PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Bihan Tang AU - Y Han AU - X Liu AU - H Zhang AU - M Li AU - C Hu AU - L Zhang TI - Medical services provided on the ‘<em>Harmonious Mission—2017</em>’ Peace Ark from China AID - 10.1136/bmjmilitary-2020-001659 DP - 2021 Feb 05 TA - BMJ Military Health PG - e001659 4099 - http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/05/bmjmilitary-2020-001659.short 4100 - http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/05/bmjmilitary-2020-001659.full AB - Introduction The Chinese Naval ship Peace Ark provided humanitarian medical services to people in eight low-income countries in Africa and Asia during the 2017 “Harmonious Mission’. The expedition lasted 155 days. Our study aimed to analyse the details of the medical services provided including outpatient care, medical patrol, operations, examinations and medications.Method The patient demographic data and medical information were extracted from electronic medical records. The diagnoses and procedures aboard were coded by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). The sociodemographic data of the medical staff aboard were collected via questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and statistical software (SAS, V.9.4) were used to analyse the data.Results In total, 115 Chinese military medical personnel participated in the mission, completing a total of 50 758 outpatient visits, 10 232 medical patrols and 252 operations. The five most frequently used outpatient departments were ophthalmology, general surgery, general internal medicine, orthopaedics and traditional Chinese medicine. The five most common operations were lipoma excision, cataract extraction, skin tissue removal (such as warts and cysts), pterygium transposition and herniorrhaphy.Conclusions Our study revealed the medical services in demand during the ‘Harmonious Mission—2017’. It is essential to report their experiences so that future ventures can provide medical services more effectively.