Toward doctor-patient rapport

Accelerating the healthcare reform to ease tensions between doctors and patients deserves more attention of the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Even on the opening day of the NPC, a Guangzhou doctor was pilloried on the street by more than 100 relatives of a patient who died at the hospital the same day. Despite the reason of patient death was unknown yet, such humiliation was unacceptable for most people. Before the Guangzhou case, another two recent incidents exemplify the strain that has developed between doctors and patients or patient parties. The first was the murder of a doctor by a patient in Heilongjiang province. And the second was the physical assault on medical workers of a Nanjing hospital by the parents of a girl because the hospital management had allotted a bed to a male patient in the female ward she occupied.

Violence in hospitals has escalated rapidly in recent years. According to the Chinese Society for Hospital Management, on average a hospital deals with 27 cases of violence (including murder) every year, and the targets are mainly doctors. And there is evidence to suggest that people in general no longer view the medical profession with respect. Once widely respected, doctors are now suspected of violating medical ethics. What are the reasons behind this irony? What can be done to rebuild the harmonious relationship between doctors and patients?