Source: Life Times
Wang Jin, Vice President of Beijing Tsinghua Changgeng Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University
My parents are doctors, my father (Note: Wang Zhongzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering), is engaged in neurosurgery, my mother is a pediatrician, and my two sisters are also doctors, so it is natural for me to embark on the path of medicine. Under the influence of my father, I also chose the field of neurosurgery.
In 1978, I entered Beijing Medical College to study, and in 1983, I was admitted to the Graduate School of Neurosurgery at Capital Medical University. Under the conditions at that time, China's neurosurgery profession was still very backward, whether it was diagnosis or treatment, equipment or concepts, it was much behind foreign countries. At that time, my father also wanted me to go out to learn some skills, so after graduation, I went to the United States to study.
From studying abroad to working, I stayed in the United States for 30 years. I was the first Chinese medical student in the United States to pass the neurosurgery association certification in the United States and become a clinical neurosurgeon. In the 1990s, I thought about returning to China, but considering that if I had returned to China at that time, it might be difficult to use what I had learned and my strengths. I studied neurosurgery, and there was still a big gap between the surgical equipment, instruments, consumables and other aspects of surgery equipment, instruments, and consumables in China at that time. In fact, not only neurosurgery, but also the entire medical field and European and American countries have a gap. For example, some complex skull base tumors, and even some cerebrovascular diseases that require bypass, are relatively rare in China, but at that time, these operations were already very popular in Europe and the United States.
I practice medicine overseas and every year I return to China to visit my family. I have always seen the vigorous economic development in China, and I have always paid attention to the progress of the domestic medical field. In 2008, Beijing successfully hosted the Olympic Games. Since then, in large hospitals in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, various hardware facilities and medical equipment have been continuously upgraded. I found that the operating rooms of many hospitals are brand new, and the hardware facilities in them are almost the same as those in Europe and the United States, and sometimes even better. For example, neuromodulatory surgery for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and paralytic tremor, before 2000, due to the limitation of consumables, this operation was rarely carried out in China; After 2008, domestic high-tech companies developed corresponding products, and this operation has been carried out more in China.
2008 was like a switch, and since then, the domestic medical field has entered a period of rapid development. This is almost in sync with the domestic economic development, precisely because the country is rich, so including the major hospitals in various provinces and cities, new buildings continue to rise, equipment and equipment are getting better and better. In 2014, I was invited to return to China and participated in the preparation of Beijing Tsinghua Changgeng Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University, and began to devote myself to the cause of neurosurgery in China. The equipment we purchased at that time was the same as the equipment I had used in Seattle, USA, or even better. At present, the annual operation volume of our department is 900 to 1000 units, and most of them are highly difficult surgeries transferred from the outer courtyard. In terms of intramedullary tumor surgery, our department has become one of the centers with the largest surgical volume in China.
Having practiced medicine in the United States for many years and returning to China for seven or eight years, I have several experiences compared with the medical industry at home and abroad. First, we may still have a long way to go in terms of equilibrium. Although the gap between the big hospitals in big cities in China and foreign countries has narrowed, and even exceeded in some fields, the development is unbalanced, even if the hospitals at the provincial level and the big hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai still have a big gap. In the United States, there is not much gap between hospitals in various regions.
There are also some details. For example, when a patient is discharged, the hospital bills out, and I found that the cost of medical services is too low, less than 1/10 of the United States, and sometimes only 1/20. I think this is a gross underestimation of the value of doctors and medical workers. In terms of medical training, compared with the foreign doctor training model, the current domestic resident training model is relatively low mobility.
There is also a very important point that has to be mentioned about the differences between the medical fields in China and the United States. In China, public hospitals are the mainstay, while in the United States, the vast majority of hospitals are private hospitals, but there are many more non-profit hospitals than for-profit hospitals. This is not only the difference in tax policies, but also from another perspective to show that the medical industry is different from other industries, its primary pursuit is to save patients' lives, improve the quality of life of patients, rather than the pursuit of maximum economic benefits. If you tell a patient that so-and-so hospital makes the most money, patients may not necessarily prefer this hospital. It is hoped that the government can continue to increase investment in the medical industry so that our public hospitals do not take the pursuit of economic benefits as the primary task, so that medical staff can focus more on improving the quality of medical care and make medical services benefit more people.
Whether in the United States or In China, health is an eternal topic. Finally, I would like to say that we must take health as our main business, and be the master of our own health, rather than relying on anyone else, including those big experts. Among them, there are many things we can do, such as more exercise, regular physical examination, early diagnosis and early treatment of problems, etc., all of which are responsible for ourselves. (Compiled by Dong Changxi, a reporter of this newspaper)
This article is from Life Times and represents only the author's views. The National Party Media Information Public Platform provides information dissemination services.
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