From patients' perspectives: Empathetic TCM doctors embody selfless service
On August 16, an emergency call blared through a passenger train from a loudspeaker: "A woman has fainted and fallen into a coma. Any doctors on board?"
The train was passing through Baoji City in Shaanxi Province on its way from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, to Nantong City in Jiangsu Province.
On hearing this, an 82-year-old doctor jumped to her feet and rushed to the carriage where the woman had collapsed from a sudden attack of illness. By the time the elderly doctor came on the scene, the face of the fainted passenger had already turned sallow. She checked the patient's heart rate and pulse and found them erratic, indicating the onset of arrhythmia.
Xi Tang, an 82-year-old TCM doctor, performs first aid in a train carriage on a passenger who had fainted and fallen into a coma.
With a deft movement of her 10 fingers, Xi Tang, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, immediately began to rub and knead the patient's body, applying proper pressure as well as medicated essential balm to her key acupoints – short for acupuncture points – especially those on her earlobes, neck and upper back.
"As she was in a coma, I forcefully pulled her earlobes," Dr Xi recalled later. "Then I massaged her spinal column, all the way down from her dazhui point, until her skin turned red with the rubbing and kneading."
In TCM theory, the earlobes and dazhui point contain vital life force, and a timely massage on them goes a long way toward saving a person's life in case of a medical emergency. Dazhui is an acupoint in the middle of the base of the neck.
Throughout the emergency treatment, which lasted more than 10 minutes, Xi kept kneeling on the floor so as to properly massage the patient lying unconscious on the ground.
"I didn't care whether the floor was dirty or not," the doctor said in a media interview published on August 18. "She was lying there in a coma, so I went down on my knees. All I care as a doctor is simply to save lives."
When the fainted woman finally came to, the first thing she said was: "How my body aches!" Her words indicated the effect of Xi's powerful massage. And, to think that Xi is already in her 80s.
"How glad I am to hear that you feel achy!" Xi replied, confident that the patient had passed the most dangerous moment thanks to timely acupressure.
Before Xi answered the emergency call, one of her fellow travelers had tried to discourage and dissuade her from offering first aid to the fainted passenger, saying: "You're but a TCM doctor."
The overtone was clear: TCM may excel at treating many chronic diseases but it won't work in a medical emergency. Xi replied that a good TCM doctor could work wonders in many cases with his or her 10 fingers.
In 2020, Xi and her friends were traveling on Mount Jiuhua in Anhui Province when they heard a middle-aged man had fainted and fallen to the ground.
"I rushed toward him and checked his pulse," Xi recalled. "His pulse was too weak to be felt, so I used all my strength to massage his key acupoints. I tried so hard that I was soaked in sweat, which blurred my sight. I had to wipe my face with my sleeves to keep the sweat out of my eyes."
When the man gradually regained consciousness, Xi learned that he was suffering from uremia and had gone through 16 years of dialysis treatment.
Like her family name, which means "love" and "happiness," Dr Xi takes it upon herself to provide her patients with tender loving care. She is one of those senior TCM doctors in China who have both excellent medical skills and a big heart for the patients.
Doctor Ding Ying (right) treats a child patient.
Xu Runsan and Ding Ying are among such eminent examples of benevolent TCM doctors. Xu is 96 years old, known for his unique therapy to treat infertility, while Ding, 73, is famed for her creative way to cure children's kidney diseases.
Xu and Ding have succeeded in adapting ancient Chinese therapies to modern medical practice, which is both efficient and affordable.
On top of their advanced skills, the two senior TCM doctors have gone out of their way to help patients get timely treatment despite their financial problems.
For example, a child was suffering from a chronic kidney disease in 2010, but his father, due to financial difficulties, decided to stop further treatment of the child. On learning about their situation, Ding went out of her way to find a temporary job for the father, so that he could support his family. At the same time, she provided the child with free treatment every week, until he recovered.
Doctor Xu feels the pulse of a patient.
For Xu, a day's work is never a matter of eight hours. The good doctor's principle: He will not call it a day unless he has treated the last patient.
"I often receive patients from remote or poor regions," Xu noted. "As they hope to save costs and avoid staying overnight, I often work from dawn to dusk, however late it is. As a doctor, you must learn to see things from patients' perspectives."
Ding was recently elected as one of China's most beautiful doctors for 2023. Xu had been awarded the same honor in 2022.
Xu works in Beijing, while Ding plies her trade, if it can be called that, in Henan Province and Xi in Jiangsu. They come from different parts of China but together they have created a collective image of empathetic TCM doctors who consciously put themselves in the shoes of their patients.
