Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Clara has made sure Evan gets lunch. Getting him to stop talking long enough to eat it is another matter.

Noon.

A lunch box sat on the counter at Mingxin Clinic. Clara had made it for Evan. She had to prepare lunch for her father, who had suffered a stroke, and Evan so often went without lunch that she had started making a little extra.

She had brought it downstairs for him ages ago, then gone back up to help her father eat. Now she was downstairs again, and Evan still hadn’t touched his lunch. He was seeing a patient.

Business was good these days, but it wasn’t that busy. The problem was this patient, who went on and on. How long had it been? Was he ever going to let anyone eat?

Evan was still patiently explaining things to him.

Clara was getting tired of waiting. “Ahem! Ahem, ahem!” She coughed several times.

“Clara, have you caught a cold?” Ben asked.

She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t even be bothered to answer him.

At last Evan finished explaining. The patient came over to collect his medicine and pay, then left.

Clara took the lunch box to Evan. “Could you stop talking to people for hours? Look at the time. Your lunch is cold.”

Evan opened the box and started eating. He was hungry too. “I had to explain things properly. That patient has high blood pressure, and I’ve prescribed medicines that promote upward movement.

“For a few days after he takes them, his blood pressure will be higher than before. If I explain what will happen, he won’t be frightened.

“People with high blood pressure check it every day now. Imagine how scared he’d be if he suddenly saw it shoot up. You have to make these things clear. You can’t skip that.”[1]

“That doesn’t mean you can skip lunch!” Clara said.

Evan smiled, holding his lunch box. “I’m eating now, aren’t I? Mm… this is good!”

Clara shook her head helplessly.

Ben looked thoroughly confused. “You use medicines that make things rise to treat high blood pressure? Won’t that just send it higher and higher and make it worse?”

Evan put down the box, quickly chewed a few times, and swallowed. “That’s not how it works. First, high blood pressure isn’t a disease name in traditional Chinese medicine. Most practitioners now treat it as internal stirring of Liver wind, and the results often aren’t good…”[2]

“Could you finish eating before you talk about this?” Clara interrupted.

Evan was stopped short.

Then she turned on Ben. “What are you doing? Can’t you wait until he’s finished?”

“All right, I won’t ask.” Ben hastily waved his hands.

“Eat!” Clara told Evan crossly.

There was no arguing with her. Evan ate in silence.

Clara shook her head. Once Evan started talking about Chinese medicine, he got carried away. He could talk to patients for ages, and to other doctors for even longer. Ben had been getting a lesson every day for the past two days.

Evan kept his head down and ate. When he finished, he would explain to Ben where people went wrong in diagnosing and treating high blood pressure.

But clearly today wasn’t going to be so peaceful.

“Here we are. This is the place.”

“Dr. Xu!”

The calls came from the doorway.

“Another half hour. We’re on our lunch break,” Clara said without even looking outside.

“It’s all right,” Evan said. He set down his lunch box and looked out, then froze. “Dr. Cao?”

Leo was showing the way in. “Come in, Professor He. This is Dr. Evan Xu.”

Evan stared.

Clara looked toward the door too. The moment she did, she ducked her head and shrank down behind the counter to hide.

Someone hurried in from outside.

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It was Professor He. He rushed into the room and turned toward Evan, his breathing suddenly heavy. Whether it was from running too fast or from emotion was impossible to tell.

“Evan…” His voice trembled as he looked at Evan in disbelief.

Evan was utterly stunned too. “P-Professor…”

The others stared at one another. Was Evan Professor He’s student?

Leo slapped his forehead. Evan had graduated from Nanzhongyi, and Professor He taught there. How had he not thought of that?

Professor He took two steps forward and seized Evan’s hand. His eyes fixed on Evan, he asked, “Evan, what are you doing here?”

“I…” Under that gaze, faced with that question, Evan didn’t know how to answer.

Suddenly Professor He flew into a rage. He let go of Evan’s hand and slammed the table, his neck straining as he shouted, “Evan Xu! Where have you been?”

Everyone nearby jumped.

The four who had come with him—Dr. Zhong, Leo, Alex, and Hannah, the resident—looked at one another. They had always known Professor He as a good-tempered man who was eager to help younger doctors.

The young Chinese medicine doctors always looked forward to his visits. They could learn from a leading expert and ask all the questions they wanted. He never tired of answering them.

They all said he was the most approachable specialist they knew.

