"The eyes are transparent, and through them, the human mind can be seen. The poet Théophile Gautier, the pioneer poet of French aestheticism, has touched countless people, and there are many similar expressions, such as "the eyes are the windows of the soul", "the eyes are the index of the heart", and "the mind is uncertain......
As one of the most expressive organs of the human body, the eye has countless words to describe its beauty. But there is one prerequisite for having them: health.
Tim Lim is one of the guardians of eye health. He is also the director and director of the Zhongshan Eye Center of Sun Yat-sen University (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongshan Eye Center") and the director of the hospital.
01
Medical heritage and innovation
Lie still in bed, sit in a chair, occasionally groping on your own, or walk with the help of a caregiver. In the past few years, Grandpa Huang, who is in his 80s, has been repeating such a monotonous life. His retina condition is extremely poor, and his cataracts have reached the stage of overmaturity, and he has lost sight in one eye and only has light perception in the other. The world is colorful, but none of it has anything to do with him.
To make matters worse, Grandpa Huang had cancer and many underlying diseases, and most ophthalmologists were not sure to operate on him. But the old man and his family were very persistent, and after many requests, Lin Haotian couldn't bear it and decided to give it a go.
In order to ensure the safety of the operation to the greatest extent, Lin Haotian invited the director of the anesthesiology department of the hospital to escort him and make all emergency preparations. "I thought it would be nice if the surgery could be done safely, but I didn't expect it to be better than I expected. Lin Haotian said with a smile that after the operation was completed, the shadow in front of the old man's eyes gradually dispersed, although he still couldn't see it completely, but finally had color.
The operation space of eye surgery is small, each one is tantamount to a dance on the tip of a needle, there is no rehearsal, no restart, a small mistake may affect the patient's future life. After 14 years of medical practice, Tim Lin has always retained the awe he felt when he first picked up the scalpel, and always demanded that he must devote himself to every operation in 100% condition and do his best to treat every patient.
This is the kindness engraved in the bones since childhood, and it is also the benevolence of the doctor inherited from his father.
Lin Haotian was born in Jieyang City, Guangdong Province, and his family is a combination of a clinic and a pharmacy, his father is a barefoot doctor, who prescribes diseases, and his mother is responsible for prescribing medicine. Every time he has a holiday, Lin Haotian will turn into a little medicine boy, shuttling back and forth to help.
If you look at clinics and pharmacies as a business, my father is undoubtedly an unqualified operator. He is kind and charitable, and he never cares about the gains and losses of the benefits and losses of seeing patients and saving people.
Once, a barefoot old man in shabby clothes came to the house, with only a few cents on him, but he had many underlying diseases, and his father not only gave him free examinations, but also sent him a lot of medicine. Similar situations happen from time to time, relatives and friends occasionally euphemistically advise, my father always forgets after hearing it, and sometimes sighs and says, "It's not easy for the villagers, you can help if you can."
In the past few years, many people in the village have made money from business and built beautiful small buildings. Lin Haotian's slightly dilapidated house did not add a single brick or tile.
The material life is simple, but the spiritual world is full. When I open the door in the morning, I can see some fresh vegetables in front of the door from time to time. Many people in the village make a living by growing vegetables, which is the most rustic way for them to express their gratitude.
"It's not just a rich man like Li Ka-shing who can do charity, but ordinary people can. Lin Haotian said. His father's pure but persistent feedback and the villagers' kind feedback eventually converged into a warm current that pushed him towards the path of medicine. In the 1999 college entrance examination, Lin Haotian had excellent results, and some people persuaded him to apply for Tsinghua University and Peking University, but he firmly wrote six big characters on the volunteer form: Sun Yat-sen Medical University (now Sun Yat-sen Medical College, Sun Yat-sen University).
Lin Haotian is a bachelor's and master's degree student, and when he chose the second-level major, he set his sights on ophthalmology, one of the best specialties of Sun Yat-sen Medical College, and has since embarked on a journey to protect the brightness of patients.
