As one part of the departments of general surgery in Xijing Hospital affiliated to the Fourth Military Medical University (FMMU), the Department of Hepato-biliary and Pancreato-splenic Surgery has been respectively certificated as master's and doctor's degree authorizing discipline in 1984 and 1996. The Department has been entitled as the national key constructive discipline in "211" Project by the Ministry of Education. Since 2004, being the largest and the best well-known Department of Hepato-biliary and Pancreato-splenic Surgery in the Northwest of China, the Department has been entitled as the key discipline of leading medical specialty of Shaanxi province, the key discipline of Shaanxi province, the organ transplantation centre of People's Liberation Army (PLA) by General Logistics Department of PLA, the national key cultivating discipline by the Ministry of Education, and the postdoctoral mobile station.

Now, the Department, headed by the prof. Dou Kefeng, has developed into a leading medical treatment, research and educational centre of the hepato-biliary and pancreato-splenic surgery. There are 24 senior medical staffs with master degree and 95% of them with doctor degree, including respectable and well-known experts of Gao Zhiqing, Li Kaizong, and Fu Youchi who enjoy high reputations due to their pioneering work in diagnosis and treatment of hepatic tumor. Surgeons here are often sent abroad to study, visit or have academic exchanges.

The Department has over 120 beds with 3 wards and 1 leading intensive care centre. The clinical and emergency operative capacity of the Department is over two thousand patients per year with the average over two hundred per month, most of which belongs to serious scale. It has been fully performing the treatment and research in the field of hapato-biliary and prancreatosplenic diseases, liver transplantation, etc. The Department is equipped with various up-dated diagnostic and therapeutic instruments, such as radio-frequency heating therapeutic machine, Cusa and Tissue-Link, color ultrasound, various endoscopes, Biclamp of electronic surgical workstation, etc. The postoperative effect of liver cancer sugery attains the leading level in this field. It has successfully carried out the complicated pancreaticoduodenectomy combined with blood vessel excision and reconstruction, attaining 45% tumor removal rate in carcinoma of head of pancreas with 32% three-year postoperative survival rate. The Department achieved the leading level in the pancreatic surgery with satisfying treatment effects for pancreatic tumor and severe pancreatitis. In addition, the dominating number of retro-peritoneal megasarcoma can be successfully excised after employing the vessel surgical technology. In the field of liver transplantation, the Department has created 8 first nationally, completed over 200 cases, and accumulated the rich clinical experience in liver transplantation technology and in postoperative immuno-suppression drug treatment. One year's and three years' postoperative survival rate is 87% and 75% respectively.

Since 1984, the scientific research of the Department has been quite fruitful, winning many prizes of scientific and technological progress awards from inside and outside the army, attaining "863" Project, "973" Project, National and Provincial Natural Science Foundation, National and PLA's "the Eleventh Five Years" Key Project, totally winning over 10 million research funding. In these researches, one wins 2nd prize of National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, twenty win 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes of PLA Scientific and Technological Progress Award, and 4 are patented in China. Besides, the Department has published 26 books on clinical medicine. Over 700 theses have been published in medical journals. The Department has established academic exchanges with medical universities and research institutes in the U.S. and Japan. Every year the Department offers training for various levels of medical staff, and also cultivates 8 to 10 Master degree students and 6 to 8 Ph.D and/or M.D. students per year.