Heritage Snapshot 228: Dr. Urs Bryner

LOMA LINDA>> Following his graduation in 1973 from Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Dr. Urs Bryner, MD, took a residency in surgery at Loma Linda University Medical Center. After several years in private practice, he accepted an invitation to participate in The China Project by directing the Department of Surgery at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou and coordinating its Western-style educational program. His responsibilities, starting in June, 1994, were specified in the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1989 by Zhejiang University, Loma Linda University and the Shaw Foundation. With valuable experience in the United States, Dr. David T. Fang, and Bryner introduced laparoscopic surgery to China. Instead of an open incision, laparoscopic surgery enters the body through small ports. This form of minimally invasive surgery has significant advantages for the patient over an open, major incision. Because of less tissue incised, it causes less recovery pain and results in faster healing. It contributed to reducing the length of stay at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in comparison to other hospitals by more than 50 percent. According to Bryner, the young junior attending physicians and senior resident physicians were eager to learn the new technique. Because gallbladder problems are extremely prevalent in China, laparoscopic surgery became one of the institution’s early strengths. In a short period of time, a variety of different organs benefiting from laparoscopic surgery expanded. As word spread, patients began to come from long distances. The surgeons at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital embraced the new concept and are now performing a record number of laparoscopic surgeries. Because the medical training program in China is a shorter amount of time, the principles of pre-operative and post-operative procedures were significantly different. Before, many of the physicians did not have the background or breadth of approach to patients used routinely in the United States. Bryner taught the surgeons how to interview patients more comprehensively than they had been used to. In the pre-operative phase, he taught the surgeons to talk with their patients about potential problems. He also taught them after surgery to inform the patient’s family of findings. This new approach in China had ethical implications. Bryner previously said he remembered the day when one of his surgery residents stopped him in the hallway and said, “Dr. Bryner, your ethics are very different than ours. And we appreciate it and we learned a lot from that.” After mastering the technique in the early days, surgeons from Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital then shared it with the surgeons in surrounding hospitals. During the 20th anniversary celebration, Bryner made rounds with one of his former residents, who had become Chief of Service at SRRSH, and he observed that practices were different than they were 20 years before. Bryner passed away Dec. 14, 2014 at the age of 68.