Gao Changqing

Gao Changqing (; 1 January 1960 – 8 January 2019) was a Chinese cardiac surgeon who performed the first robotic cardiac surgery in China. He served as Vice President of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital and held the military rank of major general. He was an academician or fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and the Académie Nationale de Médecine.

Biography Gao was born in Baotou, Inner Mongolia on 1 January 1960. He entered in 1979 and graduated in August 1984. In 1988, he passed the English Proficiency Test with the highest score in Inner Mongolia, and earned a government scholarship to study abroad.

In March 1991, Gao began his studies abroad at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After earning his M.D. in May 1996, he returned to China and was recruited by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to work as a surgeon at the PLA General Hospital (301 Hospital) in Beijing. He later became Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery and eventually Vice President of the hospital. In January 2007, he successfully performed the first fully robotic cardiac surgery in China. Over the course of his career, Gao performed more than 5,000 surgeries.