Later, he was admitted to the Zhongshan Eye Center for a doctorate and stayed in the hospital to work after graduation. During this period, many overseas universities and medical institutions extended olive branches, but after comprehensive consideration, he believed that the level of domestic ophthalmology was not bad, and he could also make a career if he stayed.
In fact, he quickly made the world see his confidence - in 2012, he published the world's first case report of conjunctival sucking nematode in the top medical journal The Lancet, filling a gap in the global formal medical literature of the disease.
During this period, he also joined the team of Professor Lau Yizhi to start research on congenital cataracts.
At that time, adult cataract surgery was relatively mature, but there were still many problems in congenital cataract that had not been solved, and countless children could only struggle to live in a dark or hazy world. As one of the leaders in clinical and scientific research in the field of cataract in China, Liu Yizhi began relevant exploration in 1998 and established a data platform for the diagnosis and treatment of congenital cataract and research, and has achieved a lot of results.
When the torch was passed to the younger generation such as Lin Haotian, they based on the early exploration, combined with the emerging knowledge and technology of regenerative medicine, survived sleepless days and nights, and finally overcame a series of problems, so that the roots that were planted more than ten years ago supported the branches and bear fruit——
They found that endogenous stem cells are present at the edge of the lens of the eyeball, as well as key factors that maintain self-renewal and differentiation, which can be preserved through innovative ultra-minimally invasive cataract surgery to regenerate functional lenses after surgery. In 2016, the research results were published in the top journal "Nature", and in the same year, "Nature Medicine" was named one of the eight breakthroughs in the global biomedical field of the year.
This is the first time that a Chinese doctor-led research has won this award, providing a new strategy for the treatment of congenital cataracts worldwide, and also opening up a new direction for the clinical application of tissue regeneration and stem cells. But the patients and those who followed him found that the young man's smile was still the same, and the still water was deep.
▲Lin Haotian (left) performs surgery on a patient
02
Plug in the wings of AI for ophthalmology
However, where people can't see, Lin Haotian's heart is already surging.
With the increase in the number of clinical surgeries and the deepening of basic research, he feels more and more that no matter how big the technological breakthrough of a doctor and a hospital is, the beneficiaries are a small number of people after all.
"At present, there are about 40,000 registered ophthalmologists in China, but the number of patients is huge, and many people have lost their sight because they cannot get timely and effective treatment. Lin Haotian said. In response to this clinical pain point, he tried to find a way and a carrier to amplify the advantages of Zhongshan Eye Center's high-quality medical resources and radiate it to more places and a wider range of people.
He first thought of computers, which was both accidental and inevitable. "My first choice for the college entrance examination is medicine, followed by computer science. Lin Haotian said with a smile. In the 1990s, the rapid development of computer technology not only attracted Ma Yun, a university English teacher, and Ding Lei, an employee of Ningbo Telecom, but also attracted him who was still learning to sail on the sea.
embraced medicine, and Lin Haotian never broke up with the computer major. In addition to the regular acquisition of information, he also has a "think tank" - his high school colleague was admitted to a computer major in a well-known university in Northwest China, and every time he passes by Guangzhou during winter and summer vacations, he will be asked to catch up and spend the night. In the dead of night, the two young people talked about their lives, ideals, and their professional development. In this way, the understanding of the Internet, big data and other fields has gradually deepened.
This time, Lin Haotian's solution is the latest technology in the computer field - AI, artificial intelligence.
This is a very bold attempt to integrate medicine and engineering. At that time, artificial intelligence had not been budding for a long time, and AlphaGo had not yet defeated Go world champions such as Lee Sedol, and ChatGPT was impossible to talk about. More importantly, the combination of AI and medicine, especially ophthalmology, involves multidisciplinary interdisciplinarity, and there are no cases in the world that can be used for reference.
Of course, Lin Haotian is not alone, in an exchange with Professor Liu Xiyang of Xidian University, the two hit it off. The medical newcomer and the engineering master looked at each other and smiled, and their thinking collided with bright sparks. They completed a lot of boring and heavy data accumulation work, used deep learning Xi algorithms to build models, and created the world's first artificial intelligence cataract diagnosis and treatment cloud platform CC-Cruiser system. It will assist doctors in the automatic diagnosis of congenital cataract in the form of cloud services.
