In the rural village in northern China where I grew up, medical services and supplies were scarce. As a result, my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s was punctuated by death and loss. To be sure, a number of people who used folk medicines would recover from relatively minor illnesses, but when as a child I witnessed the collapse of my beloved grandfather from the stroke that killed him, I knew that traditional remedies were no match for serious illness. My grandfather's death was what made me determined to become a doctor. I would change not only my own life but also the lives of my family and others who needed help.
In 1993, I entered Zhejiang Medical University, one of China's top ten medical schools. Fortunately, I won a scholarship for each of my five years of study, but as every serious medical student knows, becoming a doctor requires serious study, and the program at Zhejiang was demanding. Even so, my motivation was strong. My desire to make sick people well and make healthy people live good lives drove me to study as diligently as possible. My vivid memories of my grandfather made me realize that the more knowledge of medicine I had, the more likely I could successfully intervene in a patient's agony.
Many Americans seem to believe that education in China is a humorless academic exercise, but life at Zhejiang had a fulfilling social component. I was vice president of the student association for a two-year term. That experience enabled me to learn how to communicate with different kinds of people--an invaluable lesson for dealing with patients--as well as the details of organizing, balancing, and managing both social and professional duties. For example, in the same year I organized a holiday parade and volunteered time at two outpatient clinics. I was also a member of the school's gymnastic team, which kept my body and mind active (our team placed second at a gymnastics tournament, competing against twelve medical schools ...