Mending Other People Broken Lives
Yesterday when I video-called with my father, he told me that some young people from the village who went out to work after the Spring Festival have now come back. Because outside work is hard to find this year, and the work available pays low wages, forty or fifty yuan a day, hardly enough to cover basic living away from home.Father also said that recently, where we are, a sight he has never seen in his lifetime has appeared: crows flying in vast numbers, blotting out the clouds and sun. In eastern Hubei there have rarely been so many crows; this is a sign of abnormal climate. The climate crisis caused by human activity is making sensitive birds migrate unusually.Hubei and other places suffered extreme drought last year; even the Yangtze River dried up, villagers had great difficulty getting drinking water, and the harvest was very poor. When we went home for the Spring Festival, the family well would not draw water. These are rare extreme climate events. The sudden increase of rare birds may be a result of last year drought, or may foretell that this year heat season will be hotter and the weather drier.Father said to me: Son, in future do not only study cancer; also help people solve other problems along the way. Many patients are pitiful; help them when you can. Many families now cannot afford treatment costs; try to save them treatment fees, as if accumulating virtue.My father is nearly eighty. In this age of frequent disasters, developing this compassionate heart, earnestly teaching me to pity the suffering of living beings, moved me greatly. He finally understands why I love medicine so much. When Father was young he had the chance to inherit medical skills from family elders; the best old orthopedic doctor in our village liked Father cleverness and thought he was the person in the village best able to inherit his art. But Father had to feed the family and refused to study medicine with him, instead learning another trade; in those days village doctors treated patients for no charge at all.The greatest task of those who study medicine is to mend other people broken lives. Disaster, disease and social injustice shatter many people lives, harming body and mind; only physicians can ease their suffering. Many people study medicine first because they themselves and those they love have suffered physical and mental pain, which gives rise to the wish to study medicine to save themselves and others; only then does this vow to save the dying and heal the wounded extend to other people.In the first half of my life I hated evil like an enemy and was determined to uphold human justice; toward those who abused violence and authority to inflict suffering on others, I wished to kill them with my own hands. This has something to do with my mother. When my parents were young, to support my brothers and me through school, they did business away from home and were exploited by corrupt officials; Mother was even beaten. This made me especially hope, when I grew up, to uphold justice for people like them; even now I still hate those who abuse violence and authority.All my life I have not feared the powerful; encountering violent and corrupt elements, I have always used the courage of not minding perishing together with them, to fight them to the end, from childhood on. Fortunately I have won repeatedly. Practice proves that anyone fears a desperate person; when a person fears nothing and is reckless, others have no choice but to yield.At around thirty, I resolutely gave up everything and turned to studying medicine; this also had to do with my mother. Mother suffered illness for decades with no good doctor to save her from her plight, finally passing away with illness. After Mother died, every time Father mentioned his own failure to study medicine back then, he felt great regret.Suppressing violence and bringing peace, and practicing medicine to save the world, are my father two long-cherished wishes, and also mine. Now that I practice medicine and have gained recognition from many patients, this gives Father some comfort. After all, a person has only one life; by one own strength to suppress violence and bring peace, the people one can help are limited. But those who study medicine can save many people, and especially in disaster years, those who study medicine can play a greater role.Disease exists eternally. Humans are multicellular creatures with tens of trillions of cells on the body; each person has about ten thousand times the earth population in cells, and some cells will always go wrong for various reasons. Once there is an incurable disease, many people lives are ruined. Chronic disease harms people more severely than thugs; a thug harm may be one-time, while chronic disease harms the body at every moment. Studying medicine to save people is also fighting thugs, only this thug is disease.Father teaching I will of course follow. A father who never forgets to teach his child to be kind to others is the best father in the world. Many parents I have met teach their children to stop at nothing, regardless of other people lives, to grab personal gain. Such parents ultimately bring disaster on their descendants, because the character parents forge for their children ultimately determines their future. The struggles in this world all arise from self-interested and altruistic behavior; those who benefit themselves by benefiting others have few misfortunes and many blessings; those who only benefit themselves, even harming others, have few blessings and many misfortunes.Although I intend to follow Father teaching, I also know my ability is insufficient. I can only, while practicing medicine, continue learning, constantly raising my level, and try, according to Father teaching, to help more people solve their suffering and mend their broken lives. Our own lives have been broken; having tasted that bitterness, we cannot bear to see others lives broken and stand by doing nothing.Over the years I have not actually only treated cancer patients; I have also treated other diseases of people I know. But I know I am not omnipotent, so for diseases I have not studied much, I dare not touch them much, fearing to waste the patient family money and delay them, and myself ending up blamed. Only when patients have repeatedly failed treatment by other doctors do I steel myself to try.My father exhortation also makes sense: a person who studies medicine should not learn too one-sidedly. Especially in this age of climate crisis and frequent infectious disease, many diseases are difficult not only for me but for other doctors. If every physician shrinks back, there will be no one to care for patients.Take long COVID, for example: now many doctors are afraid to take it on, and I am afraid too. Because this disease is newly appeared, there is no ready treatment plan to refer to, which easily creates pressure on doctors. But some patients after-effects are so severe that they cannot work or live normally; not treating them is also impossible.After the New Year, early COVID patients who were infected more than half a year ago and still suffer greatly have come one after another to me for treatment of their after-effects. This group is not valued by society; in fact there are many people tormented by long COVID to the point of losing the ability to work, their lives broken, living in great pain. There must always be those who study medicine to stand with these patients, help them, and fight the disease together with them.My father expectation is also the expectation of countless patients tormented by disease with nowhere to turn; physicians have a duty to respond to this expectation. The meaning of the medical art is broad; any method that can ease a patient physical and mental suffering can be called medical skill. Those who practice medicine should not limit their work to mere technical work, much less to technical work that can only ease part of the suffering of a certain disease. To do so would depart from a doctor social duty. Most physicians educated by modern medical schools may have departed from this social duty, having only a single technical skill and finding it hard to comprehensively solve patients problems.Today we practice medicine; our descendants may not practice medicine in future, but they will certainly have times of falling ill and seeking doctors. What doctors pass down generation after generation should perhaps be this kind of spirit my father raised. Only by practicing the doctor profession with this spirit can one pursue the ultimate excellence in medical skill, broadly absorbing others strengths, constantly refining, and truly achieve the goal of saving the dying and healing the wounded.