Paid Consultations and Honoring Commitments Are the Respect a Practitioner Deserves

As my readership and patient count have grown, a large part of my daily working hours is taken up by consultations of various kinds.

It is no exaggeration to say that, before this, I spent at least three to four hours every day replying to all sorts of inquiries.

On average there were about a hundred inquiries each morning, another hundred each afternoon, and still about a hundred in the evening.

Many inquirers are extremely impatient. After sending one message, they expect a reply within seconds; if they do not get an immediate response, a voice or video call request pops up on WeChat at once, without any regard for whether I am working, eating, or sleeping. For this reason I have deleted many very rude inquirers.

Sometimes, even when I was riding my bicycle in the street, my phone would ring. Because of the special nature of my profession, every urgent voice or video call could be a matter of life and death; several times, answering such calls nearly caused me a traffic accident.

So much so that when I asked my son to study medicine with me, he said to me: "Dad, you want me to study medicine, I can study medicine, but there is one thing you must promise me: from now on, don't hand all your patients over to me. I don't want to live the way you do."

What he has not seen is that my WeChat and WeChat official account have become a place where many people vent their feelings. When they are anxious, uneasy, or sunk in depression, they treat me as a "tree hollow" to pour out their unhappiness. Often I simply stay silent and do nothing about it. If these are counted in, the workload is even more frightening.

This is an unavoidable situation that comes with the career I have chosen.

About this, I have no complaint.

It is just that the workload is too heavy, and I must make adjustments from time to time.

Sometimes I choose to cut my WeChat friend list by several hundred to a thousand people at once. But this usually only buys a brief period of relative ease; before long, the number of friends I cut grows back.

The most effective solution is to set the threshold of paid consultation. I once tried it on a small scale: when I told some inquirers that consulting me required payment, 95% of them stopped asking.

When I provided free consultation, many inquirers not only consulted me without restraint themselves, but also called friends to add me on WeChat and ask me all sorts of questions, some of which had nothing at all to do with my field of research.

Given that the number of inquirers is truly too large, and that I myself still need a great deal of time to read the literature, research treatment protocols for the stubborn disease of cancer, create new and effective formulas, and solve patients' problems, from now on all consultations with me must be paid.

The specific fee will be set according to the content and duration of the consultation.

Paid consultation is also the respect a practitioner deserves. Paid consultation is respect both for knowledge and for the practitioner's time and labor.

Before this, there were always a few friendly inquirers who would voluntarily pay me a consultation fee. I am very grateful to these inquirers for their support and understanding of my work.

There were also some less friendly inquirers who, after consuming a great deal of my time and asking a pile of questions, would book an appointment with me and then fail to show. I generally make a simple note of such people, intending to delete them, and clear them out after a while.

I do not believe a person should be so compassionate as to tolerate every improper act. Every adult should know how to protect his own credit, and should know where the boundaries of his own behavior lie; he should not regard himself as a giant baby who need not be responsible for his own actions.

I have my own task, and it is quite an arduous one. To complete this arduous task, I must learn to set goals, design workflows, and manage my time. I should cut away unnecessary concerns, and reduce the workload that wastes time and energy. I must focus on one place, conserve time, and solve the medical problems I need to solve.

So I hope all readers and patients will put themselves in my place and understand this threshold I have set. If you feel that paying a practitioner for consultation is unacceptable to you, then spend more time yourself, read the relevant literature, and solve your own problems.

Setting the threshold of paid consultation does not bring me much income, but it saves me a great deal of energy. From now on, apart from my own relatives and friends, I will charge anyone else who consults me.

I believe I am not the only one who faces a flood of meaningless consultations every day. Basically most practitioners face this situation; it is just that everyone is at a loss for a good way to solve it.

I am deeply sorry that I can no longer provide free consultations. I can only say sorry; I can make no further concessions. I beg for your understanding.

In addition, to those I have already deleted from my work WeChat and those whose friend requests I have declined, I ask for your understanding as well.

If you simply wish to exchange a few words and read my articles, you can do so entirely through my WeChat official account. What I lack most is time and energy.

I have no intention of applying for yet more WeChat accounts. I cannot even keep up with the thousands of people in one account; adding more people is pointless.