Saving athletes on the snow

"First, since the slope is very steep, we can be easily frightened and that fear can often lead us to tumble, so we need to psychologically brush off the fear. Then, we need to improve our physical capabilities like cardiopulmonary function, ability to maintain balance and joint flexibility."

Every snow season, Fu and her teammates will gather at the National Alpine Skiing Center on Haituo Mountain in Beijing for high intensity training for more than 20 days. They practice skiing under the guidance of tutors in the daytime, and do some medical rescue drills in the evenings.

Shen Aolun, Fu's ski tutor, says Fu does her best to find time to train outside of group training despite her busy schedule.

"There are not many female ski doctors on the team and generally speaking, male doctors perform better on the snow, but Fu didn't want to lag behind," he says. "From the very beginning, she worked very hard to improve her skiing techniques. Even when she was badly injured, she still endured the pain and continued with training."

Fu found she was lacking in strength and physical fitness while doing the drills, leading to swollen knees every day after high intensity training. Sometimes, it was so painful that she had to take painkillers.

"After the snow season, I started to work out. From slow to fast walking, walking combined with running, long-distance running and fast running, I exercised for a year and lost 15 kg. So I enhanced my physical fitness and became more flexible on the slope," Fu says. She and her other team members can now ski to injured athletes in just one minute.

Aside from physical challenges, Fu found applying the medical techniques she was familiar with on the slope very difficult. For example, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, is a common emergency procedure doctors use to save people, but it becomes much more difficult to administer it on the slope than on the ground.

"We need to choose the angle to do chest compressions, and consider what movements we should make to remain stable on the steep slope without falling. Moreover, doctors often take turns to do CPR, so how we change our positions is a problem we need to consider," Fu says.