Liu Liming, director of the Department of Liver Diseases of the Third People’s Hospital of Hubei Province, not only saves people, but also wants to save money for patients.
Dr. Liu Liming rounds the room.
Liu Liming doctors communicate with patients. Photo courtesy of the Third People’s Hospital of the province.
□ Chutian Metropolis Daily’s most eye-catching journalist Chen Lingyan correspondent Belan Zeng Zuokuan
Liu Liming is the director of the Department of Hepatology of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in the Third People’s Hospital of Hubei Province. He has been fighting hard in the field of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine to tackle liver diseases. He is kind to patients and often helps them out of his own pocket. Since joining the work, he has been using weekends and holidays to go to districts, counties and mountain villages to train grassroots medical staff, teach them to choose cheap but effective drugs, and help local patients control their illness.
What is the relationship between doctors and patients? Liu Liming’s answer is: the relationship of "treating each other with sincerity".
Doctors treat diseases.
Try your best to carry the patient across the river.
In 2006, Liu Liming entered the hepatology department of the Third People’s Hospital of Hubei Province. Since then, he has been dealing with various liver diseases. "Doctors treating diseases are like carrying patients across the river one by one." The metaphor of Wu Mengchao, an academician of China Academy of Sciences and the father of hepatobiliary surgery in China, is deeply engraved in Liu Liming’s mind. Doctors should try their best to pick up the patient and then deliver the patient to the other side of health.
Patients put their rehabilitation hopes in the hands of doctors, and doctors need to constantly improve their skills to help them realize their rehabilitation wishes. Liu Liming delves into the business, constantly summarizes it at the same time, and makes adjustments and innovations according to the needs of patients. Based on the characteristics of liver diseases in China and the changes of liver disease spectrum in recent years, he set up a sub-specialist diagnosis and treatment team for liver diseases in the department, including liver cancer diagnosis and treatment team, fatty liver diagnosis and treatment team and autoimmune liver disease diagnosis and treatment team to provide accurate personalized diagnosis and treatment for patients with liver cancer at all stages. For example, the fatty liver diagnosis and treatment team gives full play to the characteristics and advantages of traditional Chinese medicine, and combines traditional Chinese medicine treatments such as medicated diet, acupuncture, catgut embedding and packaging; The diagnosis and treatment team of autoimmune liver disease innovatively launched the disease management model of "self-immune liver diagnosis-treatment-long-term follow-up" to be a long-term "healthy housekeeper" of patients. Liu Liming led a team to carry out a number of scientific research achievements, such as "anti-fibrosis and liver softening prescription", "anti-liver failure compound prescription" and "strengthening the body to detoxify and dispersing stagnation prescription", some of which reached the international advanced level, and the department also successfully established a key specialty of traditional Chinese medicine in Hubei Province.
Not only save lives
He also wants to save money for patients.
In addition to saving lives, Liu Liming also has a small habit-helping patients to make careful calculations and calculate "economic accounts". In his view, patients are suffering from diseases, and doctors should not only cure them, but also help them save money as much as possible, which is what doctors should do. Driven by Liu Liming, every doctor in the department has set himself an extra requirement: screening examination items and medication according to the patient’s condition and economic affordability. Can do or not do the inspection, don’t do it; Drugs that can be used or not, no need; If you can solve the problem with cheap medicine, you don’t need expensive medicine.
Liu Liming not only saves money for patients, but also often subsidizes patients in need. Last August, an 80-year-old man in Xinzhou District came to see a doctor with an old hen. "Doctor, my son is not at home, can I use my old hen to pay for medical expenses?" The old man asked. Without saying anything, Liu Liming immediately paid for 600 yuan’s medicine for the old man, and repeatedly urged the old man to take the chicken back. Who knows that when the old man left, he quietly left the old hen behind the door of the clinic. When the old man came to see a doctor again, Liu Liming took out 200 yuan and "bought" the old hen.
Among Liu Liming’s WeChat friends, more than 700 are patients he treated. Everyone will leave messages for him every day when he meets any health problems, and he will reply one by one, which has become everyone’s "family doctor". This "family doctor" has been friends with many patients for many years. He not only treats them, but also treats their hearts.
The 80-year-old Xiao’s mother-in-law has suffered from hepatitis B and liver cirrhosis for many years. Liu Liming designed the treatment of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine for her, and the old man’s condition was well controlled. However, three years ago, Xiao’s wife died unfortunately, which made her fall into depression. Liu Liming found that the old man’s mood was wrong. After learning about this situation, he would accompany his mother-in-law Xiao to say a few words every time he made a diagnosis or made a follow-up, trying to comfort her mood, thus "helping" the old man out of his grief step by step.
In 2021, a 3 cm tumor appeared on Xiao’s mother-in-law’s liver. Liu Liming completed interventional therapy for her, supplemented by traditional Chinese medicine, and helped the elderly get out of danger again. Every three to five, he also asked questions through WeChat. Grandma Xiao said to everyone, "Director Liu is better to me than my children!"
Go from the countryside to the town
Let more people "know more"
As a doctor, Liu Liming has a good reputation among patients, and more and more people are looking for him to see a doctor. But he understands that it is not enough to rely on the strength of one person or one department in the face of the huge needs of patients.
"My aunt was less than 50 years old and died unfortunately because of liver cancer caused by hepatitis B. Her child was infected with hepatitis B virus through mother-to-child transmission." Liu Liming said that this incident had a great influence on him, which was also the reason why he decided to study medicine. "Later, I used what I learned to successfully let my cousin block mother-to-child transmission."
Liu Liming realized that ordinary people don’t know much about medicine. When faced with diseases, they are often at a loss. "In fact, many diseases are preventable and controllable, especially liver diseases. Sometimes, as long as you know more, the results will be completely different."
Since joining the work, Liu Liming has always insisted on one thing: being a "healthy volunteer". On weekends and holidays, he went to various districts, counties and mountain villages to carry out free clinic propaganda and health science popularization, train primary medical staff, and help the construction of hepatology department in primary medical institutions. Village doctors have relatively little experience, so Liu Liming popularized and updated new knowledge of diagnosis and medication for them. "As long as I have been to places, village doctors have mastered better medication methods. They will prescribe cheap but effective anti-hepatitis drugs for patients in need. "
In 2020, the Third People’s Hospital of Hubei Province set up a youth master group, with Liu Liming as the head, and organized the doctors of the youth master group to go to the community and go to the grassroots level. In the past two years, the Youth Expo Group has given free clinics and health talks to more than 2,000 people, and has also conducted more than 40 academic salon lectures for young doctors and training for primary doctors, and trained more than 1,000 primary medical and health personnel.