An Orthopedic Surgeon at Huaxi Hospital

Chen Feng, an orthopedic surgeon with a doctorate from West China Medical University through an integrated bachelor’s-to-doctoral program, has a research opportunity waiting for him at Peking Union Medical College Hospital. But instead, he packs three boxes of specialist books and a photo from a free clinic for miners and heads to the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guidu Medical University in Guizhou. There are no top-tier laboratories here, but 3,000 fracture patients from the mining district urgently need treatment. There is no established academic platform, but a pressing need to bring 3D-printed bone scaffolds into clinical practice.

From being scolded by an old miner who says he’s “not as good as herbal ointment,” to using hand-drawn diagrams to explain debridement; from the frustration of putting in three crooked stitches, to using 3D-printed guides to cut operating time by 40%; from having his research data dismissed as “disconnected from clinical practice,” to leading the creation of a “Southwest Mining District Fracture Database” covering 5,000 cases... He puts down roots amid the pull between clinical work and research, and grows as he rebuilds trust between doctors and patients. In the end, he leads his team in making Guidu Third Affiliated Hospital a regional orthopedic medical center for southwest China, where medicine that “keeps its feet on the ground” bears its most solid fruit in the soil of the mining district. This is more than a doctoral graduate’s career choice: it is a long journey to stay true to the original purpose of medicine.