Service

      Our OPD includes general medicine, endocrine & metabolic special clinics, screening for diabetic complications, and clinics for bone diseases. For patients with thyroid diseases, we also do thyroid sonography and aspiration cytology. The tests above are not confined to patients in our subspecialty but are opened to every patient in our hospital who needs them. In our ward, we care patients with metabolic or endocrine diseases. Besides, we also have health examination and focus on symptoms/signs of endocrine and metabolic diseases.

Teaching

       Our subspecialty has classes for endocrine and metabolic diseases in Department of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and rehabilitation. For example, the pathophysiology of disordered endocrine system for 3rd-year medical students, the management of endocrine disease for 4th-year students, clinical practice for 5th-7th year students, general introduction of medicine and endocrine diseases for 4th-year dentistry students. In Department of pharmacy, we teach pharmacologic therapy of endocrine diseases. Every Tuesday, we have ward round and conference for metabolic diseases. For endocrine patients, we hold meetings and conferences on every Thursday, providing materials for our students. Moreover, our students can practice thyroid sonography and aspiration cytology in the afternoon every Tuesday and Wednesday.
 

Research

      Our research included the epidemiology and molecular genetics of diabetes mellitus, the molecular mechanism of insulin action, the etiology, diagnosis and prognostic factors of thyroid eye disease, three-dimensional ultra-structure of thyroid cells, environmental toxicology of endocrine diseases, treatment and prevention of glucocorticoid-related complications, endocrine complications after spinal injuries and so on. Besides, we also study the epidemiology, genetics, pathogenesis and management of osteoporosis in Taiwan.
 

Perspectives

     Since we paid much attention to the diagnosis and management of endocrine and metabolic diseases, the prognosis of these patients had great improvement in recent years. Moreover, the advance in basic research had helped us to understand these diseases more clearly. Since we have a large burden of patients with endocrine and metabolic diseases, we sincerely hope more young doctors or researchers to join us and enjoy the work.