic and still insists on reading the literature, and in 2017 revised and republished Clinical Hypoopics (3rd Edition).

In the activities of the Ophthalmology and Research Institute, Professor Sun Baochen maintains a very high "attendance rate". On October 11, 2018, the 9th International Low Vision Rehabilitation Forum was held in Beijing, and at the age of nearly 86, he delivered a speech on the theme of "Low Vision and Driving".

Professor Sun Baochen truly practiced living to be old and learning from the old, "treating the same ophthalmology and low vision as his life, loving and fighting for it all his life." ”

bibliography:

[1] Deeply remember Professor Sun Baochen, the founder of the low vision profession in mainland China

[2] Analysis and recommendations on the current situation of rehabilitation for low vision in Mainland China

[3] The world is focusing on low vision rehabilitation! The 9th International Low Vision Rehabilitation Forum was held in Beijing

Source: Medical community

Editor-in-charge: Zheng Huaju

Proofreader: Zang Hengjia