The Problem Is Here, the Answer Is Far Away

Recently, in the course of my studies, I have become deeply fascinated by Group A beta-hemolytic Streptococcus and the series of diseases it induces. The reason is that this streptococcal infection is related to at least two of my relatives: one is my son, and the other is one of my uncles by marriage. My son once developed acute tonsillitis induced by this Streptococcus, while my uncle has been plagued by rheumatism all his life; I previously only knew that he had rheumatism, but did not understand that the trigger of rheumatism is Streptococcus.

Streptococcus is the most common pathogenic bacterium, and almost everyone has been infected with it, especially Group A Streptococcus. The vast majority of us were infected with this bacterium in childhood; not only were we infected, we were basically repeatedly infected, because this bacterium is widespread in nature.

Some people are left with sequelae after streptococcal infection, and the most serious sequelae of streptococcal infection are rheumatism and valvular heart disease. When I looked deeply into the rheumatism and valvular heart disease caused by Group A beta-hemolytic Streptococcus, I found that although they are not as fatal as cancer, they are also extremely difficult to treat; within the existing medical system, no cure for them can be found.

This gave birth in me to the idea of conquering this disease, because I once stumbled upon the herb Sedum lineare, which rapidly cures tonsillitis caused by streptococcal infection. For more than ten years I have wanted to understand the pharmacology of this plant, whose scientific name is Sedum lineare, but I have never succeeded. It took me years before I finally found someone who could identify this nameless little plant; previously I wanted to study it by experimental methods but did not know where to begin. This year, the professional knowledge I learned at school rekindled the spark of hope in me.

When I came to study clinical medicine last year, I met a Western-medicine physician about my own age who came to me about her child's illness. She had worked in Western-medicine clinical practice for more than twenty years, but when her own child was tormented by neuroblastoma—the king of childhood tumors—she was also helpless.

In casual conversation, she said to me that Western medicine can work out the causes of many diseases very clearly, yet cannot treat them, which is a kind of tragedy; she placed her last ray of hope in Chinese medicine. I, having been deeply immersed in TCM for years, feel the same helplessness toward TCM as she does toward Western medicine. Although we have occasionally cured a few patients, most of the time we can only watch helplessly as the patient's condition worsens, sometimes even helpless when our own closest kin are tormented.

Yesterday, in my Medical Ethics class, I read the story of Academician Wang Zhenyi in the textbook, and I was deeply moved. This elderly physician spent his whole life treating and researching blood diseases, and invented the use of all-trans retinoic acid to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia; he selflessly waived the patent rights to this drug, allowing the broad mass of acute promyelocytic leukemia patients to obtain cheap medicine and benefiting countless patients.

I saw him in his twilight years, white-haired, inhaling oxygen in a hospital ward while answering a reporter's questions with slight shortness of breath. He said that when a disease previously incurable has found a treatment, as a physician he feels in his heart a profound gratification that means more than enormous financial returns.

This dialogue was deeply moving. I think there are many doctors in the world who share his feelings; at the very least, I myself do. It is just that we may exhaust a lifetime of effort and still not have such an opportunity. To invent a drug or treatment of proven efficacy, relieving the suffering of countless patients afflicted by a disease—what a meaningful thing that is!

Out of love I have studied Chinese medicine and psychiatry, and now I study clinical medicine (Western medicine). After so many years of study, my deepest feeling is that there are too many unsolved medical problems in the world and that human medicine is still too shallow; in the face of intractable diseases, we are most of the time helpless. The diseases physicians can cure are mostly self-limiting diseases or some not-too-complex conditions.

We have discovered many health problems, but we have not yet found the answers to them. Finding such answers is no easy task; for most people aspiring to medical innovation, it may take a lifetime of effort, and they may still not be as lucky as Academician Wang Zhenyi and Professor Tu Youyou in finding a drug or treatment of proven efficacy.

Finding such answers requires breakthrough thinking, because the solutions to the problems cannot be found in existing textbooks. Last year, when I listened to Professor Luo Ziqiang's online Physiology course, one thing he said struck me deeply. He told the students: “After you take this course, you will soon forget most of the knowledge points, I am sure; but in the process of studying it, your thinking ability will be trained, and that is what matters most.”

I have written a great many articles; over these years, not only some of my long-term readers but even some publishers have hoped that I would publish my own monograph, yet I have delayed, because I feel I have not yet achieved medical accomplishments that satisfy me. I do not think most of the articles I have written are of much value, so I do not feel they need to be published. I do not yet have a discovery of major innovative significance, and I want to keep working and exploring during my lifetime to produce more meaningful research. Perhaps when I am old, I will condense the thoughts of a lifetime into a thin little book and publish it, so as not to waste paper.

Although research results of major value cannot be counted on, the more effort one puts in, the more likely one is to produce such results. A true medical student should not be content merely to treat disease with the routine methods learned in medical school or from supervising teachers; they should also seek ceaselessly throughout life for answers to the medical problems that remain unsolved.