Doctors at Shanghai United Family Healthcare hospital have marked China's 5th Doctors' Day, highlighting their superb skills, passion for their job and their compassion for their patients.

"Young doctors should be grateful for having the opportunities to save lives because it is so sacred and blessed," said Lijun Wan, an anesthesiologist and chief medical officer at the hospital.

"We can do what we like and love to do because the highly developed medical level of the world with so many sub-specialties that we can choose from."

United Family Healthcare was the first international hospital in China. Its first hospital in Shanghai was established in 2004, and has developed into a comprehensive healthcare center which has two hospitals and several clinics, aiming to provide personalized, international-standard, life cycle and high-quality medical treatment services to local residents and expatriates families.

Wan has been volunteering for over a decade in the charity project "Future Smile," which provides free surgery for children who suffer from cleft lips and cleft palates in poverty-stricken regions worldwide.

In 2019, he helped a girl from southwestern Yunan Province with very cleft on her underlip. Her surgury at UFH was free.

Now the beautiful girl is in her kindergarten and gets to enjoy a normal life just like the other kids around her.

Dr. Lijun Wan monitors a patient's condition.

Children's care

Along with the charity work helping kids from poor areas, Shanghai UFH also focuses on creating a comprehensive center specializing in chidren's care.

"UFH was founded in Beijing in 1998. Initially, it focused on serving pregnant women and their kids.

"We have developed a child center which provides a one-stop medical service," Wan said.

In this center, parents can get a wide range of medical help, such as dental, cardio, ENT as well as general physician for children aged up to 16.

"We also have sex education for minors," Wan told Shanghai Daily.

In addition to continually updating their skills, UFH pediatricians do their best to help their patients.

Tong Wei Chng is the chair of pediatric department and a pediatric infectious diseases specialist, is also a mom of three kids -– five, seven and nine.

Being a mom helps

Dr Tong Wei Chng, herself a mother of three, takes care of a young boy.

With her parenting experience, Tong understands better about how to comfort or release anxious parents in her consulting room.

"After being a mom, I jumped out of the textbook," Tong told Shanghai Daily.

"I share the skills that I learnt from my own life with parents coming with their sick kids, which is very useful" she said.

"And sometimes, moms and dads don't need to know exactly what's going on their kids, they just need to know their babies are OK."

For her, the best part of being a pediatrician is to watch those parents and kids coming in anxious and with a range of problems and leaving happy and relieved.

She is now striving to promote awareness of the child health care among parents.

"Many parents only bring their children to the hospital after they are sick or showing symptoms, but some illnesses can be serious before symptoms appear," she said.

"Preventive check are very important."

Dr Sarai Nietvelt (right) gives certificates to doctors who have finished the Family Medicine Fellowship Program.

Passion and pride

Sarai Nietvelt is a family medicine physician from Belgium, and joined Shanghai UFH in 2006.

Before coming to Shanghai, she worked internationally for 10 years in big hospitals or remote locations in many countries.

For her, being a doctor is a beautiful thing. Her eye twinkle when she talks about her work.

"You always stay curious and passionate," she said.

Now she's working on passing her passion and expertise on to more young doctors.

Since 2014 Nietvelt has led the Family Medicine Fellowship Program at Shanghai UFH. And she has developed an curriculum for talented Chinese physicians and makes organizational plans for educational innovations in the hospital.

She selects one or two doctors each year from local public hospital,s such as the international medical clinic of the Shanghai General Hospital, or in hospitals in other big cities in China, such as Beijing and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.

"Doctors who are interested in our program can apply for it," Nietvelt introduced. "If they pass the interviews, they will enroll in the program as employees of UFH."

Those young talents will go through a training program before they treat patients under Nietvelt's guidance.

"I am always being here for providing help for them," Nietvelt said.

The program usually runs for three to four years for each selected doctor.

"I hope they realize that they are doing an important task that society trusts them with," said Nietvelt. It is also what she wants to tell all the doctors before coming Doctors' Day.

"They should be honorable to every single patient and to every single thing they do because not many can do such an important job and I hope they do it with passion and pride."

Mental health awareness

Psychologists at Shanghai UFH are working hard to raise awareness of mental health.

George Hu, chief psychologist of the Mental Health department, said many people are afraid to seek professional help when they have emotional problems.

"Some people think it shows weakness if they go to a mental health clinic," he said. "But as a society, we can help each other.

"It's normal and healthy to seek help."

He is also the president of the Shanghai International Mental Health Association and works hard to help more and more people face their mental problems and emotional difficulties.

"We have to make decisions acknowledging that it's real we have to take care of people's mental health."

Having been in Shanghai for five years, Dr Christoph Anatol Herda has found that the most common mental health problem among his patients is depression.

"That is the condition where you were easily worry about many different things," he said.

He has over 20 years of clinical experience. Before joining Shanghai United Family Hospital and Clinics, Herda served for more than 10 years at Eichhof Hospital in Lauterbach in Germany as the head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy.

"Good food, work-life balance, good sleep, daily sport as well as no alcohol, can help people to establish a good life-style and keep away from depression," Herda said.

"And a good emotional understanding could also be used to prevent the depression."

Both Herda and Hu warn stressed doctors are among the most likely to suffer mental health issues.

"I encourage doctors to actually pay attention and seek help when there's emotional difficulties, stress, anxiety, or even frustration," Hu said.

"We need to encourage each other in our doctor community, to normalize and spread the concept that it's healthy to seek help, especially among doctors because the group has one of the lowest rate of help-seeking."