Liu Meiling, a doctor with a PhD degree, feels a patient's pulse at the Malu community hospital in Jiading district, Shanghai. [Photo/jiading.gov.cn]
Some community hospitals in Shanghai's Jiading district have improved their medical services by hiring doctors with PhD degrees.
Among them is the community hospital in Malu town, Jiading, which recently employed its first doctor with a PhD degree, Liu Meiling.
Liu graduated from Tianjin University of Traditional Medicine with a PhD degree in medicine.
She explained that her TCM skills would be more relevant in community hospitals as they mostly treat middle-aged and elderly patients who prefer Chinese medicine and treatments.
The hospital's move to hire Liu has paid off, with many patients benefiting from her knowledge of both western and traditional Chinese medicine. For example, a patient surnamed Wang has seen a significant improvement in this condition after undergoing treatment featuring a combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicine prescribed by Liu.
Jiading has in recent years been strengthening the medical service functions of community hospitals. District authorities have also built several Chinese medicine community clinics and municipal-level demonstration community health service stations.
To attract high-caliber health professionals, Jiading has implemented various incentive policies, including supporting and encouraging health professional and technical talents to pursue doctoral qualifications or degrees that match their majors on the job, and providing tuition subsidies to those who have obtained doctoral degrees.
In addition to the Malu community hospital, the community hospital in Jiading's Anting town has also been hiring doctors with PhDs.