Foreword from Dr.George Li K.H.

It is my great pleasure to write the foreword for theChinese Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.I want to congratulate the Editor-in-Chief Prof.Qingfeng Li and Co-Editor Prof.Xiaoxi Lin on their effort and leadership to make the journal a success.

I went through my medical training in Australia and Hong Kong.All the teaching and educational materials available were in English.Medical professionals were used to sharing their experience and ideas through meetings and publishing their results in journals which were mainly in English.An English journal allows authors to share their ideas and results with this common language.I was lucky in my career to become a plastic surgeon.Plastic surgery is full of innovative ideas and superb surgical skills.I have learned a lot from the big journals in plastic surgery,includingPlastic and Reconstructive Surgery,Journal of Plastic,Reconstructive &Aesthetic Surgery,Aesthetic Surgery Journal,Microsurgery,and more.I am so happy to see with the effort of Prof.Li,Prof.Lin,and their team,the first English journal of plastic surgery is published by the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital.It signifies plastic surgery in China has risen to the world stage.It is a big step forward for China to have our own English plastic surgery journal.

I had spent almost 20 years working in the university plastic surgery unit before I moved on to private practice.When I was in my early plastic surgery training,what I learned about the contribution of China in plastic surgery was the free radial forearm flap,finger replantation,and anterolateral thigh flap.There were not many articles published by Chinese authors at that time.Some Chinese names that appeared on the western plastic journals were mainly the coauthors of clinical papers or authors of basic research papers.I had the opportunity to visit Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital in 2008.I visited the clinical areas of the hospital and research laboratories.I was deeply impressed by the large variety of caseloads in the hospital and their surgical outcomes.More than 100 000 operations were performed in the hospital a year.The hospital received tremendous support from the government,which made it possible to run world-leading research in many areas,including tissue engineering.They recruited outstanding surgeons and research scientists.In the past decade,more and more articles were from China.China is now ranked second in the world in scientific publications.The articles are high in number as well as quality.Now we can see Chinese authors frequently appear in articles published in the major plastic surgery journals.The number of publications is still increasing.Readers in the western world are impressed by the large case series and sophisticated basic research results published by the counterpart from China.Many are from the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital.

I have met more and more speakers from China in international meetings in recent years.They always impressed the audience with their innovative ideas and large case series with an excellent outcome.I attended the lecture by Prof.Lin in the workshop of the International Society for the Study of Vascular Anomalies in 2014 in Melbourne.He presented the state-of-the-art treatment for vascular anomalies and the excellent outcome.I witnessed the contribution of Chinese surgeons to the world of plastic surgery.

It is no need to emphasize the rising contribution and influence of Chinese plastic surgeons in the world of plastic surgery.The World Association of Plastic Surgeons of Chinese Descent had held the seventh meeting in Hangzhou in 2019.Now we have the first English journal of plastic surgery from China.Under the leadership of Prof.Li and Prof.Lin,together with their team,I am going to see more and more high-standard articles in the journal.In the not long future,the journal can be a common ground for plastic surgeons all over the world to share their work just like other leading plastic surgery journals.