During the battle against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), some frontline medical workers,
who exposed to great danger of the disease, unfortunately get infected. Doctors became patients,
fighting on their personal battle against the disease.
However, as they recovered from it, some of them volunteered to go back again to the front line.
After taking off the hospital gown as a patient, they put on the protective suit as a doctor again.
They are heroes of our time.
After giving a 90-minute first aid to a patient, associate chief physician Zhou Ning of the
cardiology department at the Wuhan-based Tongji Hospital affiliated to the Huazhong University
of Science and Technology walked out of an operating room, saving another life after he
recovered from the COVID-19 pneumonia and returned to work on Feb. 10.
“As a doctor, I must try my best to save the patients in severe and critical conditions, as many as
possible,” Zhou explained to People’s Daily why he returned to the front line.
The doctor wasn’t expecting himself to fall down so quickly. According to him, he became
symptomatic four days after receiving a patient suspected of infection on Jan. 17 and put himself
into quarantine at home.By taking medicines and getting enough rest at home, Zhou gradually
recovered. Besides, he made self-treatment tips out of his own experiences, and the tips soon went
viral on social media.
“I believe that we will definitely defeat the virus as long as we unite as one and fight the epidemic
in solidarity,” he wrote in the tips.
After quarantine, Zhou returned to work without any hesitation. “The hospital was concerned
about my health, but we were short-handed as a designated hospital for receiving severely ill and
critical patients,” he said, adding that saving lives comes above everything for doctors.
Yuan Haitao, director of the ICU department at the People’s Hospital of Dongxihu District,
Wuhan, is another hero who has walked in harm’s way. On Feb. 21, the doctor who had been
recovered from COVID-19 ended quarantine and went straight to his department from the
quarantine wards on the 19th floor of the hospital. “I just wanted to apply my experiences to
treating other patients,” he said. Yuan, 44, has been a doctor for nearly 20 years.
On Jan. 14, Yuan’s hospital received a novel coronavirus pneumonia patient who was critically ill
and had to receive a trachea cannula before being transferred to an intensive care unit (ICU),
which meant the viruses could easily come out of the patient’s airway and infect the operating
doctors.
“I must take the odds,” Yuan reacted.
Unfortunately, his body temperature soared to 39 degrees Celsius the next day and he was
hospitalized 3 days later. After half a month, the doctor was transferred to the ICU of Wuhan
Pulmonary Hospital as his conditions worsened, where his wife signed a notice of critical status,
dolefully.
Hu Ming, a close friend of Yuan and also the director of the ICU department of the Wuhan
Pulmonary Hospital burst into tears after learning Yuan’s condition, and the scene was captured by
the media and circulated online, which saddened many.
The good news is Yuan’s temperature gradually subsided, which got him bustling around again.
Through phone calls and messages, he asked for check-up reports from his colleges, studied the
conditions of the patient who he last treated before getting infected.
“I was still worrying about him,” Yuan noted. During the hospitalized days, he was always
considering how he could improve the treatment plans for the patient based on how he recovered.
To Yuan’s comfort, the patient was later able to breathe without respirator. Yuan even celebrated
the patient’s birthday with the latter’s family through a video call.
Zou Jinjing, chief physician from the respiratory and intensive care medicine department of
Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, is now working again at the hospital after recovery from
the COVID-19 pneumonia. The energy she shows in the wards barely indicates her previous
infection.
Zou developed a fever and started coughing on Jan. 17, and was hospitalized after her infection
was confirmed, which sadden her mother very much. Zou kept her infection a secret for her 10-
year-old daughter until her condition alleviated in order not to make the child worry.
Over half a month later, Zou was tested negative for the novel coronavirus, and her CT image also
suggested gradual recovery. After observation and quarantine, she immediately applied to her
hospital for permission to work. On Feb. 24, the doctor finally restored her daily work routine –
seeing the patients in the morning and joining telemedicine sessions in the afternoon.
Zou doesn’t consider her decision as heroic, as she believes it’s natural for people to rest when
getting sick and resume work after recovery. Now she’s in higher morale, saying it’s her that needs
the work, rather than the other way around.
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