It is worth mentioning that when Lin Haotian applied for the Outstanding Young Scholars Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, he submitted this topic. During the defense, some experts bluntly said that they did not understand artificial intelligence, but they were moved by Lin Haotian's information and narration, and thought that the development prospects were very good.
Tim Lin did not disappoint them. In February 2017, Nature Biomedical Engineering published his and his team's research results in the form of a cover article, with a huge English title: "Promising Machine Xi". The study was later named one of the "Top 11 AI Events Impacting the Global Medical Community" by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' flagship publication, Science and Technology Review magazine.
The latter affirmation, Lin Haotian only knew it after watching the news. He said that this is a positive feedback, which is uplifting and motivates the team to move forward with higher morale, "It's hard to innovate from '0 to 1', but as long as you take the first step bravely, you can find a breakthrough and push the industry to '1 to N'." ”
In May 2017, at the southeast corner of the Zhuang overpass in downtown Guangzhou, in the old hospital of Zhongshan Eye Center, the world's first ophthalmology artificial intelligence clinic was opened, and AI ophthalmologists entered the lives of ordinary people.
"At present, patients can take a photo of their eyes and upload it to the cloud platform, and they can get a diagnosis and treatment plan in a few minutes. Lin Duoru, a key member of the team and a researcher at Zhongshan Eye Center, said that at this time, it cannot completely replace ophthalmologists, but it can liberate doctors from some basic work and help more patients.
At the same time, Tim Lin led the team to continuously expand artificial intelligence diagnosis to other ophthalmic diseases, and the vision of "1 to N" is also coming into reality:
In January 2020, it developed the world's first ultra-wide-area artificial intelligence fundus disease screening system, which can automatically and quickly screen a variety of fundus lesions, with a detection accuracy rate of more than 98%;
In January 2021, the world's first technology and evaluation system for screening hepatobiliary diseases through ocular imaging was released, which can "see" whether a patient has liver disease with only one fundus photo.
In August 2021, the world's first real-world research on ophthalmic multi-disease artificial intelligence was completed, and the ophthalmic multi-disease artificial intelligence launched can screen 14 common ophthalmic diseases with an average accuracy rate of more than 95%;
In January 2023, the world's first mobile phone screening system for infants and young children with visual impairment was launched, which can detect 16 common blinding eye diseases with an accuracy rate of 85.9% as long as infants and young children watch 3 minutes of animation......
▲On October 17, 2023, Zhongshan Eye Center signed a cooperation agreement with the Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University to jointly build a national key clinical specialty construction project in ophthalmology
In addition to prevention and screening, Tim Lam's team has also applied artificial intelligence to complex treatments.
On June 23, a special eye operation took place between Guangzhou and Haikou, 600 kilometers away, and the "patients" were 12 rabbits.
In Hainan Provincial Eye Hospital, the doctor sat in front of the operating table, and the moment he touched the remote control section, the 5G remote high-precision ophthalmic surgery robot arm located in Zhongshan Eye Center gently swung to complete the subretinal injection surgery for the rabbit. With the help of ultra-high-definition microscopic stereo vision imaging technology, the surgical field of view is clearly enlarged and projected on the LCD screen in real time.
This is the world's first 5G remote micron-level eye surgery, which transcends time and space and makes history.
A month later, the Zhongshan Eye Center held a press conference, and Lin Haotian disclosed the details and results of the operation. "All of them were successful at the first time, there were no complications, and the surgical results were safe and stable. He said the surgery is the equivalent of delivering a drug into the hair with precision, which is difficult for even the most experienced ophthalmologist to do, but a robot can.
At present, the technology is still in the stage of animal experiments, and clinical trials are expected to start in about half a year.
In fact, the surgical robot is also the result of Lin Haotian's team - they have been independently developed by Huang Kai's team from the School of Computer Science of Sun Yat-sen University for 10 years, and the clinical transformation is also actively promoted.
