Qiu Fazu, a surgeon and pioneer of organ transplantation in China, passed away on Saturday in Wuhan Tongji Hospital in Hubei province.

Professor Zhao Xici of Tongji Hospital, who is 72 and had worked with Qiu since 1961, cannot believe he is dead.

"Late last month, he visited 24 quake patients and told young surgeons not to resort to amputation if there was any alternative," Zhao, the former chief of the hospital's pediatrics department, said.

"Professor Qiu impressed us with his good health and quick response at such an advanced age. He was very active," she told China Daily yesterday.

Qiu collapsed on Saturday at his home. He was 94.

"He died at the Tongji Hospital where his son had sent him," Han Renfeng, an official with the publicity department of the Huazhong Science and Technology University, said.

The hospital is affiliated to the university.

"I was told he lost consciousness but came to several times," Zhao said.

"His fall was probably caused by a problem with his brain or heart. I was told he had been advised to have a checkup, but said it wasn't a serious problem."

Qiu's funeral will be held this morning in Wuhan.

Every Chinese surgeon knows the name Qiu Fazu - his book Surgery is compulsory reading at medical school - and the "Qiu style operation method", which demands precise incisions to minimize damage to tissue.

Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Qiu was inspired to study medicine in 1933, on the death of his mother from appendicitis, which at that time in China was untreatable.

He studied in Shanghai and Munich, and in 1940, took up his first post as a doctor in Germany.

In 1946, he returned to China and worked as a surgeon and dean of the department of surgery of the Sino-US hospital attached to the medical institute under Shanghai Tongji University.

While traveling by sea from Germany to Shanghai, Qiu operated on and saved the life of a man whose liver had burst.

At that time, Chinese surgeons could do only appendix operations.

Qiu went on to perform many risky surgical operations, and was as a result was appointed president of the Shanghai Surgical Association. He also found time to launch Popular Science, China's first medical magazine.

In 1956, he moved to Wuhan where he remained until his death.

In the 1980s, Qiu was a pioneer of organ transplant surgery in China, and he set up the country's first research institute on the subject.

He also appealed for legislation on organ donation and acceptance of the medical concept of brain death.

By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-06/18/content_6772354.htm