Editor's note: Following is the story of Zhang Heng, a 32-year-old doctor with Peking Union Medical College Hospital who has been at the forefront of the battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
"I have to survive because life is so beautiful." These words of one of my patients who suffers from SARS continue to ring in my ears.
This patient's entire family has been infected with the disease - her mother and brother have already died and her father is in a serious condition. I was stunned by her courage and understood for the first time in my life the weight of the burden on my shoulders. I have to help others survive.
Although I am a doctor with the cardiovascular surgery department, I have been engaged in the frontline war against SARS for nearly two weeks due to a lack of staff at our hospital.
More than 300 medical workers from nearly all hospital departments have formed a fighting group. And after initial training we were dispatched to the frontline.
When I treated my first SARS patient on April 25, my only worry was that my skill in treating respiratory diseases might not be good enough.
Owing to proper treatment and medical experience accumulated over past weeks, our hospital has seen very few cross-infections from patients to medical workers. We have a strict sterilization principle and always wear four or five layers of protective clothes, which leave us sweating.
Many friends of mine keep asking why I am not frightened by the disease. I think it takes no special courage to treat SARS patients. It is my duty to save other people's lives and I was trained to do this.
When you see a family wrenched apart by the deadly disease and seriously ill patients worrying about their dying relatives, the only thing you want to do is to try and help them.
I treat SARS patients as normal patients, never making them feel they are dangerous. I believe this mental support is important to those suffering from loneliness and despair.
After a day's work, when lying in bed at the hospital, the most beautiful sound I want to hear is my two-year-old son's voice.
(China Daily May 12, 2003)
