Plain Clothes, Bright Sunshine

After a storm of anti-corruption investigations, the city’s people’s hospital was left without a leader, and staff morale began to waver. At this critical moment, Zhou Simian, a returned-from-abroad PhD, head of nephrology, and vice president, was entrusted with the hospital in its hour of need. The organization promoted him to deputy Party secretary and president, putting him in charge of its administrative work.

Once he took office, the “landmines” planted by the previous president began detonating one by one: a department deputy director demanded kickbacks on medicines; a cashier at the service window concealed income and embezzled public funds; and the contractor who had won the new hospital construction bid at an unusually low price withdrew along with the rest of the builders, triggering lawsuits. Faced with this shambles, Zhou Simian and Party secretary Hou Jiangtao supported and encouraged each other as they implemented sweeping reforms with an iron hand: correcting abuses and restoring order, winning back the staff’s trust, overhauling the performance review system to base bonuses on workload, cultivating and recruiting talent, restarting construction of the new campus, putting state-owned assets to better use, and completing the hospital’s relocation.

Through the conflicts in Zhou Simian’s life between love and hate, emotion and law, career and family, and the individual and the organization, this book vividly portrays the medical professionals of the new era, represented by Zhou Simian. It celebrates their spirit and writes a magnificent chapter in the history of healthcare in New China.