The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University is one of the emerging disciplines integrating clinical practice, teaching, and scientific research within a large, renowned comprehensive hospital directly under the Ministry of Health. Established in 1982 under the advocacy of Professor Zhuo Dahong, the department and its teaching and research section in rehabilitation medicine were among the first modern rehabilitation medicine disciplines to be set up in domestic medical colleges and their affiliated hospitals. In 1983, it was approved as one of the first rehabilitation medicine training bases by the Ministry of Health. Since 1987, the department has been designated as a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Rehabilitation, a status that has been continuously renewed to date. In 2012, it became a training base for stroke screening, prevention, and rehabilitation technology under the Ministry of Health, as well as a key clinical specialty construction unit in Guangdong Province. At the end of 2013, following evaluation by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, it was designated as a national key clinical specialty construction unit, making it the only rehabilitation medicine department in Guangdong Province to receive this project. The department boasts a high-quality medical team composed of senior, middle-aged, and young professionals. It currently includes 14 physicians, 30 therapists, 2 researchers, and 32 nursing staff. The allocation of doctors, therapists, nurses, and researchers fully meets the needs of the discipline's work and development. Clinical Work The department adheres to the philosophy of "exquisite skills, excellent service, complete equipment, modern management, leveraging team strengths, and focusing on early acute-phase and complex severe case rehabilitation." With the development goal of "domestic first-class, integrated with international standards," it prioritizes comprehensive stroke rehabilitation, neurodegenerative disease rehabilitation, critical care and ICU rehabilitation, spine-related and joint rehabilitation, and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. Clinical development directions include physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and prosthetics and orthotics. As a national-level regional rehabilitation medicine diagnosis and treatment center, it holds international influence. It is a national-level training base for rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment technology and has pioneered and continuously hosted multiple training sessions on critical care and ICU rehabilitation. The rehabilitation department has 80 open beds, with an annual outpatient volume of over 30,000 visits and an annual inpatient volume of over 1,000 cases. Patients come from Guangdong Province, multiple other domestic provinces, as well as Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The department has established a robust mechanism for diagnosing and treating complex and difficult rehabilitation cases, along with intra- and inter-hospital consultation systems. It has a strong multidisciplinary collaboration platform, excelling in the early rehabilitation of complex and difficult cases and post-major surgery cases. In actively conducting routine clinical rehabilitation functional assessments and treatment programs, the department promotes the transformation and application of new technologies through innovative thinking, establishing new diagnostic, assessment, and treatment techniques. These include three-dimensional kinematic and kinetic analysis with synchronized surface electromyography, auditory feedback perturbation technology, ultrasound-based muscle and tendon morphology assessment, audiovisual integrated virtual gait training systems, and continuous theta burst stimulation for brain function repair. These advancements have elevated the department's rehabilitation medicine diagnosis and treatment to new heights. Teaching Work In 1982, the teaching and research section for rehabilitation medicine was established, offering the first elective course in "Rehabilitation Medicine" for clinical medicine students in domestic medical colleges and compiling the first undergraduate textbook on "Rehabilitation Medicine." In 1987 and 1988, the department pioneered a five-year undergraduate degree program in rehabilitation therapy in China. In 2003, the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Sun Yat-sen University was established, offering a four-year undergraduate program in rehabilitation therapy (physical therapy specialization) in accordance with the guidelines and requirements of the International Federation of Physical Therapy. Currently, the department offers a provincial-level quality course in "Rehabilitation Medicine" and university-level quality courses in "Musculoskeletal Physical Therapy" and "Therapeutic Exercise." In 2012, at the Second National Conference on Rehabilitation Education and the National Rehabilitation Therapy Skills Competition organized by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, students from the 2009 cohort of the School of Rehabilitation Therapy achieved first place in the physical therapy group and second place in the occupational therapy group. The department has a well-established system for training high-level talent. In 1985, it was approved as one of the first graduate training units for rehabilitation medicine in China and began enrolling students. In 2003, it became a doctoral training site for rehabilitation medicine and physical therapy and established a postdoctoral workstation. In 2012, it was approved as a demonstration base for joint graduate training by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education. That same year, Sun Yat-sen University collaborated with New York University to offer a graduate course program in rehabilitation medicine and physical therapy. Currently, the department has 3 doctoral supervisors and 8 master's supervisors. It has graduated 4 doctoral students and 38 master's students, all of whom have been assigned to key university-affiliated hospitals or other tertiary hospitals, gradually becoming academic leaders and professional骨干 in their institutions. The department has established cooperative relationships with universities such as New York University and Rush University, sending graduate students for joint training. Since 1990, under the unified deployment, training plan, assessment methods, and regulations of the then Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences, the department has conducted standardized residency training. In 1997, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences was approved as a standardized residency training base in Guangdong Province, with the department taking the lead in drafting the standardized training plan for rehabilitation medicine residents in Guangdong. In 2006, it became one of the first demonstration bases for specialist physician training in rehabilitation medicine under the Ministry of Health. In the past three years, the department has trained 8 rehabilitation medicine specialists who have graduated and obtained registration qualifications, with a 100% pass rate. Additionally, it admits over 20 visiting scholars from across the country annually and hosts more than two national-level continuing medical education training courses. Over the decades, it has trained a large number of high-level rehabilitation medicine professionals for hospitals nationwide, making it one of the most important rehabilitation medicine talent training bases in China.