Wishing All Readers and Patients a Merry Christmas Eve and a Lifetime of Peace

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and tomorrow is Christians' most festive day of the year, Christmas. Here I wish all my readers and patients a merry Christmas Eve and a merry Christmas! I also wish all readers and patients a lifetime of peace, good health, and may all go well with you!

I also wish all my colleagues in the medical profession a lifetime of peace and fulfillment.

Recently several pieces of news have been deeply distressing. At Zhongshan Hospital and Cancer Hospital affiliated with Fudan University in Shanghai, on December 12 and 16 respectively, a vigorous doctor suddenly died from overwork; an associate chief physician of oncology at the Shanggao County People's Hospital in Yichun, Jiangxi, also suddenly collapsed and died from overwork. Of these three doctors who died suddenly, two were only 39 and the other only 49.

When a hare dies, a fox mourns; creatures of a kind sorrow together. Because of the medical system, doctors today all work extremely hard, and oncologists in particular bear immense physical and mental pressure.

Of the three doctors who died suddenly, two were oncologists. Treating cancer is not easy: on one side are patients' and families' fervent expectations, on the other the reality that human medical technology is still backward; we must constantly face the pain and anxiety of setback.

May all my colleagues fighting on the anti-cancer front lines take care of your health, for your families and for your patients alike, and not overwork yourselves.

I also hope patients and families will be more understanding of us anti-cancer physicians striving to create hope amid despair. Your will to survive is strong, and doctors are working hard for you. But please also see that doctors have families too, and their lives are precious. Try not to occupy too much of their time or drain their energy.

Every time I face patients and families consulting me urgently in the dead of night, or friends who really have nothing serious but just want to chat on the phone, I feel helpless. I wish I had more time to meet everyone's emotional needs, but I genuinely need rest too; without rest I cannot stay alive and healthy, let alone help you.

Peace is our common hope! I pray that every person in the world may pass his life in peace. That all beings may live happily is also the shared ultimate wish of the world's three great religions. In this season of such strong religious feeling, as a student of medicine, my wish, like that of every true believer, is simply that everyone may live a life of quiet, quiet years.

Yet this wish is not easily realized. May each of us care more for others and less for resentment and insistence, and together build a beautiful world.