Doctor donates 100 million yuan of personal funds to hospital

A specialist in clinical anesthesiology from southwest China's Sichuan Province has donated 100 million yuan (US$15.5 million) in rewards to the hospital at which he works on Monday, which soon became a trending topic on Weibo, China's Twitter equivalent, the following day.

Liu Jin, 65, director of the anesthesia surgery center at the West China Hospital at Sichuan University, donated the substantial personal bonus to set up a special fund for standardized training in an effort to motivate faculty and resident doctors and enhance their clinical competence.

The money is from patents involved in two contracts worth 750 million yuan (US$116 million) in total, both developed by Liu-led research teams.

It is also China's first special fund for standardized training donated and set up by an individual.

Liu said that "100 million is certainly nothing to sneeze at." He said he made the decision after consulting with his wife. They thought "it was kind of a waste of money if an ordinary family like them spent the funds to pursue a more comfortable retired life." Liu said that the donation was socially significant and showed their life values as well.

Netizens applauded Liu, saying that he "had no vanity at all" and called him a "true role model."