Liang Yijian displays a 3D-printed model of a young patient's spine. [Photo provided to China Daily]

First-time visitors to the Third People's Hospital of Chengdu in Sichuan province are in for a surprise. They will see many patients donning something that looks like an antenna from a science fiction tale.

Members of the hospital staff proudly tell the visitors they are Doctor Liang Yijian's patients.

It is Liang's unique procedure that enables the municipal-level hospital to offer the best treatment for scoliosis (curvature of the spine) in the world, they say.

Liang, 57, head of the hospital's orthopedics department, has helped some 2,000 patients with severe scoliosis, who were previously thought incurable by other hospitals, stand tall.

The "antenna", made of four metal rods, is a patented corrective measure invented by Liang. The rods are inserted into a scoliosis patient's torso to help straighten the back before a surgeon removes the most protruding bone without touching the spinal cord.

A scoliosis patient's height may increase dramatically after the procedure.

Scoliosis is a medical condition in which a patient's spine has a sideways curve. It can damage the heart and lungs if the curvature exceeds 100 degrees, and a curve of that extent is difficult to treat.

But all the patients in Liang's department have a curvature of more than 100 degrees, says Xiao Qiang, a patient who was once treated there for two and a half years.

Xiao, 37, a native of the Bishan district of Sichuan's neighboring Chongqing municipality, had severe scoliosis since birth, with his spine deviating from the norm by 190 degrees.

He had visited 27 leading surgeons in different parts of the country before meeting Liang in March 2013. They told him there was no cure.

Liang inserted four metal rods into the upper part of Xiao's torso to form a brace that helped straighten his back.

The rods pulled his spine back into shape, and after two years the curvature was reduced to 70 degrees.

Liang then operated on him to remove any protruding bones. After the operation, the curvature of his spine was less than 50 degrees.

"Now I look normal when I wear clothes," Xiao says, adding that a normal person has a curvature of within 10 degrees.

Xiao got married in his home in Zhengxing town in Bishan in June 2016 and his daughter will turn 5 in October.

Before being treated by Liang, he was 1.54 meters tall. Standing at 1.77 meters now, he is a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company in Chongqing.

Juveniles are ideal subjects for treatment, but many scoliosis patients in Liang's department are already aged between 20 and 30.

Liang Yijian displays a 3D-printed model of a young patient's spine.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Out of every 1,000 Chinese, three suffer from curvature of the spine. Many of the patients in the department live in remote areas with limited access to medical information. When they seek treatment, they are often already very sick, Liang says.

Liang has had several papers on scoliosis published in Spine, an international, peer-reviewed periodical.

It is not easy to have papers published in Spine because few people have seen Liang's patients with severe scoliosis and cannot assess his papers, says Liao Guanghua, a former vice-president of Liang's hospital.

As many patients are financially underprivileged, Liang has persuaded some rich friends to donate money.

When he visited a teahouse, he would put up a notice with a description of patients to raise funds.

Once, when a mother begged Liang to save her 12-year-old girl with a curvature of 130 degrees, Liang spent his own money renting a small apartment only five minutes' walk from the hospital so that he was reachable in times of emergency.

The girl suffered from respiratory failure and was dying because her bent spine had damaged her lungs.

Liang's treatment was successful and the girl has since graduated from an institution of higher learning in Chengdu.

Thanks to his superb medical skills and readiness to help needy patients, Liang was honored during China Central Television's annual "Touching China" awards in February 2017.

As hundreds of millions of people watched the awards ceremony, Liang achieved national fame and many patients sought his help.

With some 300 patients waiting for operations, Liang no longer has time to visit teahouses.

In addition to treating those in his department, however, he visits remote areas in different parts of the country to offer consultations free of charge.

A photo of Liang sleeping on two stools in an operation room after a more than five-hour operation has gone viral. Zhong Dingping, the colleague who took the photo, says it was taken in May 2013. Liang is much busier than he was eight years ago.

Liang operates on 250 scoliosis patients a year and each week he works for three-and-a-half days in the hospital's outpatient section.

Liang adjusts the metal rods of a Tibetan patient. The rods invented by Liang have won a State patent.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Operating on scoliosis patients is like driving along a cliff edge on the Qinghai-Tibet Highway every day. If you are careless, you will fall into an abyss. Why he carries on despite the dangerous operations and full schedule has much to do with his father, Liang says.

Liang was born into a coal mining family in Chongqing. His father was injured many times in mining accidents before dying from a brain tumor when Liang was 11.

After his father suffered broken ribs in an accident, the family could not afford his treatment, which resulted in a chest deformity.

"Each night my father was in too much pain to sleep, but I could do nothing," Liang says with tears in his eyes.

Scoliosis sufferers longing for a normal life remind him of his father, who had looked at him with the same eager expression as his patients.

"How can I ignore it?" Liang says.

As a child, he cherished the dream of becoming a doctor, working for people like his poor father.

Graduating from Chengdu Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1986, he has been an orthopedist ever since.

In 2010, a taxi driver in Wuhan, Hubei province, sought Liang's help after suffering from curvature of the spine for 20 years following a bout of myelitis in his teens.

When the 37-year-old was about to have the operation, the general anesthetic failed. A later date had to be fixed. He wept on the operation bed and asked for the operation to be performed with just a local anesthetic.

"He said his mental pain was greater than physical pain even in an operation with a local anesthetic," Liang says.

He eventually had the operation under a general anesthetic.

Because he had a bent spine, the driver tried to avoid his 9-year-old son's schoolmates and insisted on meeting the boy in a lane nearby when collecting him from school. He was concerned the boy's schoolmates would tease him.

"To help patients like him, I would like to carry on and be a surgeon for as long as possible," he says.

As Liang's story spreads, many people have donated for his patients' treatment.

A Chinese American has recently promised to donate $500,000, and $100,000 of this has already found its way into the hospital.

Two former patients have also donated 200,000 yuan ($30,860) each to help needy patients since they were cured.