◎ By Zhang Zhiyu (Historian)

Since childhood, I have been frail and have always been recuperating at the Union Hospital. However, when the Japanese later occupied Beiping and took over the Union Hospital, they expelled the terminally ill children, and unfortunately, I was one of them. In the years that followed, every critical moment of life and death, every stumble, was invariably related to doctors. When my sister Zhi Shen brought me her manuscript "Must We See a Famous Doctor?" to read, it touched upon a memory from many years ago... For a moment, the joy of seeing her new book published was instantly replaced by inner turmoil.

I still remember the year I was expecting, and on the recommendation of many friends, I chose a renowned obstetrician who was a professor at Harvard Medical School. Unfortunately, my eldest son was born prematurely, but the doctor was on vacation at a distant golf course. The famous doctor's assistant dared not perform a cesarean section due to my placenta previa. Under the medical system at the time, no one dared to take over the famous doctor's patients, so I had to wait painfully for the doctor to return for the surgery. However, due to the prolonged anesthesia, although I was fortunate to survive, my eldest son had already passed away.

Zhi Shen's book is written for readers outside the medical profession, and I happen to share the mindset of some of the patients mentioned. Therefore, I am willing to step forward and applaud these heartfelt and thought-provoking suggestions; at the same time, I am more than happy to recommend it to medical professionals for a read.

Writing this, I recall a joke: In ancient times, a scholar had a special ability to see ghosts. One day, the scholar fell ill and used his unique ability to visit various clinics. He avoided any clinic with many ghosts at the door, believing that these doctors must be unskilled. Suddenly, he saw a clinic with only one ghost at the door and thought it must be a good doctor, so he went in for treatment. Unexpectedly, the medicine took his life. The scholar's ghost, unwilling to accept this, confronted the doctor and learned that the clinic had only started practicing the day before.

Although this story is purely satirical, how is it different from blindly seeking famous doctors?

In our country, Xunzi long ago said, "The door of a good doctor is crowded with patients," and Han Feizi believed, "When people are sick, they value doctors," which is human nature. We demand that doctors have the compassion and sympathy to save lives to be considered good doctors and to become famous doctors. But in today's society, are there too many public relations tactics on the path to becoming a famous doctor?

Zhi Shen admires Mr. Pu Songling, largely because she is very drawn to the medical imagination of this scholar from three hundred years ago. Since the people of his hometown "not only had nowhere to ask for medical advice but also had no money to buy medicine," Mr. Pu, during years of disaster and illness, on one hand, collected folk remedies and compiled the "Book of Medicinal Herbs" to facilitate the treatment of his fellow villagers, and on the other hand, fantasized about good medical practices.

In his book "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," there are many writing subjects that seemed incredible at the time, not merely venting his frustrations. Among them, "Jin Se" features a surgery to reattach a severed arm, "Princess Yunluo" predicts the use of a surrogate mother for a fertilized egg, "The Lotus Maiden" tells the story of an emperor performing a cesarean section, "Jiao Na" includes artificial respiration, "Judge Lu" mentions surgery under anesthesia, "The Painted Skin" involves a heart transplant, and "Huang Jiulang" touches on homosexuality. Therefore, the great scholar Wei Yuan of the Qing Dynasty warned the world: "Looking at a map of the Five Mountains, thinking you know the mountains, is not as good as a woodcutter's single step; talking about the vastness of the sea, thinking you know the sea, is not as good as a merchant's single glance; reading the recipes of the eight delicacies, thinking you know the taste, is not as good as a chef's single taste."

Zhi Shen can sit in her room and observe the world. She measures people with benevolence, emotions with emotions, and categories with categories, without personal comments, to make patients' hearts beat with the desire to seek medical advice and to have something to follow. To some current famous doctors, Zhi Shen also earnestly advises: "Some high and mighty famous doctors, once they draw a chasm between the patient and their own status, they are no longer qualified to be doctors," which is indeed a penetrating remark.Therefore, writing about doctors and patients, one learns through habit, through mistakes, through doubts, and through errors; therein lies the heart of the matter.