Physician Spotlight: Pioneering Stanford Pain Medicine Specialist Also Serves as Medical Director for International Medical Services
International Medical Services Medical Director Xiang Qian, MD, PhD, founded the Chinese American Physicians’ Society (SCAPE) to foster his efforts in bringing medical knowledge to other nations. In 2016, Stanford hosted the annual SCAPE conference.
Xiang Qian, MD, PhD, came to Stanford ten years ago to complete a residency in anesthesia and a fellowship in pain medicine. What he found at Stanford—the collaboration between basic science, engineering and clinical medicine—convinced him to stay. Today, Qian divides his time between caring for patients in the Pain Medicine Clinic in Redwood City and Stanford Hospital, and conducting collaborative research to develop novel therapies for his most vulnerable patients, especially those with facial pain. Every other moment of his packed schedule is devoted to International Medical Services (IMS), where he serves as Medical Director, helping to care for approximately 30 patients every day with his IMS colleagues.
“My mindset has always been about innovation, about finding novel, breakthrough therapies for my patients,” said Qian, Clinical Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. “My clinical mind is always feeding my scientific mind.”
Shortly after finishing his fellowship, Qian began a collaboration with Huy M. Do, MD, Professor of Interventional Neuro Radiology, to develop a CT-guided interventional pain program for facial pain patients. CT guidance helps improve the accuracy and minimize the complications of standard treatments, said Qian. For example, the precision of placing a needle at the base of the brain is vastly improved using CT image guidance, he said. “In the past, we were doing this with fluoroscopic, x-ray guidance with limited resolution,” he said, which often required adjusting the needle multiple times with the patient being awake. “The treatment was very painful,” said Qian. Now, with improved CT-guidance, targeting the needle is precise, and patients are under anesthesia and experience much-reduced or no pain.
“So far, we have a technique success rate close to 100 percent putting the needle on the target,” said Qian, who received the 2017 Translational and Clinical Innovation Award for his effort to develop novel therapies for pain patients. “Without collaboration from other departments, these new therapies would not be possible.”
In another collaborative project, Qian began working with the engineering school in 2014 to develop a smaller, implantable nerve stimulator, powered by wireless energy. Similar to a pacemaker for the heart, nerve stimulators are modulators for the nerves. While conventional nerve stimulators are about the size of a fist, Qian’s new prototype is the size of a grain of rice.
“We’re trying to make it smaller, which would not be possible without collaboration among Stanford’s biomedical engineering, engineering and materials departments,” he said. “We are working together to figure out a novel device that can help out more of our pain patients.”
Medicine without borders
Dr. Xiang Qian (right) and Dr. Huy M. Do developed a CT-guided interventional pain program for facial pain patients.
Most of the top academic medical centers in the United States have International Medicine divisions to help deliver care and medical mission worldwide. Qian, who is originally from Hangzhou, China, has a secondary passion for global health. As a resident at Stanford, he volunteered his time to the International Medical Services (IMS) Department at Stanford. He formally became its Associate Medical Director in 2014, and was named Medical Director in 2016.
IMS cares for patients from around the world who come to Stanford seeking the more advanced therapies available here. As the Medical Director for IMS, Qian helps determine if it’s medically appropriate for these patients to make the trip. Once they are here, he supports them in much the same way as their primary care physicians do at home, helping to coordinate their care, connecting them with the most appropriate physician for their condition when necessary, and ensuring that they understand their treatment plan.
“I don’t believe medicine has borders,” said Qian. “When people are suffering in other parts of the world, they are eager for opportunities to be treated. It is very rewarding to help them at such a difficult time.”
Because IMS cannot help every patient seeking care at Stanford, it has a secondary mission to educate physicians around the world when possible to deliver advanced care locally. Stanford doctors regularly give lectures to physicians in other countries and provide offline and online educational opportunities to spread knowledge globally. IMS also assists with various global health outreach efforts organized by Stanford physicians. Outside of the work he does for Stanford, Qian founded the Chinese American Physicians’ Society (SCAPE) to foster his efforts in bringing medical knowledge to other nations. Today, the Society has more than 350 member physicians from the US and over 1,000 community members. In 2016, Stanford hosted the annual SCAPE conference, a gathering of physicians of Chinese heritage from countries all over the world including China, the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Macao.
Qian encourages Stanford physicians to become involved in International Medical Services. “If you have an interest in global health and international medicine, come to us,” he said. “Stanford needs to be a leader in international medicine.”