Medical "Sales Pitch"

One of my teachers runs a clinic in my hometown county town, using both Chinese and Western medicine to treat various common diseases. Last year (2019), I went to visit him and sat in his consultation room waiting for him to finish seeing patients, but there were so many patients that he never had time to talk with me at length.

He was there diagnosing and prescribing, while family members helped him dispense the medicine. I watched him see several patients in a row: some were charged five yuan, some twenty, and the most I saw him charge was thirty yuan for one patient—this being the combined fee for the consultation and the medicine.

To be honest, I sat there as if on pins and needles, feeling utterly ashamed, because I truly had not imagined that in this day and age there would still be a physician like him. When I am old, I may well learn from him. People who ask little of society carry the lightest spiritual burden. That is why the ancients said: "The benevolent are long-lived." A person of true compassion has an open, untroubled heart, eats well and sleeps soundly, and lives a long life.

This teacher of mine used to teach formula studies at a school; his prose was excellent, written in a plain style with deep feeling. I often read his articles. Not long ago I saw an article he published on a public account in our county, recalling small incidents from the life of a colleague of his who had remained at his post as a rural doctor. The people served by that elderly physician were even poorer than those my teacher served, so his fees were even lower. After reading it, I felt heartfelt admiration for both of them; what they can do is something I cannot yet do, and I cannot attain such a lofty spiritual realm.

The reason I felt on pins and needles in his clinic was that my fees are considerably higher than my teacher's. Watching this senior physician's benevolent heart and skill moved me deeply, while also making me feel deeply ashamed. I can only justify myself by saying that the cost of living in Beijing is so high that I have to charge more to feed my family.

A few years ago, a fellow senior disciple of mine told me that in a few years, once his daughter came of age, he would go to a remote area to provide nearly voluntary medical service to poor patients. I greatly admired his aspiration. It was just unexpected that he later went into partnership with his wife to open a highly profitable medical beauty clinic, earning money from the rich, and threw his earlier idealism to the winds.

The physicians in this world truly vary enormously. Although I am not as compassionate as my teacher, I have always been trying my best to consider the patient's interests, striving to keep the medical costs of cancer patients under three thousand yuan per month for adults and under one thousand per month for children.

But the amounts some TCM physicians I frequently encounter charge their patients leave me speechless.

There was once a TCM physician famous in the trade—before practicing TCM he had been a cadre, treating many dignitaries. One day a patient he had treated came to me for help, telling me that he had previously consulted this famous TCM physician and had spent 1.5 million yuan in three months, running up a mountain of debt. I asked him how the money had been spent. He simply said he was taking Chinese medicine; I found it hard to imagine how one could spend 1.5 million yuan on Chinese medicine in three months. Yet after spending that 1.5 million yuan, there was no miraculous recovery; the patient's condition worsened. At that point the famous TCM physician went into hiding and refused to see the patient, who had no choice but to come to me to ask for help in alleviating his suffering.

Another gastric cancer patient treated by a famous "Fire Spirit School" TCM physician also came to me. When he came, he said that after six months of treatment by that Fire Spirit School physician, a house worth over a million yuan had been spent away. I was also taken aback; how was this money spent? The patient told me that the famous physician had said his preparations contained many rare and expensive medicinal materials, which was why they were so costly.

Another patient was treated for gastric cancer by a Tibetan physician who was said to hold the title of a Tibetan Buddhist lama, also spending over a hundred thousand yuan a month. The patient's parents, to please the lama, did all kinds of housework for him every day and bought him furniture. Yet the patient's illness worsened day by day; after half a year, having lost dozens of jin in weight, he could not hold on any longer and was referred to me by another patient.

I greatly admire the psychological fortitude and "sales pitch" of these TCM or Tibetan physicians. I do not know how they make patients so devotedly pay such exorbitant prices to come to them for Chinese medicine. A fellow disciple of mine once told me that Western medicine is expensive, but its cost has a bottom, whereas TCM is expensive like a bottomless pit. I heartily agree. Even for patients from well-off families, at most I would suggest using rare medicines like Xihuang Wan (Western Yellow Pill) and Pianzaihuang; even if entirely out of pocket, the medicine would at most be around twenty thousand yuan a month. For most patients of average means, I recommend medicines that are reasonably effective and moderately priced, with regular hospital check-ups to assess efficacy, trying to lighten the patient's burden and not drive people into bankruptcy for treatment.

But some TCM physicians not only prescribe such outrageously expensive medicine (with all due respect, based on my knowledge of the prices of Chinese medicinal materials, no matter how a TCM physician prescribes, it should not be so absurdly expensive) but are also very skilled at brainwashing patients. The patient is clearly getting worse with treatment, yet they can use a set of "sales pitch" to tell the patient this is "detoxification." Some medicines are clearly causing severe side effects that should be reported to the patient so they can reduce the dose or stop, but these are also explained away as "disease-expelling reactions," with the result that some patients suffer greatly.

Of course, in Western medicine there are also many physicians skilled at this kind of pitch, and some who are not even physicians but companies that specialize in promoting certain anti-cancer products are also very good at this kind of pitch. They are silver-tongued, always able to make these terminal-illness patients bankrupt as they follow them to try some expensive new therapy with poor clinical data—and the vast majority of the patients' attempts end in failure.

This kind of medical sales pitch is terrifying and deeply damages the public's trust in the medical profession. Some patients or their families, once drawn in, find it hard to extricate themselves. Not only that, but having formed a habitual mindset, some patients eye those physicians who prescribe inexpensive medicine suspiciously, wondering whether medicine so cheap can really treat their illness.

When Bodhidharma came east, he was said to be seeking someone "not deluded" to whom to transmit the Dharma. Among cancer patients, there are many who are "deluded" by all kinds of pitches. I am grateful that the articles I write can wake some deluded patients up so they do not jump into the pit. I believe this part of the work I do is of real practical significance, which is why I keep at it. But there are still a great many patients too deeply deluded; I truly lack the ability to bring them to their senses, so I can only let nature take its course.

Those who study medicine must not be too greedy. I am far from possessing my teacher's benevolent heart and skill, but I am a fairly unassuming person and have not gone to absurd lengths, so occasionally when I encounter a wealthy patient, they are willing to support my research. Physicians and patients have a symbiotic relationship; when a physician genuinely considers the patient's interests, the vast majority of patients know how to be grateful. Those who use sales pitches to deceive patients are the black sheep of the medical profession, harming not only patients but also the image of all medical staff.