What inspired me?

Abstract

I was born in China in the middle of the 1960s in a once-rich family. Unlike today, at that time in our country the rich bore the stigma of exploitation. The exploiters and their families were sent from the cities to the countryside for re-education. Our family was among those unlucky people. Intensive labor made my mother sick. Lying in bed, she asked the barefoot doctor: ‘It seems that one of my backbones is protruding like the beads on the abacus now, is that normal?’ He sat five meters away from my mother, and without even looking at the affected site, answered: ‘It should be all right’. After taking months of his and his colleague's prescriptions without any improvement, my mother said: ‘They are doctors, aren't they?’ I knew that she felt helpless and that she was just talking to herself, for I was too young to answer her question. Since then, her question has always been echoing in my mind. From the late 1970s onward, the fate of the Chinese had changed. So did that of my family. In the summer of 1980 I went to medical school, where I learnt in pathology that the abnormality in my mother's back was one of the typical signs of spinal tuberculosis. The lesion in the textbook depicting such a patient looked so similar to that of my mother. I wondered whether the barefoot doctors could identify the signs of that disease, even if they had examined her. After graduation from medical school, I was appointed to work at a big hospital in Beijing. One day I felt quite happy, because my diagnosis was confirmed by pathological examination while my peers were still puzzling. I went to the patient and told him that he should begin chemotherapy. ‘How long can I live with treatment?’ He asked. ‘Usually, 2 to 3 years.’ I answered. ‘Only three years?’ He seemed not to believe what he heard. Staring at me, he appeared quite surprised. His eyes then moved away from my face and looked at the floor in desperation. My contented mood immediately vanished and I felt deeply guilty. ‘Am I a Doctor?’ I asked myself. Lying in bed at night, I pondered: ‘Can I do more for patients like him?’ Hiding in the laboratory, I began an attempt to find a solution for all the unanswered questions. This is what I am still doing.