Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

The young doctors’ request gives Evan a reason to look beyond his own practice.

The day’s events had shaken Evan. It wasn’t because he had cured this patient. He had saved many patients before, including many whose conditions were far worse.

Nor was it because the provincial specialists hadn’t dared to prescribe, or because all the regulations made treating serious illness so difficult for Chinese medicine. What had shaken him was the sight of those young, inexperienced faces, so full of passion.

However hostile the world outside might be, so many young doctors still wanted to become true practitioners of Chinese medicine, with both the skill and the courage to treat illness.

Years ago, at Deng Tietao’s invitation, Dr. Li had traveled south repeatedly to pass on his knowledge. He had even established a center to preserve and pass on his clinical teaching. What he wanted was to train a group of Chinese medicine doctors with both the courage and the ability to treat illness.[1]

Because that was where the hope for Chinese medicine lay.

And tonight, Evan had seen that hope for himself.

In the end, there was only one way to judge a medical practice: its results.

If the results were good, nothing could stand in its way. Patients didn’t care whether you called it scientific. What mattered was whether you could get them well.

How could someone outside the profession tell whether a Chinese medicine doctor had real ability and could be trusted? Two figures would tell them: the number of first visits and the percentage of patients who returned.[2]

A high number of first visits didn’t necessarily prove a doctor’s skill. Online marketing and publicity could bring those in.

But the return-visit rate showed what a doctor could do.

If the first visit hadn’t helped, the patient wouldn’t come back for a second.

As for getting well after a single dose, that was actually quite rare. Even if you recovered after the first consultation, you still needed to see the doctor again to find out whether you had really recovered and whether you needed more medicine.

In Chinese medicine, a few more doses were generally prescribed to consolidate recovery after the pathogenic influence had been expelled. Whenever Evan saw a patient for the first time, he told them to come back after finishing the medicine so he could examine them again.[3]

His return-visit rate was very high. That was evidence of his treatment results too.

Evan truly wanted to train a group of Chinese medicine doctors who could treat illness and get real results. Dr. Li had spent his later years doing just that.

But Director Du said he first needed to work out the arrangements with the health authorities. Until then, he didn’t dare let Evan start leading the others in treating patients.

In the end, Evan and Professor He each went home.

Professor He wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing.

Back at the house where he lived, Evan opened the system. The update was finally complete. After taking so long, all it had added was a single new task.

Only now did Evan truly understand the system’s purpose, and what it wanted him to take on.

First, there were too many people blindly attacking Chinese medicine online. Someone needed a way to reach the ordinary people they misled and explain what real Chinese medicine was. Those attackers knew nothing. Someone only had to lead them by the nose, and they would start jeering without understanding a thing.

Evan wasn’t good at publicity, so he had left it to Clara. Even now, although he was willing to help, he could only follow her lead. He didn’t know how to run any of it himself.

Now they had Charlie, a prominent blogger, as well as Ms. He and the others helping. The Dr. Xu at Mingxin Clinic account had gained many followers and was finally getting established. It had also corrected many people’s prejudices and spread accurate knowledge about Chinese medicine.

Now the system’s second purpose had emerged: Evan was to train a group of true Chinese medicine doctors. A group who would be its hope. A scattering of sparks.

This task was something he was good at. It was also what he most wanted to do.

Evan had his strengths: he was absorbed in studying medicine, and he was a good doctor. But he had his weaknesses too. Apart from practicing medicine and treating patients, he didn’t know how to do anything.

He had spent a long time inside the system, but he hadn’t experienced much else. He treated patients during the day and read at night. Later, when the work became too much, he treated patients at night as well and could only read between cases.

There were always medical books in his bag. He took them everywhere. Dr. Li had exactly the same habit. Even while watching over a patient until they were out of immediate danger, Dr. Li would use those spare moments to study.

To achieve anything in Chinese medicine, you had to be deeply devoted to it.

When Dr. Li became director of the Chinese medicine hospital, he regretted it terribly. He had to attend meetings all the time and deal with all sorts of administrative business. He didn’t want to do it.

But there was no choice. Without him as director, the hospital wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. He stayed only a few years, then stepped down as soon as the departments were in place.

Evan had taken things even further. With his ability and contributions, he should at least have become a deputy hospital director, perhaps even the director. Yet he had ended up as no more than an attending physician.[4]

For readers tracing the source, the author publishes this chapter on NovelPhoenix, and this copy was taken without permission.

The reason was simple. He didn’t want to deal with all those other matters. In all his years there, he had scarcely even met the health authorities’ leaders.

Would any normal person have managed that?

So despite all his years in the system, only his medical skills had really improved. Nothing else had changed very much.

It wasn’t just Evan. Scientists were like that too. Someone wholly absorbed in research could spend a lifetime in a laboratory and still have the same temperament they had when they were young.

Never letting an emotion show, keeping your intentions buried deep—could you describe a true scientist that way?

If someone really understood all those petty intrigues, they could never become a first-rate scientist.

