I learned that although about 95 percent of the population has the basic medical insurance, many of the costs, especially for chronic illnesses, are not routinely covered under this insurance.
Residents of urban areas are not provided with free health insurance and either had to pay for health care directly or purchase costly medical insurance. The quality of the hospitals varied widely and so did the training, expertise and health care costs. The money gap that's so prevalent in the design of Chinese hospitals and the practice of medicine among these hospitals struck a deep chord in me. I soon realized they were owned by the same family, one for each teenager. I saw my first-ever group of three matching pink Teslas, parked outside a quiet upscale hotel in Shanghai. Sure, there are Chinese alternatives for some of these sites however, a patient's ability to interact with colleagues, friends, family and with medical information is significantly restricted in China.Īdditionally, like any other country, the gap between the rich and the poor is wide. Google is not a permitted website, and neither is Facebook, Twitter or Amazon among dozens of others. If a person needs to seek medical care in a province outside the permitted province or at a time or day that's not permitted, challenges arise to get to the appointment. But, the number of permits are limited, and the permit limits where a person can drive (e.g., within a specific province), as well as the days and time of day. To drive a car, one must have a permit that's issued by the government (to ease road congestion). When thinking about health care delivery, I learned barriers to medical care exist everywhere and certainly could not be easy to surmount.Īs one example, it isn't as easy to travel to an appointment as it is in the U.S. I couldn't help but pause to reflect on the emotional and physical hardship and the immense poverty suffered by so many people in China. The ACC thanks Bayer Pharmaceuticals for its support of this international education program.Ĭhina has the largest manufacturing workforce (112 million workers) whose average wage is $1.75 an hour and holds an important position as the world's largest economy and biggest exporter. Students and early career professionals are a specific focus of the program. In 2019, staff in more than 90 hospitals across China, in communities ranging from China's global gateways such as Beijing and Shanghai to far less developed provinces in the south and west, benefited from interaction with 10 ACC faculty who traveled on separate itineraries over a It's now evolved into a much larger and more intimate program with ACC faculty visiting Chinese hospitals to engage face-to-face with local providers on the newest developments in cardio-vascular medicine and how they impact practice. The program started as a webinar broadcasted from the U.S. Now in its sixth year, the Best of ACC program provides clinicians across China with a unique opportunity to discuss late-breaking science from the ACC's Annual Scientific Session directly with some of the College's most prominent member experts. They live there indefinitely, thousands of miles away from their homes, and work up to 14 hours a day. In many of the factories, workers leave their families and lives in rural China to move to the dormitories of the company.
The story of the factory workers is particularly striking. And that we've easily taken for granted our relatively comfortable lives in America. In my conversations with the locals, sometimes with the help of Google Translate and sometimes with animated body gestures, I quickly learned about the long working hours of the Chinese. The government rarely enforces tobacco control legislation outside the big cities, making the smoking cessation burden fall on Chinese physicians, many of whom smoke. is not an issue but smoking, especially among youth, is. I immediately realized that obesity as it exists in the U.S. I was greeted by the scorching heat of the Shanghai sun. There was something utterly romantic about the idea of flying thousands of miles and breaking down all cultural, religious, political and language barriers to redefine cardiovascular care delivery halfway across the world.