On September 26, Guangdong held the first excellent medical achievements release and transformation signing conference, collected 115 medical research results from 50 high-level hospital construction units in the province, and finally selected 33 projects with high clinical research value and excellent transformation potential, among which intelligent ophthalmic minimally invasive surgical robots were listed.
"At present, there is no ophthalmic surgical robot in the world that has been commercialized, and we are already in the preclinical registration stage. Lim said the team is in a race against time to get a taste of the soup around the world, "and it's going to be a great thing." "He's looking forward to it.
He also hopes that in the future, we can further broaden the boundaries and use more advanced Internet technology to promote the best quality ophthalmic medical resources across mountains, rivers, lakes and seas, not only in Hainan, but also in distant Xinjiang, but also to any city in the motherland, and even directly to the doorstep of the grassroots people, so that digital medical care can benefit everyone.
Some attempts have already borne fruit. In June 2023, the 5G smart ophthalmology patrol vehicle independently developed by Zhongshan Eye Center was officially launched. They traveled from Guangzhou to more than 20 cities across the country, and recently traveled for 12 days to Kashgar, Xinjiang, to provide local people with a full range of high-quality eye health services covering "prevention, screening, intervention and tracking".
The 5G intelligent ophthalmology patrol vehicle is known as a small and flexible "mobile eye hospital", equipped with 6 types of equipment, including a screening instrument, an intraocular pressure measuring instrument, a fundus camera, OCT optical coherent imaging, and a slit lamp.
▲In June 2023, the 5G intelligent ophthalmology patrol vehicle independently developed by Zhongshan Eye Center was officially launched
In addition to cars, Zhongshan Eye Center also set its sights on another means of transportation that is faster and has a wider range of reach – airplanes.
On November 16, the center and China Southern Airlines jointly planned and launched the "Bright Eyes, Kindness and Love, Flying to Guangdong Territory" Guangdong-Xinguang theme flight to promote the in-depth cooperation between air traffic and health care resources, "In the next step, we will actively explore the possibility of flying eye hospitals, and hope to drive 'planes' in the future to send the most advanced and cutting-edge ophthalmic medical technology to any place in the world." Lin Haotian said.
03
Guarding a bright future
At the end of April 2020, on the occasion of May Fourth Youth Day, Lin Haotian was awarded the 24th "May Fourth Medal of Chinese Youth". In an interview with the media, he modestly said that this is not a person's honor, but the result of "the right time, the right place and the right people": "The time is that the country is strong, and the location is a good platform like Zhongshan Eye Center, and the center has many good teachers and good inheritance, which can give young people a very good opportunity to grow." ”
In fact, in addition to "the right time, place and people", what determines a person's achievement is strict self-discipline and day-to-day responsibility and dedication.
Lin Haotian recalled that when he was still in school, he once heard Zeng Yixin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, say, "The secret of success is 'coffee and Red Bull'". He was deeply touched by this. Scientific research requires a large amount of clinical data, and when he was young, in order to obtain the cooperation and support of patients, he left his contact information to patients. During the day, in addition to being busy with clinical work, he also has to find time to answer patients' questions, and in the evening, after 8 o'clock, when the phone rings less, he makes coffee and turns on the "science madman" mode until two or three o'clock in the evening.
Long-term "5+2" and "white plus black", Lin Haotian's body has also had some sub-health problems. But he soon woke up and realized that "the body is the capital of the revolution", actively exercised, ensured that he had strong energy and sharp thinking when working, and developed the Xi of running every day, and also set off a running craze in the hospital.
Cataract doctor Wu Xiaohang is one of the followers. "We have a running group and will organize regular activities, each running 5~10 kilometers. She said. Sometimes colleagues come to the hospital for meetings, and after the meeting, they are often pulled for a run, which not only exercises but also promotes communication.
More than a month after taking over as president, on September 23, Zhongshan Eye Center held a high-quality development conference, and Lin Haotian included "health" in his speech as one of the three supports to promote the connotative high-quality development of the hospital, and the other two are "dreams" and "home and country".
