The Shared Character and Shared Wish of Generations of Physicians
These past few days at home I have been grinding through solid-geometry problems, and it has made my head ache. Solid geometry demands a great deal of spatial imagination, and my work over the years has had almost nothing to do with that, so I have had to get reacquainted with it.
Today, lost in problems, a courier delivered a package containing an out-of-print book, Doctor Song's Fumigation-Inhalation Therapy. It was written by the late elder physician Song Shiqi, and it details his originally developed clinical experience in using fumigation and inhalation methods to treat stroke sequelae and tumors. The book is no longer available on the market, not even second-hand. A retired elder physician surnamed Shang in Henan saw my article mentioning that I was looking for this book and specially gave me his own copy.
This elder who gave me the book wrote a note on the flyleaf encouraging the younger generation, saying he believed giving the book to me was more meaningful than keeping it. He wrote: "I am old now! I hope that in the field of tumor prevention and treatment you will open up new ground, break new paths, bloom fresh flowers, and bear rich fruit, saving more patients from the depths of distress."
Receiving the book and reading his inscription moved me deeply. Over the years I have often received all kinds of gifted books; some elder physicians have given me their compiled but unpublished medical monographs. Other kind people have even given me medical works or hand-copied manuscripts handed down in their families, most of them quite old, several from the Qing dynasty.
Once someone wanted to give me a Song-dynasty medical book passed down in his family, but I refused. The reason is that such a book is far too precious, and there are modern published editions of the works in question. If it were only for study, buying the modern edition would be more appropriate; an ancient Song book is a family heirloom, and I could not take away someone's beloved treasure.
Over the past decade or so I have also visited and come to know several senior figures in medicine, both Western and Chinese. Whenever I asked them questions, they all answered most warmly. A few old doctors practically emptied their entire store of knowledge, even fearing I would not learn; they very much wanted their skills to have one more inheritor who could benefit more patients. Moreover, most of them declined to call themselves my master, feeling it would be too arrogant and not respectful enough to the younger generation. I am sincerely grateful to them and have always treated them as my teachers.
Some of the senior medical people I have met are the purest people I have ever known; in every move of their lives and work, the light of human kindness shines. They have not only benevolent hearts and skill but are also humble, never condescending. Medical work tempers the human heart as little else does. Doctors, long at the clinical front line witnessing life and death, have seen countless times the anxiety, depression, fear and suffering of people under threat of death, and have seen life vanish in an instant. They know how fragile and precious life is, and how enormous the psychological trauma of losing a loved one is for those who remain. So we share one wish: to save lives and extend life expectancy as much as possible.
The person who has pressed me hardest these past few years is a senior fellow-apprentice of my master's from my hometown. His title is chief physician, and before retiring he served as director of our local health commission. He is my master's closest friend and now my own friend across the generations. After retiring he still studies at home to qualify as a general practitioner; to urge me to go to school and study medicine systematically, he once showed me his post-retirement study materials and, in front of me, fluently recited foundational medical knowledge. Whenever I brought him small festival gifts when we met, he always gave back gifts of equal or even greater value.
Once he told me the reason he urged me so relentlessly was simply that he saw in me a rare material worth shaping, and he hoped to help me become a good doctor. He said that in every age patients are pitiable people who need doctors to help relieve their suffering. This was deeply moving; as one of the doctors, he too is imbued with humanitarianism, and grows more compassionate with age.
I actually have a little Western-medicine foundation, laid for me by a retired elderly doctor at Chaoyang Hospital. She herself was a lymphoma patient; before retirement she was one of the antidote specialists led by the Ministry of Health, a graduate of the older Peking University Health Science Center. Her home and mine were in the same neighborhood, only about a kilometer apart. For a while she spent nearly half of every day talking with me. Though she studied Western medicine, she came from a family of Chinese medicine physicians and was perfectly familiar with TCM. During that time she was like a strict teacher, teaching me various areas of Western medicine while also exchanging knowledge about TCM cancer treatment with me.
She was a warm-hearted, deeply respected elder. Whether on the street, on the bus, or traveling by train or plane, whenever she met a sick person she would step in to help, never fearing risk and expecting no reward. Some people, avoiding doctors out of fear of illness, not only failed to thank her but felt her actions an affront and even scolded her. When she told such stories she always laughed it off, feeling no offense. The old lady had such a strong conscience and such a good disposition; it is truly admirable.
I also learned a little from Professor Huang Xizhen of the PUMCH (Union Hospital) respiratory department. I sought her out on behalf of my teacher's wife, and each time shamelessly took a little of the elder's time to ask for guidance. That was more than ten years ago; about every two weeks I registered with her at PUMCH on my teacher's wife's behalf to get prescriptions. Over time we grew familiar, and I asked her about many respiratory diseases. She patiently answered and guided me, and when I asked her to draw up a reading list so I could study more deeply, she gladly agreed.
Near PUMCH there are the Dongdan Bookstore, the Wangfujing Bookstore, and the readers' department of PUMCH Press; Professor Huang also had a very heavy outpatient schedule, so every visit meant a long wait. Thus when I came for follow-ups, I would first put my teacher's wife's medical record on the table outside her clinic, slip to the bookstore to read for a while, and then return. I liked being the last one to enter her consulting room, so I could have more time to talk with her.
Once I became so absorbed in a book that I lost track of time; when I remembered I had to see Professor Huang's clinic, it was already past one in the afternoon. I hurried from the bookstore to PUMCH, expecting her to have left, but unexpectedly she was still in the clinic waiting for me. A doctoral student assisting who did not know me scolded me roundly, saying Professor Huang was over eighty, had stayed past her off-duty time waiting more than an hour for me, and how could I show so little respect to the elder.
Professor Huang stopped her, and instead criticized her for her poor attitude toward the patient. By then the elder knew me well; she said to her doctoral student, Do you know who this young man comes for? He comes for the wife of one of his high-school teachers. He has persevered, for a long time now, in bringing his teacher's wife—who cannot come to Beijing for care—to me for follow-up. Someone who so respects his teachers is admirable; don't be angry with him. Moreover, he lost track of time reading in a bookstore—what a love of learning; you should learn from him. He often asks me questions, and some of the questions he asks you yourselves could not think of. I shall never forget those words the elder spoke. She was not only treating illness; she was also lifting up the younger generation and teaching us juniors how to be human beings.
We can see this childlike heart in many doctors. Though people love to say that hearts are not what they were and that public morals are declining, from the senior and fellow physicians I have met I have still seen much that is bright in human nature. It is true that some doctors have very bad conduct, but there are also many senior and fellow physicians with beautiful souls. I believe that, after witnessing a vast amount of human suffering, the humanitarian spirit tempered within them will be passed from generation to generation and endure in this world. This world, so full of suffering, needs precisely such a spirit to comfort it.