Continuing Forward in the Faint Light

In the blink of an eye, three more weeks of this semester have passed. Starting from the second week, we have had practical training courses and lab courses almost every day. We have had three practical sessions each for Surgery and Diagnostics. In Surgery, we learned about sterilization, disinfection, properly donning surgical gowns and surgical gloves, and various pre-operative preparations. In Diagnostics, we have learned three diagnostic techniques.

Today, Pharmacology also had its first experiment, titled "The Effects of Different Drug Dosages and Routes of Administration on Drug Action." When we went to do the pharmacology experiment in the afternoon, we encountered laboratory mice for the first time. There were four groups in one lab — two groups verified the effects of different drug dosages on drug action, and two groups verified the effects of different routes of administration on drug action. The first experiment used two mice, and the second experiment used three mice. A total of ten mice were used in one lab.

During the experiment, half of the mice would die under the effects of the drugs; at the end of the experiment, the surviving mice would also be humanely euthanized. When it came time to dispose of the dead mice, most students felt it was too cruel.

The person I worked most closely with for the animal experiments was a roommate from my dormitory. He had learned injections at his parents’ workplace since childhood, so injection procedures were not difficult for him. Last year he handled the anesthesia for rabbits, and this year he administered drugs to mice — his skilled injection technique impressed even the instructor. This young man has a wonderful personality and is very compassionate. Before euthanizing the mice, he would stroke them lovingly, unable to bring himself to do it.

The first animal experiment I arranged during the summer break basically ended in failure due to insufficient preparation. Today, while handling the mice, I thought of those tumor-bearing mice that had died during experiments, and my heart ached. The instructor discussed the 3R principle for animal experiments in class, emphasizing the need to treat animals with kindness, minimize the number of experimental animals used, employ alternative methods (such as using cell cultures instead of animals), optimize the animals’ living conditions and experimental protocols to reduce suffering — all of which deeply moved me.

People who are ill have a strong will to survive, yet we use healthy animals to explore the path to survival on their behalf. Every year, approximately 11 million experimental animals are used in China alone to meet the demands of medical research. After taking this lesson, I have become much more cautious in designing animal experiments.

If I had taken this lesson before my first animal experiment, I might have held myself to higher standards to avoid wasting the lives of experimental animals. In the future, I will be much more careful — not only considering the welfare of animals, but also the value of time spent by my fellow participants. I will prepare thoroughly before experiments to avoid wasting money and lives.

Today I learned for the first time how to orally administer drugs to mice, perform subcutaneous injections, and intraperitoneal injections, and personally verified the effects of different dosages and routes of administration on drug action. This hands-on, see-is-believe teaching method is certainly impressive, but I truly hope that in the future we can treat animals’ lives with less cruelty.

This semester has a heavy course load with many practical training sessions, and it is not easy to keep up. After attending classes each day, I take notes, do exercises, write lab reports, and write an article — all the practical training and lab courses require hands-on work. Given the school’s pace plus my own writing schedule, by the time I finish evening study sessions each day, I am completely exhausted and can fall asleep as soon as I lie down in bed after showering.

Last Saturday I went back to Beijing and accompanied my wife and child to the cinema to watch "Odyssey" — something I had promised to do over the summer break, though I am ashamed to admit I did not follow through at the time. Not long after the movie started, I was already snoring in my cinema seat.

After the semester started, many people on campus caught colds, and I caught one too — probably made worse by catching a chill while sleeping in the cinema. When I returned to school on Sunday, my cold worsened. Headache, sneezing, runny nose, fatigue — during Monday’s physical fitness test, I only jumped 1.96 meters in the standing long jump, a significant step back from last year.

My cold did not fully recover all week. I suppose if I rested properly for a while it would get better, but whenever I skip one evening study session, I fall behind on a lot of homework and notes. So this semester, being sick is a luxury I cannot afford.

Since the semester started, I have been trying to simplify my life, save time, and focus my limited energy on the most important tasks. Work that can be delegated to AI gets delegated to AI — things like code revision, proofreading, batch editing articles, and so on.

But I do not want to delegate writing articles, taking notes, or doing homework to AI. Because if I do, my own abilities will rapidly atrophy.

I will have AI proofread my articles after I write them, have AI organize my notes after I take them, and use AI to search for passages when I need to compose lengthy responses. But I do not want to stop thinking for myself, and articles written by AI simply cannot express my own thoughts and ideas.

Right now, what I need to do is study hard at school for the courses I am taking, use my spare time to build the framework for my book, and also balance work to support my family. Just doing these things well is already quite challenging enough. Anyone with less than average energy could not possibly manage it all.

So this year I have closed off many external channels — I set my WeChat public account so that only people who have followed for more than seven days can send private messages, disabled comments on all articles, and added barriers to private messages on the public account. I also cleaned up some WeChat contacts, removing those who completely fail to appreciate the value of my time and endlessly make meaningless requests. I have also blocked those on my public account who only engage in emotional expression without rational communication. Only children and giant infants communicate by venting emotions; healthy adults engage in rational dialogue. Our precious lives need not be wasted on those who are mentally immature.

Through these settings, I have reduced my workload in this area by more than 90%. I do not need to overconsume myself trying to please others. Energy is limited, and there is a considerable amount of work to be done — only by conserving energy can important goals be achieved. If a person cannot prune the various branches of life, they will be like a vine that only grows vines and bears no fruit, wasting an entire life.

Overall, studying at school is very pleasant. I encounter many new kinds of knowledge every day that I have never encountered before. Some of this knowledge has an internal logical connection to what I have studied in the past, while other portions are entirely new. They are refreshing my cognition, broadening my knowledge base, expanding my horizons, and stimulating my thinking.

I often fall into deep contemplation after being inspired by something, then walk around campus while pondering, jotting down sparks of thought in my notebook. I review the various problems I have encountered in clinical practice in the past, examining past gains and losses with the knowledge I am now acquiring. To be honest, if I had studied Western medicine comprehensively in the past and could skillfully apply both Chinese and Western medical methods to diagnose and treat diseases, many of my patients’ survival periods could have been even longer.

Many Chinese medicine practitioners look down on Western medicine, and many Western medicine practitioners look down on Chinese medicine, making dialogue between the two traditions very difficult. I studied Chinese medicine first, then Western medicine, and after gaining clinical experience, I returned to school for retraining. This kind of learning and thinking is destined to set me apart from many people. On my first day at school, my psychology teacher told me she could not think of many people who could engage in deep conversation with me. In her view, my choices would ensure a certain loneliness.

I admire both Chinese medicine and modern medicine. I hope that during my lifetime I can integrate the strengths of both traditions to solve problems that neither can currently resolve. What I especially hope is that my successful treatment experiences can become reproducible — experiences that others can use with the same effectiveness — rather than remaining at the level of individual case successes.

Regarding this goal, I see a faint light, but it is still too dim, so there is still great room for improvement. I will continue to refine my thinking, moving forward bit by bit. No longer pursuing speed, but doing my best to work more meticulously, think more rigorously, and make everything more valuable.