Gu Jin, head of a hospital and a lawmaker from Shanghai, brought a special message from his fellow doctors when President Xi Jinping joined their discussion on March 5.

"While the country offers examples of heroes, can we avoid details of those heroes who hide their diseases and keeping on working?" Gu asked.

It is not unusual in Chinese stories for people to ignore family members and their health while becoming devoted to their work－and many of those heroic figures die on the job.

"When one of my patients, who is an official, first came to me, he was still in the early stages of cancer. But now, he is at the late stage after two years of ignorance. What a pity!" said Gu, a well-known surgeon.

While Gu was delivering the advice, Xi listened carefully and kept taking notes.

It has become the norm for top leaders to join panel discussions held by some delegations during the annual sessions of the top legislature and advisory body, to listen to opinions from the grassroots.

Sometimes, the leaders ask for more details that might present a fuller picture of the situation.

During a panel discussion with lawmakers from Hunan province, a lawmaker from an ethnic group told of an experience fighting poverty in a village that Xi has visited.

After hearing about the increase in the village's per capita income, Xi asked, "How many of the single men there got married last year?"

The village had more than 20 men who were considered far above the prime age for marriage when Xi went there, as few women wanted to get married there due to poverty.

Xi considered marriages for those bachelors a vivid depiction of their improving livelihood.

When Qinghai lawmaker Niang Maoxian, who is an obstetrician, talked on Thursday about efforts to improve medical services in the province, she never expected Xi would have so many questions, ranging from "does every township now have a hospital" to "do nomadic people go to the hospital now to give birth"?

Bombarded by those questions, Niang said she could not help feeling nervous.

For a country as populous and as large as China, it might be impossible for the top leader to visit every corner of the land and know about the life and people there.

But through following the leader's activities at the two sessions, you will find Chinese leaders trying hard to know about the livelihoods of the people through communication with the grassroots lawmakers.

Contact the writer at wujiao@chinadaily.com.cn