Treating patients like family
When he got back home, Hsu took up work at the Daren Township Public Health Center. He soon realized that local people were in urgent need of nighttime and weekend medical services, and began working toward setting up a 24-hour emergency station, as well as extending his own clinic hours into the night and weekends. Being the only doctor serving in Taitung’s four southernmost townships, he had to fill the entire roster himself, but confident in his youth, he would work over 400 hours a month. In 2006, he was finally able to get the Dawu 24-hour emergency station up and running, meaning that those in need at night would no longer be left without help.
That same year, though, Hsu suffered his stroke, caused by overwork. While he made it through alive, he was paralyzed on the left side of his body.
After taking just six months off to recuperate, and despite still being at a psychological low, he returned to work, as dedicated to serving the people of his home as ever. He was nervous and worried about how patients would take to a physically disabled doctor, but he was met with the same trust and confidence as ever, with some people even specifically asking for Hsu to do their surgeries. “I don’t know if it was me being too courageous or them being too fearless,” he remarks with a wry smile. “These patients were the ones who taught me how to be a good doctor; how could I not dedicate myself to repaying that?”
The day Taiwan Panorama met with Hsu was his day off. We accompanied him on a visit to the public elderly daycare center in Tjuabal, where we watched as he chatted in Paiwan with an octogenarian woman, the two laughing and smiling like grandparent and grandchild. From there, we set off to the Culture and Health Station in Kuvaleng (Xinhua in Chinese). As we arrived, around noon, a crowd of elderly residents were getting ready to head home, but turned their scooters around on hearing that Dr. Hsu was visiting. They immediately launched into asking why it had been so long since his last visit, and took photos with him as he struck his trademark cutesy, cocked-head pose, all the while insisting that he promise to come back at least once a month before they left happy.
Watching doctor and patients interacting like family is certainly a touching scene. In the cities, a doctor can see hundreds of patients a day and has to constantly worry about being hit with a malpractice suit, but out here in the countryside, we see a more trusting relationship between people. During consultations, Hsu always chats amiably with his patients, asking how they’re going and how things are at home. A number of people will only take drugs if he prescribes them, and there’s at least one person who has moved out to Taichung but still makes the trip half way around Taiwan to consult with Hsu. “I value their quality of life. Improving quality of life is more important than average life expectancy.”
Since his stroke, Hsu is even better able to relate to his patients’ situations and see the doctor‡patient relationship from their perspective. “Health is about physical, mental, and social stability,” he explains. In the city, health tends to be looked at as a purely medical matter, but in the country, health issues can be complex social problems. South Link Hospital, an institution Hsu dreams of one day establishing, will be “a community hospital tied in closely with the people’s lives. It might not have the most expensive, sophisticated diagnostic equipment, but it will be warm and inviting, somewhere everyone who comes to seek healing can get not only relief from their illness, but also a measure of spiritual comfort as well.”
Hsu Chao-pin treats his patients like family, with a focus on improving the quality of these rural residents’ lives, rather than just prolonging them.