BEIJING - "Who's next?" asked a middle-aged woman wearing a blue gown as nurses trailed behind her.

"Yes, bed No 32, an epilepsy patient."

She then hurried toward the patient, who was lying in bed trying to sit up a little.

Before the word "doctor" could come out of the patient's mouth, she started her inquiries and was telling the nurses what to do next.

It is a little after eight in the morning, and 37-year-old Yu Ying, an emergency doctor from Peking Union Medical College Hospital, is checking her patients in a ward crowded with dozens of beds.

Patients young and old, lying or half-sitting, some with various plastic tubes connected to different parts of their bodies, wait for treatment.

Yet in addition to helping patients in hospital, Yu also publishes her experiences as an emergency doctor online, making her a cyber celebrity.

"This is quite an exciting one. A patient just came to the emergency room, saying she just inhaled a needle into her lung. She had held it between her lips when she was doing embroidery. Here is a scan of the lung. Onlookers, don't make such stupid mistakes!"

In two months since she opened her micro blog on Sina weibo on Oct 7, she has attracted more than 300,000 fans with her 500-plus stories recording her experience as an emergency room doctor in the most renowned and one of the busiest hospitals in China.

"Your stories are so vivid and lively. They are the best material for patients and their families," said a netizen named Gordon10.

"I just want to show the true life of an emergency doctor. Doctors should not just be the serious faces treating patients, as people usually think. They should also be experts in communication, and good communication can help to reduce disputes between doctors and patients," Yu said.

As an emergency room doctor for seven years, Yu has seen too much life and death, and experienced too many sorrows and joys. Doctoring has long become a routine duty for her.

"Sometimes I tell people to not always expect a patient's life can be saved in Peking Union Medical College Hospital. I have seen too many patients suffering diseases too serious to be cured. As a doctor, all I can do is to try my best," she said, sighing slightly.

Yu may be a serious doctor in front of patients, however she has another side.

"She may look cool, but she is actually passionate and very friendly. Although she is in her mid 30s, she sometimes becomes noisy and crazy when teasing us young girls," said one of her colleagues, surnamed Shi.

As for her daughter, who was just enrolled in a primary school, Yu has a unique educational theory, compared with most Chinese parents.

"I don't have much requirements for her. I just hope she can be healthy and happy," she said.

Besides reading novels and going to KTV to sing, playing with her daughter is also a great relief from work pressures.

"I love to play with my kid. Sometimes she becomes really noisy and demands I play games with her, and I would say 'I don't want to be mom. What about you being a mom and teaching me to play a game?' And then she becomes less noisy and teaches me seriously," She recalled, smiling happily.

Turning from her daughter, Yu becomes a rather cynical woman.

Despite holding a doctorate degree and having worked in the hospital for 10 years, Yu said she is still an ordinary doctor.

"In China doctors have to do a lot of academic exploration to publish papers, and go through various forms of teaching and training in order to win titles. But I would rather tend my patients, or read novels or listen to music if I have free time after a busy day," she said.

China Daily

(China Daily 12/16/2011 page2)