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Early Life and Education
Wu was born in a poor farming family in Minqing County, Fujian Province, China. At five, he and his mother moved to Malaysia to gather with his father. When he was eight years old, he started to study at an overseas Chinese school while helping his father cut rubber.

In 1940, Wu returned to China for participating in anti-Japanese activities during the Second Sino-Japanese War. But he couldn’t go to Yan’an, the command center of the war, so he enrolled in High School Affiliated to Tongji University in Kunming and determined to “study to save the country.” In 1943, he was admitted to the Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai and graduated in 1949.

Career
After graduation, he was assigned to be a pediatrician at the university, but his dream of becoming a surgeon led him to turn the offer down and look for opportunities elsewhere. In 1949, he joined The First Affiliated Hospital of People's Medical College of East China Military Region (Second Military Medical University now), named Changhai Hospital now, and became a military surgeon. In the hospital, he was inspired by Doctor. Qiu Fazu so he dedicated to treating patients and saving lives, and he always upheld the scientific spirit of seeking truth.

In 1958, Wu wanted to find a theoretical breakthrough, and there were no books on hepatic surgery in Chinese. So he translated and published an English edition of Introduction to Hepatic Surgery by Henry Gans. This is the first book on hepatic surgery that laid the theoretical foundation for developing liver surgery in China.

In the same year, Wu grouped up with two other surgeons seeking breakthroughs in hepatic surgery. He figured out to use ping pong balls as infusion material to make the first human liver vascular model in China after repeatedly testing more than 20 kinds of infusion materials to no avail. The success of this specimen played a decisive role in helping to understand the distribution of vessels and the direction of blood flow in the liver.

After that, Wu led the group to produce many cast specimens of the liver. After observation, research, and 200 cases of clinical exploration, Wu understood the deconstructed structure of the human liver. In 1960, a creative view of five lobes and four segments of liver anatomy was proposed by him tailoring to Chinese people.

In 1960, he performed the first successful liver surgery ever in Changhai Hospital, successfully removing liver cancer from a female patient.

In 1963, he managed to operate on the middle lobe of the liver that is at the “heart” of the liver and is surrounded by numerous blood vessels, often called forbidden zone in hepatic surgery. This is the first successful lobectomy of the middle liver in the world.

In 1975, he removed the largest hepatic cavernous hemangioma ever removed in China and abroad, weighing 18 kg, in a single incision.

Wu's achievements gradually went overseas. In September, 1979, Wu was invited to deliver a report on the 28th International Society of Surgery Congress in San Francisco. Wu reported 181 cases of primary liver cancer treated by surgical resection from January 1960 to December 1977 with a low mortality rate of only 8.8%, which shocked the participating experts. At the meeting, Wu Mengchao was co-opted as a member of the International Surgical Society, as a recognition of the international medical community for liver surgery in China.

In 1993, Shanghai East Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital was established led by Wu after 37 years of development, starting with the three-member hepatobiliary surgery team in 1956.

In 1996, Wu Mengchao established the "Wu Mengchao Medical Foundation for Hepatobiliary Surgery", the first special fund in the field of liver surgery in China. At present, it has developed into the "Shanghai Wu Mengchao Medical Science and Technology Foundation", with a total fund of 15 million RMB.

On January 9, 2006, Wu Mengchao received China Awards for Science and Technology, the highest national award. He is the first doctor who won this prize. And he used all of the 6 million RMB awarded by the state to build his beloved liver surgery career.

In 2018, he went on a reality show called the Readers in China. He was 96 years old at that time but still performed three surgeries a week. And his fingers were permanently deformed due to those hours spending in operation rooms.

January 14, 2019, Wu Mengchao retired at the age of 97.