When the Absurd Is Wedded to Medicine, Lives Are Hard to Protect

Papers reporting uterine fibroids in men, ovarian cancer in men, and postpartum hemorrhage in male mothers have actually appeared in legitimate medical journals; unqualified, incompetent individuals have found their way into top medical institutions through all sorts of channels. Lately, jaw-dropping medical scandals have appeared in the press with alarming frequency. As one laughs or shakes one’s head, one also feels a chill down one’s spine. Because these people practice a profession whose calling is to rescue the dying and heal the wounded—can such people truly save lives?

Last year I myself sat the national college entrance exam and was admitted to a medical vocational college. As an adult with broad life experience, before enrolling I made a special trip to visit the school and met with the dean of academic affairs. A group of applicants’ parents went along; they were almost all healthcare workers themselves. Mistaking me for one of them, they began discussing with me how to pull strings so their children could coast through a degree. These “second-generation doctors” could barely pass the exam even for a junior college, yet their parents still wanted them to take up medicine.

The school’s dean was openly selling medical degrees at fixed prices, throwing the doors wide open and promising that students need not even attend classes—show up at the end of the period and collect a medical diploma. Later, searching social media, I found a flood of posts denouncing such schools’ irregular practices. As a rigorous person, I simply could not bring myself to waste my precious time and money coasting through such a degree, so I declined to enroll.

Later I spoke with my teachers and classmates now working in education; they told me my mindset was stuck two decades in the past, and that what I had encountered is commonplace today. They thought I was too serious and rigid, too unwilling to bend. Beijing has many famous physicians; I apprenticed under several venerable senior doctors, whose rigorous bearing left a deep impression. Now I myself, like them, am rigorous to the point of being exacting at work. Because I know that a slight oversight can cost a life. A person’s death is never a light matter.

I have kept up daily study and writing for more than ten years; to compel lifelong learning I have made it a habit to study and write one article every day, and I have never dared to make such absurd, elementary errors in my writing.

Because I trained through the traditional apprenticeship model of Chinese medicine, over the years I inevitably felt myself at a disadvantage. Indeed, within medical circles, apprentices trained through the traditional TCM mentorship system sit at the very bottom of the prestige ladder; our practice is hard to broaden, which was the main reason I retook the college entrance exam. But in years of practice I have been astonished to find that many high-fliers from celebrated medical schools commit countless elementary blunders within their own specialties.

For example: under their care, patients’ liver and kidney function is damaged, yet they take no remedial measures and inform neither the patient nor the family, letting it worsen until some patients ultimately die of this iatrogenic harm. Or, when drawing up a treatment plan, they overlook obvious, entry-level medical standards.

At first I doubted myself; I repeatedly consulted senior colleagues who had graduated from top medical schools, asking them to judge whether my assessment was wrong. They all confirmed it, and were equally astonished by the elementary errors of these credentialed colleagues. Many of these people bear the luster of world-famous universities, yet those elementary blunders reveal shaky foundational medical knowledge. I have gradually become disillusioned; among them there are indeed some highly skilled, but I cannot tell them apart. I now judge which colleagues to trust by the reputation they have among patients, not by their degrees or lineage.

I too have family who fall ill, and I cannot handle every disease; sometimes I must turn to other specialists. Yet often the treatment plans they propose are unacceptable; a quick check of the professional literature reveals many flaws and more harm than benefit. I have had to devise solutions myself, and in most cases ultimately resolved the problem with far less harm.

I do not want such absurdity in medicine. One day I will die; my descendants may or may not choose to study medicine, but they certainly cannot avoid falling ill, and they will need professional caregivers. That is why I long so deeply for the medical profession to keep up its rigorous heritage. A field that bears on everyone’s life and death should no longer tolerate such absurdity.