Zaw Min Tun: I’ve given all I have to my patients
If you have ever had a chance to go up the 9th floor of Jingcheng Hospital in west Yunnan’s Ruili, you would find several award banners on the wall with a same name: Zaw Min Tun. He is the head of cardiology department here. And comes from Lashio, northern Myanmar.
In 2010, Zaw Min Tun graduated from Mandalay University, one of Myanmar’s best hubs for higher education. “Then I went back to Lashio, my hometown, and began my internship in a local hospital. This means I had to meet a great number of patients every single day, including those who were queuing for blood pressure test,” he recalled. It is this experience that ultimately made him realize how crucial the job of a doctor is. Zaw Min Tun soon decided to go back to school, pursuing a higher education and dreaming to become a more competent medical professional.
To this end, he was enrolled at the Guangxi Medical University and began a 3-year master program. Zaw Min Tun was clear about how challenging a medical school could be. However, there was one additional challenge that he needed to face, which was the language barrier. In order to understand those medical terms in English, he had no choice but spent hours on translating them into Chinese or Myanmarese every day after school.
After finishing his master degree, he moved to Shanghai and became a cardiologist at a local hospital. As Shanghai is a metropolis with over 20 million residents, its need for medical professionals has long been large and constant. This, unsurprisingly, enabled him to communicate with different patients and analyze a great number of cases — usually 500 each month. When Zaw Min Tun looks back, he always regards this period of time as a “rite of passage” on his journey to be an experienced cardiologist. “Patients have been my subjects of study.”
In 2018, he found a job opportunity at a hospital named Jingcheng in western Yunnan’s Ruili. As a city sitting right on China’s border with Myanmar, Ruili has long played as an important hub where citizens from the both countries visit on a regular basis for health care and medical treatments. In the eyes of Zaw Min Tun, Ruili was a perfect place to kick off his own career. “My work experiences in Shanghai in the past few years have given me much confidence, so that now I’m not afraid of working under high pressure, or dealing with any emergent situations or difficult cases.
The cardiology department at Jingcheng Hospital was just started up when Zaw Min Tun finally decided to settle down in Ruili. Due to his experience and relentless effort, he was soon appointed as the head of the department. Yet he is clear to himself that diagnostic excellence and successes on surgeries can never be achieved without the joint endeavor of a professional and experienced medical team. “It was my responsibility to pass my experience to as many young cardiologists I can, just like how other cardiologists I met passed their knowledge to me.”
With a group of 25 medical workers, cardiovascular diseases have now been considered a major field of research at the hospital under the lead of Zaw Min Tun. So far, he has achieved a milestone of finishing 2,500 surgeries successfully.
According to the statistics, approximately 30% of the patients that come to Jingcheng Hopistal for medical treatments are, in fact, Myanmar citizens who reside in different regions of the country, including Muse, Bhamo, Namhkam, Lashio, Myitkyina, KutKai, Mandalay and Sagaing. The majority of the patients would get uneasy and anxious as they have to see a doctor abroad. But every time when Zaw Min Tun begins to talk to his patients in their own language, they feel more comfortable and relaxed right away.
In order to offer better treatments to foreign residents in Ruili, a center specializing in international medical services has recently been set up. Meanwhile, emergent aids and treatments targeting the foreign patients from Myanmar have also been well-organized and developed. And it’s worth mentioning that a brand-new international health center has become available inside the Dehong Area of China (Yunnan) Pilot Free Trade Zone since August 28, 2020 when it was opened.
Zaw Min Tun is proud of himself, as he has tackled numerous challenges in his life over the past few years, from the study of medicine to Chinese learning, and then to his job as a cardiologist in Ruili. His secret of success can be best summarized by three words: diligence, concentration and determination.
Reporting by Wang Huan and Lu Haiyan; trans-editing wang Wang Jingzhong (Yunnan Gateway)