Alex had never expected to see Professor He angry, much less this angry. It frightened him.

Hannah was bewildered too. What on earth had Dr. Xu done to make such an easygoing professor so furious? She pictured him riding that pink electric scooter. Oh… surely he hadn’t, with Professor He’s son…

There went her imagination again, inventing a whole drama.

Evan lowered his head in shame.

Professor He was still furious. He pointed a finger at Evan’s nose, scolding him so fiercely that spittle nearly hit his face. “You changed your phone number. You stopped logging in to WeChat. You made it impossible for anyone to contact you. What were you trying to do? Disappear off the face of the earth?”

Evan bowed his head lower. He didn’t dare answer back.

“What were you trying to prove, playing the hero?” Professor He roared. “Didn’t I tell you? I’d spoken to your hospital’s leadership. The hospital would stand up for you. You weren’t even that much to blame! You could have gotten through the medical-liability appraisal!”[3]

“All you had to do was take some time off and let things settle down. Why did you have to play the lone hero? Why on earth did you ask to be fired? Do you have any idea what that means for you?

“Well? You damned fool!”

He slammed the table again, beside himself with anger.

“I… I had no choice,” Evan said quietly.

“What do you mean, no choice?” Professor He demanded.

Evan gave a bitter smile. “I had the hospital to protect me. What about Ryan Yao’s family?”

Professor He paused. “If the medical appraisal found no problem, his family would be all right too.”

“Legally, yes. In real life, no. That other family won’t let it go. I caused the trouble. I’m the one who should answer for it!”

The onlookers exchanged puzzled glances. What exactly had Dr. Xu done?

Hannah was confused. Now there was a Ryan Yao too? That sounded like another man!

Only Leo sighed. He’d heard something of what had happened from Evan’s former classmate, Ethan Yang.

Professor He fell silent and let out a heavy breath. Having vented his anger, he had calmed down. He dropped onto a stool and turned his face away from Evan.

He shook his head. “Even so, you shouldn’t have made yourself impossible to contact and gone into hiding. Couldn’t you have told me you were in trouble? Do you even consider me your teacher anymore?”

His head still lowered, Evan said in deep shame, “After what happened, I couldn’t face anyone.”

Professor He looked up at him. “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

Evan pressed his lips together and said nothing.

Suddenly Leo asked, “Professor He… is finding him the reason you agreed to come and see patients at our county hospital of Chinese medicine?”

Dr. Zhong and Alex were taken aback too. Of course. Getting here from the provincial capital wasn’t exactly convenient. Even if Professor He wanted to support hospitals at the local level, he could have chosen somewhere easier to reach.

Had he chosen their county because it was Evan’s hometown? Had he thought Evan would come back someday, and that if he kept waiting here, he would eventually find him?

“Professor…” Evan wanted to say something, but he was too choked up to speak.

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ Upward movement and blood pressure. Rising and dispersing describe directional functions in Chinese medicine’s qi framework. “Upward” here is a traditional therapeutic description, not simply an increase in a blood-pressure reading. The distinction is what Ben questions. Evan’s further claim that the patient’s pressure will rise for several days is his statement in this scene. Neither the terminology standard nor this account establishes that such a rise is safe or therapeutic. Modern hypertension care aims to lower and control elevated blood pressure. Sources: WHO — International standard terminologies on traditional Chinese medicine, entries 139 and 245; WHO — Hypertension, Overview and Treatment.↩︎ Internal stirring of Liver wind. This is a traditional pattern name associated with manifestations such as vertigo, tremor, and convulsions. “Wind” describes a pattern of disturbance, rather than moving air, and “Liver” denotes the traditional functional system. It is not a synonym for hypertension, which is identified by measured blood pressure. Evan’s criticism of how other practitioners treat hypertension remains his opinion. He has not yet given the diagnostic findings or treatment reasoning for this particular patient. Sources: WHO — International standard terminologies on traditional Chinese medicine, entry 1258; WHO — Hypertension, Overview.↩︎ Medical-liability appraisal. This is an expert assessment used in resolving a medical dispute. Chinese regulations distinguish questions about clinical conduct, harm, causation, and degree of responsibility; the appraisal is not itself a court judgment. Professor He says Evan could get through this process. He is offering his view of an unresolved case, not reporting a completed finding. Confidence about the likely assessment does not settle every consequence of the underlying dispute. Source: Jingtai County government — Regulations on preventing and handling medical disputes, articles 34–36 and 43 (in Chinese).