The Repeated Attacks on Doctors Reflect Deep-Seated Social Hostility

In recent years, the news has been filled with reports of doctor-patient disputes, and incidents of doctors being killed or injured occur from time to time. Lately, several such incidents seem to occur almost every day. I recall that when I decided to leave business and enter medicine after my mother fell ill, my senior fellow apprentice who was already a doctor strongly tried to dissuade me. But I was determined to take this path, because during the process of my mother's illness and eventual death, I realized how important medicine is to humanity, and how important the medical profession is to society at large. Moreover, practicing medicine to heal the world had been my dream since boyhood.

Only after I broke through countless difficulties and entered the medical profession did I truly understand how hard it is to be a good doctor in China's current social environment, and I understood why my senior fellow apprentice had so earnestly tried to talk me out of it.

I remember once when I visited my senior fellow apprentice in his clinic to catch up, a patient's family member stormed in, demanding that my senior fellow apprentice issue a psychiatric diagnosis certificate for his wife so he could return to his village and apply for minimum living security. My senior fellow apprentice worked in the neurology department; such a certificate could only be issued at the municipal psychiatric hospital. He patiently explained to the furious rural man that neurology and psychiatry are two different departments, that this certificate needed to be obtained at the psychiatric hospital, and that a certificate from neurology would not be accepted.

But the big man could not understand or accept this. He flew into a rage, slamming the table and shouting: "Aren't neurological disorders and mental illness the same thing? I've come four times already, and every one of you keeps pushing me away!" Then he launched into a stream of foul-mouthed abuse against the doctor. My senior fellow apprentice fell silent and did not dare retort. I thought to myself that if my senior fellow apprentice had died at that man's hands, surely many ignorant onlookers would have cursed him as an immoral doctor.

After the big man left, my senior fellow apprentice said to me with a bitter smile: "Zhiyuan, do you still want to be a doctor?" This personal experience did indeed leave me somewhat depressed, but I still chose to continue on the medical path. Because I too have family members, and they too will fall ill. If no one becomes a doctor, then when my loved ones are sick, there will be no one to treat and care for them. Especially after experiencing my mother's terminal illness and the frustration of seeking help everywhere with nowhere to turn, I became even more determined to follow this path. I even hope that my son will inherit this life aspiration of mine and grow up to be a doctor who saves lives.

Our society is filled with deep-seated hostility, and social conflicts are extremely sharp. The medical profession, being so special, now finds itself in a very dangerous position. The successive news reports of doctors being killed and beaten strike fear into the hearts of countless colleagues working in healthcare and their families. Compared with the business I used to be in, the toil doctors endure is grossly disproportionate to the compensation they receive. Business requires only boldness and judgment; doctors need not only boldness and judgment but also mastery of vast professional knowledge. No other profession has a learning curve as long as medicine. Doctors must learn until the day they die.

I myself began studying medicine by waking at four or five in the morning to read medical texts for several hours before others gradually awoke from their sleep. Because most of the patients I treat are cancer patients requiring long-term follow-up, for each patient I repeatedly consult various references to see whether there might be a better solution to their problems. Out of 365 days a year, I live essentially this way every day. It is a poor and laborious life, but fortunately I enjoy it, so I do not feel the hardship.

What sustains me today on this medical path is a calling to save the world. For the rest of my life, I will devote my energy and talent to patients. Perhaps one day, some irrational patient or family member will take up a knife and make me fall in a pool of blood. But even with such danger, I cannot change my lifelong resolve to study and practice medicine. Moreover, I hope that my son, even after I die at the hands of a patient, will continue on the medical path and not abandon the cause of saving lives because of such a shadow.

I firmly believe that human civilization will not regress, and that social hostility will eventually gradually dissipate. The reason it has not yet dissipated is that we have not yet put enough effort into dissolving it. When things reach an extreme, they reverse themselves. When doctor-patient disputes deteriorate to the point where doctors dare not practice, all of society will reflect on our current medical system, our legal environment, and our humanistic environment, and will reflect on the failures of our spiritual and cultural development. Doctors will also become more self-disciplined, and there will be more and more doctors with true compassion.

Recently, our national leaders have repeatedly mentioned the need to develop the social sciences and humanities, and I think this is a good thing. Over the past few decades, because we did not value these areas, most of our citizens now suffer from a spiritual vacuum, and all kinds of harmful ideas have taken advantage of the opening. This is the root cause of the deep-seated hostility among our people.

But please excuse my candor: the development of the social sciences and humanities differs from the development of the natural sciences; it requires a relaxed political environment. Judging from the history of the past several decades, we have not done well in this regard, so intellectuals who dare to speak frankly are becoming fewer, while sycophantic, profit-driven intellectuals are increasing. As a result, the whole society is mired in falsehood, emptiness, and ugliness. Thinkers of every dynasty have been intellectuals of integrity. These thinkers may not have cared about material rewards, but they badly needed tolerance from those in power.

Human civilization advances through criticism. The responsibility of bearing this criticism falls to intellectuals who appear frail but possess unyielding steel in their bones. Many of them, because they advocated reform in thought, had to offend and provoke various interest groups, and some even sacrificed their lives. But even so, generation after generation of newly rising intellectuals still fearlessly break down the old and establish the new, piercing one hornet's nest after another, only to attract swarms of hornets that furiously pursue and sting them. Without their efforts, we might still be living in religious confinement and slave societies.

Looking at the entire history of human civilization, religious liberation and intellectual liberation always precede changes in social systems. Sometimes this process of liberation is extremely painful, because it touches the beliefs and interests of too many people. If one wishes to push society forward, one must realize that one needs to bear historical responsibilities that others cannot bear, and in the process of bearing these responsibilities, unpredictable dangers may arise at any time. Such people live by their ideals, and that requires courage and wisdom.

But without such people, the advancement of civilization, the improvement of public moral character, the elimination of social hostility, and the realization of truth, goodness, and beauty would be forever unattainable. Perhaps the elimination of the social hostility before our eyes will still require the continuous efforts of one or even several generations to achieve. If everyone makes no effort, it will never be achieved.