#differenceschinausa

Remember when I went to that hospital?

Well I talked to Young Fan about the experience and he told me some enlightening information about the Chinese medical system.

1) This was mid-high level tier hospital.

We thought it looked pretty bare bones, but apparently it was actually relatively high quality.

Chinese hospitals come in different tiers: low, middle, high.

According to Fan, the low level tiers are very very busy because they are so cheap, but the skill of the doctors is also pretty low.

The mid levels are better because they’re less crowded and the doctors actually have skill.

And then the really high level ones are great, but crowded because people who can pay for the best care and the nicest facilities will.

2) Chinese doctors are good at surgery, but not all the other stuff. 

This is what Fan said. (Btw, he’s a doctor-who has been to the US too so he actually knows what he is talking about)

He explained that he believes Chinese doctors have a high level of technical skill in surgery, and he’d trust most of them with complicated procedures, but their knowledge of post-op care is lacking.

There is not a lot of attention given to patient recovery, patient mental health,  side effects or other problems. He said even for recommending surgeries, they just say: oh you need this. There is not a lot of discussion of pro and cons, possible long term ramifications.

Likewise with medicine prescription, they just give it to you. They don’t tell you about potential side effects, so patients are just left to deal with them on their own.

Likewise, Fan said that the diagnosis in lower tier hospitals isn’t very good. The doctors just know problems out of the textbook. There isn’t a lot of thinking done outside of the box--and obviously not all problems people have are cut and dry textbook situations.

3) Interns have a different role.

US hospitals use interns as staff to check on patients (and follow residents and attendings around to learn).

(I should tell you that most of my knowledge about US hospitals comes from watching Grey’s Anatomy)

But Fan says that in Chinese hospitals, there are fewer nurses on staff, and so the interns are used to record medical information in the records. Apparently they spend most of their day doing paperwork--so this means that there is less patient-doctor interaction/ patient-nurse interaction.

I wrote this before, but family members take care of the patients basic need (and wheel their gurneys from department to department).

4) No traditional Chinese medicine at Chinese hospitals.

I asked Fan about his views on Chinese medicine. He never prescribes it, he personally doesn’t believe in it.

However, if his patients tell him that they have been using something already, and he doesn’t see anyway that it can hurt them, he doesn’t mind if they keep using it.

I was curious about this because when Western enthusiasts of Eastern medicine talk about Chinese traditional medicine, they say that it is really good for certain things like pain management, nausea, headaches, diabetes, and insomnia, where as Western medicine has a lot of success with slice-and-dice problems. So I was curious if Chinese doctors were at all open to using both treatment methods ...which according to Fan they are not.