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A new prescription

By Roberta Lipson (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-29 10:03

Love for medical community

One of the most memorable days of my career was spent as the sponsor of a medical conference. We had hand-carried five portable ultrasound machines and brought in some American experts to lecture and demonstrate the technology for an audience of 500 senior Chinese obstetricians.

There were literally tears in their eyes as they saw for the first time, on the screen, in real time, moving fetuses and pathologies that they could only previously guess at through manual examination. After the lecture, most of the doctors would not leave, and for the next few days they brought their more difficult cases to be examined on the ultrasound machines. Hospital administrators vied to be the first ones to be able to buy the machines.

That day started my love affair with the business of bringing modern tools to the medical community of China. After that we took our show on the road, and I have amazing memories of traveling the country by train with my portable ultrasound machine, not only opening the eyes of doctors throughout the country to new possibilities, while furthering our business, but also making lasting friendships despite the barriers that were still very much in place.

When we made our first big sale (a nuclear medicine device for viewing the heart, costing several hundred thousand dollars), we had the privilege of installing the equipment at the Air Force Central Hospital.

Our visit on the first day of the installation had the pomp and circumstance of a State occasion. We were met at the door of the hospital by foreign affairs officers in full uniform and escorted through many corridors to a very large and impressive reception room which, in my memory, rivaled some I later visited in the Great Hall of the People.

The general who was the president of the hospital sat at the front of the room on an overstuffed, anti-macassared armchair, and we sipped tea and talked in grandiose terms about China and "the friendship of our two nations" and other ceremonial topics.

Of course this scene, which repeated itself hundreds of times in similar and other circumstances, made us feel very important. And in a way we were. Or at least it seemed that every encounter - be it with officialdom, or any Chinese person - was an opportunity to further our cause.

Not only our cause of building our business, and improving the technological level of Chinese healthcare, but also making our small contribution to the positive development of the relationship between the United States and China, theoretically making the world a better place.

This may well seem laughable and naive now, but in those days there were so few of us, and it seemed that every word we uttered had the potential to either advance or set back the "cause" - and we all took it very seriously.

Our little company was staffed by scores of idealistic Chinese and young foreign people, each with an interest in and understanding of each other's culture, making us feel like we could be a model for world peace.

We were all on a mission and pulling in the same direction. This enthusiasm for our mission, although it now covers a much broader age spectrum of employees, continues today. And how could it not? Everything we do is intended in some way to improve how healthcare is done in China.

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