Views from a Western-Trained Doctor in China

From 1980 to 2012, Professor Patrick Chu, the author, worked in the UK NHS as a consultant and a professor. During this 32-year period, he acquired a vast amount of clinical, management and teaching experience.
When the University of Hong Kong invited him to help run a new 2000-bed hospital in China, as part of the Chinese government's medical services reform, he embraced this opportunity and has remained there for the past 8 years. Thanks to his extensive experience in many different aspects of health provision, both in the UK and China, he has made many observations and suggestions, all of which are thoroughly compelling.
And in this book, he shares many of his fascinating insights, including China's technological advancements in the health care system and the impact this will have on the future health service, medicine research and the training of future doctors.
Having spent 6 weeks in China at the height of the COVID 19 outbreak, Professor Chu also describes in honest detail how he personally participated in the effort from Feb to March 2020. When he returned to the UK, just as the virus peaked, he was able to see how the country handled this crisis differently to China.
There is so much fascinating detail in this book, including:
- a glimpse into Chinese civilisation and how the foundation of the New China in 1949 kickstarted a new era and further reforms which opened up in 1979 and propelled China into the modern age;
- insights into his eight-year period of working alongside Chinese colleagues which provided him with a real chance of gaining an in-depth understanding of how the medical services work in China, and its differences and similarities with the West;
- how the author envisages China and its health system, using technological advances, playing a key and pivotal role in contributing to medical progress.