Call to arms

plans had been upended. She said that she had survived thanks to the encouragement of doctors and family members and she knew she would be discharged soon.

In late January, when Li was asked if he was willing to work on the front line against the pandemic, he stepped up, saying it was the duty of every medical worker.

He spends most of his time at the Third People’s Hospital in the ICUs. A normal shift in the department is four hours, but he sometimes stays for more than seven.

He checks patients from head to toe and adjusts their equipment as required. He has also manually performed colonic cleansing for comatose patients every two or three days to prevent bacterial infection.

Each doctor takes charge of three patients during peak hours. When Li finishes work with his patients for the day, he walks through the wards checking other severely ill patients and encouraging them.

He even regularly visits patients in his free time.

Li said many ICU patients are extremely anxious. They constantly ask “When will I recover?” and “When can I be discharged?”

Li takes the time to encourage them and help them endure the ordeal. He helps them get out of bed, explains breathing exercises and provides psychological counseling.

One evening, he took three severely ill patients in wheelchairs to watch the sunset together.

“All they ever saw was doctors and nurses in protective suits and all they heard was the sound of medical equipment. They needed something vibrant to give them hope,” he said.

A female patient, surnamed Zhang, was one of the three. Though she was not directly under Li’s care, he visited her frequently to chat and encourage her. Her crisis passed and she was later transferred to a general ward.

Zhang, her husband, daughter, son-in-law and 2-year-old grandson were all infected with the coronavirus. They had returned to Shenzhen after visiting Wuhan, just like Hu.

Zhang had lost hope, especially after learning that her grandson had been infected. She recalled that the little boy cried out: “Grandma, help me! Save my mom! Save my dad!”

She said, “I thought he was too young to understand, but actually, he was fully aware of the situation.”

She added the medical workers had given her the confidence to overcome the disease. “Without their help, I may not have survived. They treated me just like a family member,” she said.

Li said his empathy for other people may be connected to his deep love of music. He arrived for his assignment equipped with recordings of his favorite songs and some rock band T-shirts. He also brought a speaker, but later replaced it with a bigger one to better enjoy the music.

He said he was under a lot of stress at the beginning of the assignment, but the music helped relieve the pressure and “saved his life”. He likes to listen to the band Painkiller from the United States, especially their song

His recent experiences have deepened his commitment to his work as an ICU doctor. “One of the most fortunate things in my life is that I studied critical-care medicine and one of the proudest things in my life is that I became an ICU doctor,” he said.

Not every doctor has the determination to be an ICU doctor. Treating dangerously ill patients can result in immense mental and physical pressure, Li said. Yet for him, nothing compares with the sense of fulfillment when a patient is brought back from the brink of death.