On August 19, the first Medical Workers' Day was observed in China, with many patients expressing their gratitude toward medical staff across the country.

"You have given hope to our family," a man with the pseudonym Yibawu told Liu Ping and Yang Zi, doctors at Peking University Third Hospital and the reproduction medical team headed by Qiao Jie, the hospital's president.

Yibawu said that six years ago, his wife was diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality, indicating that the couple had a very slim chance of having a healthy baby. "This news almost crushed us," he said. They sought out the hospital, known for its cutting-edge reproduction technology, where the medical team helped his wife get pregnant and give birth to two healthy boys.

In November 2017, China's State Council decided to designate August 19 as Medical Workers' Day. This is the fourth holiday set aside for a specific profession, after Nurses' Day, Teachers' Day and Journalists' Day.

To usher in the day, President Xi Jinping spoke highly of doctors' contributions. They have saved lives, healed the injured and devoted themselves to improving people's health, he said. They have played an essential role in preventing and controlling diseases, educating other medical workers and developing medical science and technology. In particular, in the face of severe epidemics and natural disasters, medical doctors, undaunted by danger, have saved others regardless of their safety, winning high praise.

Zhang Yanling, President of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, said that the establishment of Medical Workers' Day will help recognize the contributions of doctors and pay the highest respect to the profession. It will encourage society to respect and care for doctors and prompt doctors to enhance their professionalism and ethics.

Shouldering responsibility 

Official statistics show that at the end of 2017, China had 11.749 million medical workers, including 3.39 million licensed practicing doctors and more than 900,000 rural doctors.

Doctors are a special professional group that faces life-and-death issues and guards people's health, Zhang said, so the profession requires not only high entry qualifications and strict professional training, but also sound professional ethics.

Doctors shoulder great responsibility and often work under stress and deal with traumatic situations. Zhu Hong, deputy head of the Respiratory Department of Peking University Third Hospital, has worked in the hospital for 30 years. She said she keenly felt her responsibility and helplessness one month after joining the hospital. One day, a freshman at Renmin University of China was admitted to the hospital. He came from a rural area in east China's Anhui Province. Shortly after he arrived in Beijing after an exhausting journey, he got a fever. He was diagnosed with fungal brain abscess, a dangerous infection with a high mortality rate. His condition soon deteriorated and he was put on a respirator and moved to intensive care.

Despite two months' of rescue efforts, the young man passed away. The image of the grieving father crying over his son's body which he held in his arms left an indelible mark on Zhu. Back then, rural Anhui was poor, and it was no easy feat to raise a son that was admitted into a top university. The father's agony over the loss of his son—the family's pride—acutely reminded Zhu of the heavy responsibility of being a doctor. Over the years, a strong sense of responsibility has compelled Zhu to constantly improve her medical skills and put them into practice. She believes that doctors should not only read medical literature, but also learn from clinical cases as well as life's common sense experiences.

She recalled a case in which she used a combination of medical and social knowledge to save a patient who had been admitted to the hospital during the day. A cardiogram showed that the patient had a slight heart problem and by the evening, he was having difficulty breathing, but his heart condition did not deteriorate. Zhu accessed that the shortness of breath was not caused by the heart problem. She also noticed an abnormal coloring of the patient's lips and fingers. It suddenly occurred to her that he might be suffering from sodium nitrite poisoning for she had heard TV news report about workers on construction sites and people at home being poisoned by sodium nitrite after eating leftover or pickled Chinese cabbage. It was winter, a time when locals tended to eat a significant amount of the vegetable. Zhu conducted relevant tests on the patient and they confirmed that her diagnosis was correct. The patient was given proper injections and recovered. Although Zhu was busy that entire night, when she got off that day and was greeted by the morning sun at dawn, she felt happy.