Medical hero with a difference
Septuagenarian doctor wins national honor for aiding the pandemic fight through TCM
Surrounded by crowds of anxious COVID-19 patients lying, crouching, sitting or standing in seemingly tiny clinic rooms in Wuhan, Doctor Zhang Boli could sense the fear and worries, as well as hopes, of the people by just looking into their eyes.
It was late January 2020 when China was marking its big Spring Festival. Zhang, head of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine who had rushed into this Central China city on Jan 27, was worried about cross-infection risks from the invisible virus.
The patients cannot be crammed together in such conditions, he told colleagues.
With no effective medicine yet for the little-known virus, Zhang proposed that the patients should be classified into four groups — those confirmed with COVID-19 infection; people with apparent fever; cases with suspected symptoms; and close contacts requiring observation — so that people of varied symptoms should receive targeted treatment together in comparative isolation.
Moreover, Zhang, who also fought SARS in 2003 with traditional medicine, suggested that all patients, except those in ICU conditions, should be asked to take traditional Chinese herbal soups that can help rid people of “dampness in the body”, as TCM manuals proclaim.
His proposals were soon turned into action. More than 3,000 patients took TCM doses offered by his team on the first day and their symptoms started to retreat; hundreds of thousands of patients joined in consecutive days, and the number of confirmed cases in the four groups of patients was dropping to less than half by mid-February from a level of above 80 percent early that month.
On the eve of the traditional Lantern Festival on Feb 8, Zhang wrote down a small poem: “This eve of Lantern Festival turns special, all along we’re busy battling a devil; while you recover health and I remain sound, the spring flowers will find us victorybound.”
To curb the spread of the virus, it was deemed that all the patients who should be treated must be accepted by hospitals, and all those capable of receiving of treatment should be treated in full. To achieve this goal, the authorities decided to build makeshift hospitals.
It was then that Zhang and Liu Qingquan, head of the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine affiliated with Capital Medical University, raised the idea of “TCM entering makeshift clinics and TCM doctors contracting a separate hospital”.
Zhang’s interest in TCM started in the 1960s, when he had a chance to see a group of TCM medics at a rural hospital in Tianjin select medical herbs and weigh those carefully
to create prescribed combinations. Patients reported less pain after taking the decoction medicine, which prompted Zhang to pursue the study of traditional Chinese medicine.
He was admitted to the graduate class of Traditional Chinese Medicine at Tianjin University in 1978. Since then he often visited patients in various settings, including farms, fishing boats and at construction sites.
“TCM is old, but not outdated. What hinders the development of the sector is the lack of technology. If we can combine the theory of TCM with modern technology, we will create innovative and outstanding achievements,” said Zhang, who has become a pioneer of the endeavor.
As a teacher, he has tutored more than 280 postdoctoral, doctoral and master’s degree students. One of his students, a German national, opened his own TCM clinic upon returning to his home country.
Zhang also donated more than 4 million yuan (about $580,000) to set up a scholarship fund for elite TCM majors whose families have financial difficulties.
Despite his advanced age, the openminded academician is keen on modernizing manufacturing practices in the TCM sector and promoting relevant legislation.
Guo Yi, dean of the university’s TCM Institute, said, “Zhang is keenly interested in learning the latest things.” Jiang Feng, a doctor at the Baokang Hospital affiliated with the university, said many people admire Zhang because of his traditional Chinese virtues.
During the 2003 fight against SARS, Zhang had managed to lead a TCM team in establishing the only “Red Zone of TCM”, and their experiences were incorporated into World
Health Organization documents.
Amid the pandemic, the ideas of Zhang and Liu were quickly approved. By Feb 12 last year, Zhang was leading 209 TCM doctors from across the nation to be stationed in the Jiangxia Makeshift Hospital. It was the first and only temporary hospital dedicated to TCM treatment.
After it opened two days later, all patients were prescribed with traditional treatments such as Qingfei Paidu Decoction and Xuanfeibaidu Formula, together with massage, acupuncture and physical exercises from Tai Chi and Baduanjin, a traditional aerobics form.
A 78-year-old man, identified as Qu, was found to suffer from a series of diseases when was hospitalized at Jiangxia and could not take a full dose of Zhang’s prescription at a meal. So he was advised to keep taking small amounts many times in two or three hours. In just 14 days, Qu was discharged after a full recovery.
The work meant that the medical veteran often had just a few hours of sleep every day.
Looking closely at a patient’s tongue and reading the pulse, Zhang did clinical consultations during the daytime. During the night, however, he had to host meetings to hammer out details for the hospital, and join discussions on action plans across the city, the province and the country.
Days later, his son Zhang Lei came to Wuhan and the hospital, but the father suggested that the junior doctor attend to patients first. The father and son only managed to meet when the Jiangxia hospital finished treating all 564 patients aged between 12 and 90, and was subsequently closed on March 10 last year.
“Holistic treatments with TCM
methods are not just erasing the virus; TCM advantages rest in adjusting physical conditions to build up and improve the human body’s immune system,” Zhang Boli said.
The first hospital in Wuhan managed by TCM staff for COVID-19 treatment “is a great success”, added Liu, “because we created three records — no patients went into serious condition from milder symptoms, no one tested positive again after recovery and no medical staff was infected.”
This stands in contrast with the statistic released by WHO which shows that, overall, around 10 to 15 percent of COVID-19 cases develop into more severe disease.
Likewise, TCM treatment was adopted in all the rest of 16 makeshift hospitals for isolation treatment of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, and “since then the rate of patients developing severe conditions reduced substantially”.
With Zhang’s pioneering practices, China’s National Administration of TCM says that at least six TCM drugs have shown to be effective in treatment amid the fight against the virus. The drugs have been given to 90 percent of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, relieving symptoms, slowing the progression of the disease, reducing mortality and boosting recovery.
However, Zhang kept his mind open to other means of treatment, when asked about Western medicine. “For a critically ill patient, a ventilator and oxygen certainly helps to save life,” he said.
By March 19 last year, after strenuous battles, the city of Wuhan, which has a population of more than 10 million, finally saw zero new confirmed case, zero new suspected case, and zero existing suspected case. Zhang
was among the cheering crowd of medical staff when he was suddenly presented a cake. “Happy birthday!” his colleagues shouted, and then Zhang realized he turned 72 that day.
“This is the best ever birthday for me,” he said.
It was then his son got to know that his father had a surgery. Due to intensive workload, little sleep and an irregular diet, Zhang felt sudden, sharp pains in the upper right-hand side of his tummy due to cholecystitis less than a week into the hospital’s operation.
He decided to undergo a gallbladder surgery by Feb 19, 2020, quietly. He pulled the zip to the top of his overcoat to hide his patient gown so that his surgery was kept a secret. “I want to keep the confidence and morale of my team,” he said.
After returning to Tianjin from Wuhan, Zhang joined dozens of video sessions to share his TCM treatment experience on COVID-19 with other countries.
“Regardless of national boundaries, I hope TCM can help more and more people worldwide,” he said.
According to the National Administration of TCM, China has shared TCM therapy, effective prescriptions and clinical experience for dealing with COVID-19 with more than 80 countries and regions by December 2020. As of now, Lianhua Qingwen capsule, a recommended patent TCM for the treatment of COVID-19 has received marketing approvals in more than 10 countries and regions.
On Sept 8, 2020, Zhang was conferred the national honorary title “the People’s Hero” by President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.