The Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (Respiratory Medicine) at Peking University Third Hospital is a nationally advanced discipline integrating clinical care, scientific research, and education. It was selected as a National Key Clinical Specialty Construction Project in 2012 and was designated as an "Outstanding Unit of Tertiary Hospital for Standardized Construction of National Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine" in 2018. The establishment of the Respiratory Department at Peking University Third Hospital originated from the bronchitis outpatient clinic in the 1970s. A respiratory professional group was formed in 1977, and the department was officially established in the 1980s, along with the creation of a bronchoscopy unit, the introduction of fiberoptic bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid examination, and the establishment of a respiratory laboratory. In 1983, a pulmonary function laboratory was established, making it one of the earliest departments in China to conduct standardized pulmonary function testing. In 1988, it took the lead in Beijing to perform medical thoracoscopy. A sleep respiratory monitoring unit was established in 2001. The respiratory critical care specialty began in 1978 with the use of Bird ventilators for the treatment of respiratory failure caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In 1995, a Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (RICU) with 6 beds was established, equipped with advanced ventilators and monitoring systems. The RICU was subsequently expanded and, in 2015, became a Medical/Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (MICU/RICU) with 26 beds, serving as the critical care platform for internal medicine patients across the hospital. The Respiratory Department currently has over 30 physicians, including 13 with senior professional titles and 11 with associate senior professional titles. It also has 3 respiratory therapists, 6 technicians, and 95 nurses. There are 7 doctoral supervisors and 10 master's supervisors. Many experts hold positions such as vice chairman, secretary-general, standing committee member, committee member, and specialty group member in various domestic academic organizations at different levels. The Respiratory Department is comprised of general wards (74 beds, including 60 beds at the main campus and 14 beds at the North Campus), a Medical/Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (26 beds), outpatient clinics, a pulmonary function laboratory, a bronchoscopy unit, a sleep medicine center/sleep respiratory monitoring unit, a nebulization therapy room, a respiratory specialty for drug clinical trials, and a laboratory. The respiratory endoscopy specialty group has successively performed whole-lung lavage, endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS), electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy, bronchoscopy under general anesthesia, and various interventional diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. The pulmonary function specialty group has conducted tests including cardiopulmonary exercise testing, airway challenge tests, and nasal exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) measurement. The respiratory critical care specialty group has implemented critical care diagnostic and therapeutic techniques such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), transpulmonary pressure monitoring, critical care ultrasound, electrical impedance tomography (EIT), bedside blood purification, and pulse index continuous cardiac output (PiCCO) monitoring. The Respiratory Department handles over 100,000 outpatient visits annually and has established specialized and featured outpatient clinics for COPD, asthma, smoking cessation, lung cancer, sleep-disordered breathing, pulmonary vascular diseases, and consultation for complex chest diseases. It leads multidisciplinary team (MDT) efforts for pulmonary nodules, asthma and allergic diseases, and interstitial lung disease/pulmonary fibrosis. More than 2,000 patients are discharged from the general wards annually, and over 600 critically ill patients are admitted to the MICU/RICU each year. The department manages common respiratory diseases, multidisciplinary complex diseases, rare/uncommon conditions, and critical internal medicine cases. Its diagnostic and treatment cases have repeatedly received the hospital's "Outstanding Award for Diagnosis and Treatment of Complex and Critical Cases" and have been presented at domestic and international academic conferences and published in professional journals. The clinical service capability has been recognized by peers and patients, ranking 8th in the Peking University Health Science Center's Best Specialty Ranking in China and among the top three specialties in the DRG evaluation of secondary and above hospitals in Beijing. The department has repeatedly participated in epidemic prevention and control for respiratory diseases, medical support for major national events, and grassroots medical assistance. Notably, during the fight against SARS (2003), influenza A (2009), and COVID-19 (2020), several experts were selected for national and Beijing municipal expert groups, joined national medical teams, and participated in the formulation of policies, guidelines, diagnosis and treatment protocols, and patient consultations under the National Health Commission. The Respiratory Department is a doctoral degree-granting program and a postdoctoral research station, having trained over 100 doctoral and master's graduates, with more than 30 doctoral and master's students currently enrolled. It trains over 10 visiting physicians from across the country each year. The department has successively undertaken multiple national continuing education programs, including "Differential Diagnosis of Pulmonary Shadows," "Recent Advances in Chronic Airway Diseases," and "Multidisciplinary Forum on Respiratory Diseases." In 2017, it became one of the first national training bases for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) specialists, recruiting trainees nationwide. The department is currently a first-level doctoral degree authorization point for medical technology at Peking University. The Respiratory Department has long adhered to a balanced focus on clinical practice and scientific research. Its research on chronic respiratory diseases, particularly COPD, in areas such as epidemiology, clinical diagnosis and treatment, pathogenesis, and comorbidities, has consistently been at the leading level in China. In 2022, in collaboration with affiliated hospitals of Peking University, co-construction/teaching hospitals, the School of Basic Medical Sciences, and the School of Public Health, it established the Chronic Airway Disease Research Center of Peking University Health Science Center. In 2024, the respiratory (COPD) "1+N" discipline cluster model, led by our department with participation from the Departments of Thoracic Surgery, Rehabilitation Medicine, Occupational Medicine, Cardiology, Radiology, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, was approved as a National Key Clinical Specialty Construction Project. In the field of respiratory tract infections, a series of in-depth studies have been conducted on clinical characteristics, etiology, bacterial resistance, and population pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of antimicrobial agents. As one of the lead units, the department has undertaken projects under the National "Tenth Five-Year" and "Eleventh Five-Year" Science and Technology Support Programs, key research and development projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as research funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation, the Capital Medical Development Research Fund, the Peking University 985 Project, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Peking University Health Science Center–University of Michigan Medical School Joint Institute. The respiratory specialty for drug clinical trials, established in 1998, was one of the earliest clinical drug trial specialties in our hospital. It has undertaken over 100 domestic and international drug clinical trials, including 7 as the lead unit, and is recognized domestically and internationally as one of the outstanding respiratory specialties for clinical drug trials.