He worked at the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital between 1993 and 2013, where he successively was deputy director, vice-president, and president.
In September 2014 he was appointed president of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital.
After this office was terminated in January 2018, he became president of Peking Union Medical College.
On February 5, 2020, Wang was interviewed by Bai Yansong on China's national TV and said that the situation in Wuhan was grim, and many patients were not admitted to the hospital in time, which is a great pressure; he was one of early and high-profile advocates of Fangcang Hospitals for COVID-19 patients in China.
During the 2003 Beijing SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic, he was appointed head of the National Clinical Expert Group, formulating a series of diagnosis and treatment procedures to treat large numbers of patients.