Take Leo Cao. He put all his energy into cultivating connections, so his medical skills were nothing special. He couldn’t even match Dr. Simon Liu, who had gone to Beijing.

“May you spend half your life away, and return still young at heart.” That saying described doctors and scientists like these. However old they became, their nature never changed.

Evan was the same. He suspected he would remain like this until the day he died…

He didn’t know how to weigh all those competing interests or maneuver through petty intrigues. All he wanted was to practice medicine and treat patients. That was it.

It was that simple. There was nothing complicated about Evan. He was so simple it made your heart ache.

That was why he needed help. Clara had handled the publicity, helping restore Chinese medicine’s good name.

Now he needed someone to take care of the problems that might arise from his treating patients, because he didn’t know how to protect himself. Once he got carried away, there was no stopping him. He was just that kind of simple “fool.”

It was late when Evan’s phone chimed. A text from Clara.

Clara: “Evan, I’ve made lunch for you. Are you coming to work tomorrow?”

He smiled faintly at the message and replied, “Take it to the clinic for me. I have a few things to deal with at the Chinese medicine hospital first.”

Evan put down his phone and went back to his book. The smile stayed on his lips.

The next day.

Evan went to the Chinese medicine hospital to see his patients again.

After two doses of the medicine he had prescribed, the patient with postoperative adhesive bowel obstruction was doing well and getting ready for discharge.[5]

The man and his wife kept thanking Evan.

Evan examined him again, prescribed a few more doses to consolidate his recovery, and left him the address of Mingxin Clinic before leaving.

The stubborn old man was making a fuss about going home again.

Ms. He couldn’t do anything with him either. She could only ask Evan to come and see him.

Evan examined him and confirmed there was no longer any serious problem. He prescribed a few more doses to consolidate his recovery, discussed the matter with Dr. Qi, and agreed to the old man’s discharge.

The stubborn old man couldn’t have been happier.

Then there was the patient with true Heart pain and tuoju. He was delighted too. He had taken his second dose of herbal medicine today and was much better already.[6]

Evan went into the ICU to see him. This time, no one dared stop him.

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ Passing on clinical knowledge. Medical mentorship here means passing on clinical reasoning, experience, and methods through teaching and practice. A doctor who already practices may continue learning under another physician. Modern Chinese medicine mentorship provisions describe mentors transmitting theory and practical skills, with learners studying their clinical experience and ideas. Teaching can take place alongside ordinary clinical work. This is the broader educational background for Dr. Li’s wish to train successors. Source: National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine — Clinical mentorship provisions, articles 3 and 6 (in Chinese).↩︎ First visits and return visits. The first figure counts new consultations; the second concerns patients coming back. The passage treats repeat attendance as evidence of a doctor’s effectiveness. That is the narrative’s judgment, rather than a clinical study result. Evan also routinely asks patients to return for reassessment, so return visits and recovery are not identical measures. Formal investigation of treatment benefit specifies the outcomes to assess and considers comparison groups and ways of limiting bias. Source: NHLBI — How Clinical Trials Work, protocols and trial designs.↩︎ Treatment after improvement. Shanhou here means follow-up treatment intended to consolidate recovery after the main illness has subsided. It includes the continuing clinical care Evan provides after a patient’s condition has improved. “Pathogenic influence” belongs to Chinese medicine’s theoretical vocabulary: pathogenic qi is a collective term for influences understood to cause disease, rather than a synonym for a laboratory-identified microorganism. The wording describes the traditional understanding of illness and recovery in this passage. Source: WHO — TCM Terminologies, entry 274, printed p. 23.↩︎ Professional rank and hospital administration. Attending physician translates zhuzhi yishi, a middle professional rank in China’s medical system. The English term is used here for that Chinese title, without assigning Evan an American hospital position. Deputy hospital director and hospital director are administrative appointments. The paragraph contrasts Evan’s clinical career with the management work he avoided during his years inside the system; it does not announce a present-day promotion. Source: Hubei Department of Human Resources and Social Security — Medical professional qualifications, chapter 1, article 2 (in Chinese).↩︎ Postoperative adhesive bowel obstruction. Abdominal adhesions are bands of scar-like tissue that may form after surgery. They can pull, kink, or compress the intestines and cause a blockage. “Adhesive” refers to this tissue sticking together, not to surgical glue. The chapter reports improvement after two doses and preparations for discharge. The background source explains the condition; it does not verify this fictional patient’s course or establish the effectiveness of the prescription. Source: NIDDK — Abdominal Adhesions, definitions and intestinal obstruction.↩︎ The two earlier Chinese medicine categories. “True Heart pain” retains the severe cardiac-pain category used in the consultation. Tuoju is a traditional limb disorder associated with coldness, numbness, pain, and potentially digital gangrene. These names recall that same patient; they do not establish a newly observed heart attack or new tissue death. He has improved after his second dose, but this paragraph still places him in the ICU and does not discharge him. Source: WHO — TCM Terminologies, entries 1578 and 1932, printed pp. 211 and 272.