An ICU doctor in the eye of the storm

Another female patient, surnamed Zhang, was one of the three, though not directly under Li’s care. He visited her often and just talked, gave her encouragement. Her crisis passed, and she was transferred to a general ward later.

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

Zhang had lost hope, especially after learning her grandson had been infected. She recalled that the little boy once asked her: “Grandma, help me! Save my mom! Save my dad!”. “I thought he was too little to understand. Actually, he was quite aware of the situation, ” Zhang said.

Zhang said it was the medical workers there that gave her the confidence to overcome the disease. “Without their help, I may not have survived. They treated me just like my family members,” she said.

Li said the empathy of others may be connected to his love of music, for which he has as much as a connection as for his medical calling. He arrived for his assignment equipped with cassette recordings of his favorite music and some rock T-shirts. He also brought a speaker, and 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 his assignment, and music helped relieve the pressure and saved his life. He likes to listen to Painkiller music, especially the song Your Inviolable Freedoms.

The experience here has deepened his commitment 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. There’s immense mental and physical pressure treating dangerously ill patients, Li said. Yet for him, nothing compares with the sense of fulfillment when a patient is brought back from the brink of death.