F2F Class Notes (Ben) [W]

Vocabulary

an emergency

In Germany, if you have no medical emergency, you have to make a doctor’s appointment.

Original

A lot of people in China complain about the medical industry. Most people criticize the difficulty of receiving appropriate medical treatment. Because medical resources are distributed unequally and experts are concentrated in certain hospitals in large cities. Patients who live in other cities or villages may have to endure a long journey to see doctors in big cities. So some Chinese people started looking at the medical systems in western countries.

On one hand, I agree that some aspects of western medicine are much better than in China. At least the doctors are strictly prohibited from solely promoting expensive medicine to patients. Just to get commission from medical representatives. But on the other hand, there are also some flaws in the medical systems in western countries. For example, in Germany, if you don’t have any symptoms, you have to make an appointment with the doctor before you visit him. It’s common that your appointment will be one or two months after you set it up. For sure, most of the time, you will recover before that date, so you don’t have to see a doctor at all.

Teacher’s version

The Chinese health system is a sensitive topic that often receives a lot of negative press.

Great numbers of people regularly complain about the struggles they face when seeking appropriate medical treatment in a country where human and technical resources are so unevenly distributed between larger cities and rural areas.

Indeed, patients who live in smaller-scale cities or villages may have to go on a long and hard journey just to see a doctor in a bigger and more developed city.

This is probably why increasingly high numbers of patients are starting to eye on foreign healthcare systems year after year.

To a certain extent, it is true to say that some aspects of Western medicine are much more advanced than in China.

As a starter, doctors are strictly prohibited from entering into conflicts of interest and promoting specific brands of medicine to their patients just so they can get commission from pharmaceutical companies.

This being said, Western countries are not exempt of problems and you do get to see some in their healthcare systems.

For example, in Germany, unless you have obvious or serious symptoms, you have to make a doctor’s appointment before you visit him, and it’s common to see appointments scheduled for one or two months after the patients first call.

As a result, you will end up recovering before the date of the appointment in most cases, so you eventually won’t really need to see the doctor at all.