The Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals has launched a role-swapping program to try to smooth the relationship between doctors and patients.

 

　　CRI's Xie Zhao explains.

 

　　Reporter:

 

　　The role-swapping program has recruited volunteers with aim of helping people better understand what doctors go through in treating patients.

 

　　Wang Xiang is an editor of a journal with Capital Medical University.

 

　　He's now volunteering as an assistant for doctor Wang Xianbo, who specializes in cancer treatment at Di Tan Hospital in Beijing.

 

　　"I go to hospital at 8 am where patients have long queued. From 8 am to 1 pm, 5 hours, doctor Wang Xianbo does not drink water or go to bathroom. As a young man, I felt a lot of pressure. I think medical workers like doctor Wang are too tired."

 

　　Long queues are common-place at hospital registration desks in big cities across China.

 

　　So as part of the program, officials from the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals and hospital administrators also go through the process that ordinary patients do.

 

　　Xin Youqing is the executive head of Beijing Friendship Hospital.

 

　　Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals.

 

　　"We can now truly experience patients' inconvenience when seeing doctors and try the best to improve our management as well as enhance work performance."

 

　　The doctor-patient relationship is usually heavily-stressed in China.

 

　　Last September, a man stabbed four medical staffers and a security guard at a hospital in Shenzhen, leaving two of them seriously wounded.

 

　　Gu Jin, a doctor at Beijing Cancer Hospital, says the doctor-patient relationship here in China is complex.

 

　　"China has a large number of patients due to its population. Therefore, doctors' workload is too heavy, especially in mega cities. For example, a doctor at a hospital in New York I visited only sees five patients in one morning with the help of two or three assistants. While in China, a doctor has to see 50 patients in one morning. Under this circumstance, the communication time is shortened between doctors and patients. "

 

　　Feng Guosheng, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals, says the new role-swapping program should help create better understanding.

 

　　"We may find some problems in the medical service through this program, at an attempt to better serve the patients."

 

　　The program has attracted more than 200 volunteers from different age groups and walks of life.

 

　　For CRI, I am Xie Zhao.