To realize the dream of creating a world-class eye center, the development of young doctors is the key. "Our training concept of selecting and employing people is to give opportunities to those who want to do things, those who can do things have a platform, and those who can do things have development. Tim Lim said he himself is a beneficiary of this idea.
He did the same – Wu Xiaohang is a graduate student of Liu Yizhi, and has been co-directed by Lin Haotian since he entered in 2013. "Mr. Lin taught me the details of scientific research by hand, and later asked me to be independently responsible for the application of artificial intelligence screening technology in the community. Wu Xiaohang said that at that time, she was a fledgling and her work was not simple, but Lin Haotian's trust gave her confidence.
"Teacher Lin often said that the luckiest thing in your 20s is that someone is willing to teach you, and the luckiest thing in your 30s is that someone is willing to use you. Wu Xiaohang said that she was lucky because Lin Haotian was willing to teach them and use them.
Lin Haotian also told the reporter of this magazine that it also has the second half of the sentence: "When you are in your 40s, someone is willing to 'support' you, when you are in your 50s, someone is willing to follow you, and when you are in your 60s, someone is willing to ask you." In Tim Lam's view, there are different things to do at each stage of life, and the definition of success is also different.
Just as at present, Lin Haotian, who is in his 40s, has someone to "support", but he also has a heavier burden. On July 29, at the induction meeting of the new administrative leadership team of Zhongshan Eye Center, Liu Yizhi, the old dean, said with emotion: "Chasing dreams is a permanent mission, which can only be realized by continuous relay and running. It is believed that Lin Haotian and a group of young and energetic comrades will successfully take over the baton, and the future of the eye center will be better and better. ”
▲On November 16, 2023, the launching ceremony of the "Bright Eyes, Kindness and Love, Flying to Guangdong Territory" Guangdong-New Guangming theme flight jointly sponsored by Zhongshan Eye Center and China Southern Airlines was held
Lin Haotian didn't let everyone wait too long. At the high-quality development conference of Zhongshan Eye Center mentioned above, he introduced the high-quality development ideas in detail and summarized them as "123 total deployment".
In the general deployment, he made it clear that he should meet "two expectations": face the needs of the country, implement the "14th Five-Year Plan" national eye health plan, solve the problems of ophthalmology development, and let people enjoy comfortable vision;
He also proposed to be people-oriented and improve "two satisfactions": "list-based" reform to improve patient satisfaction, and "project-based" management to improve employee satisfaction.
The former is the concentrated embodiment of the purpose of "people-centered", and the latter is far away with the feelings of "family and country" - "people spend the longest time in the unit in their lives, and it is the second home." He said that the home should be harmonious, warm, and allow everyone to work hard to create a better home.
To this end, Lin Haotian actively creates "everyone" for employees, and he has made many plans: improve the quality of catering in the canteen, create a "satisfactory canteen" for employees, establish a shared learning and Xi space, create conditions for the growth of young doctors, and ensure fairness through appointments, explore winter and summer vacation childcare to solve the worries of employees, and make physical examination and medical treatment arrangements for elderly or retired employees.
Over the past decade, Tim has been worthy of the hospital and its patients, but he owes a lot to his family – for a long time, he has been busy with work and neglected to accompany his family. "I am grateful for my family's continued support and understanding. Lin Haotian said. As time passed, he found that his parents were aging and his children were growing up unconsciously. He began to consciously change his work pattern and make time for his family every week.
He's still busy, and he's more determined. "The high-quality development of ophthalmology is the mission and responsibility entrusted by the party and the state in the new era. We must seize the opportunity of the times and devote ourselves to the new journey of 'building a world-class ophthalmology center in an all-round way'. Lin Haotian said.
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Author | Song Bingjun
Reporter | Zeng Jianping
编辑 | 梁沐 苏海宁 责编 | 张秀丽
This article was first published in the magazine "The Beginning of Man", and may not be reprinted without authorization, and infringement must be investigated.
Produced by the Guangdong Health Online all-media team