Many practitioners wary of delaying retirement

Medical courses are usually far longer than those for other subjects.

That means the later entry into the world of employment for doctors makes it more cost-effective for them to work for longer once they obtain their license to practice.

However, many health professionals, especially younger ones who crave a better work-life balance, are reluctant to postpone retirement because of the physically and psychologically taxing nature of their job.

"I am very conflicted about delaying retirement," said Ren Bincheng, a rheumatology and immunology doctor at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University in Shaanxi province.

On the one hand, being a doctor is a tough job. Since the 34-year-old started working at the grade 3 hospital, the highest in China's three-tier rating system for health facilities, he has taken only one complete round of annual leave — for his wedding.

Technically speaking, doctors do not have holidays, he said. They are on call all year round, even if they are nominally on vacation, in case something happens to the patients under their supervision. "Every time I chat with friends who work in other industries, I feel that the quality of doctors' lives is very poor," said Ren, who has a doctorate in medicine.

"My friends have visited nearly all the famous places around Xi'an on weekends, and they often have time for nightlife after work."

On the other hand, there's no shortcut to gaining medical expertise, as it only comes via a long career.

Ren said younger doctors may strictly "follow the script" of officially authorized treatment plans, but older experts, who are calm even in the face of daunting challenges, make various adjustments based on their own clinical experience and they often produce unexpected breakthroughs.

He also noted that training to become a qualified, capable practitioner is a lengthy process.

First, medical students need to outperform their classmates to secure a spot at a top medical graduate school.

That's because leading facilities, such as those in Xi'an, only recruit people with a doctorate in medicine.

Many who only have a bachelor's, or those who wish to further their education but fail the graduate school entrance examination, find it difficult to find work at large hospitals. Such students, together with those from lesser-known medical schools, find themselves in an awkward position, according to Ren.

"If they go to community hospitals where the pay is much lower it is difficult for them to get a sense of self-fulfillment. As a result, some switch to other careers," he said.

Even after that, just like artificial intelligence, young doctors still need to feed on a constant stream of cases to cultivate a "doctor's thinking" and improve their diagnosis and treatment skills, he noted.

Wang Mengni, who works at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, a grade 3 hospital in the city of Xianyang, said the current retirement age — 60 for males and 55 for females — is generally acceptable because it would be physically challenging to perform surgery in one's 60s, as many operations can last more than seven hours.

Besides, the obstetrician said she feels tense all the time, which can take a toll on her mental well-being.

For example, on a recent weekend, the 29-year-old was halfway through watching a movie with a friend when she received a phone call from a colleague. She was informed that a pregnant woman was bleeding, so she had to leave her friend and race back to the hospital.

She recalled that during an interval between operations, the family of a new mother came over and told her that the child refused to breastfeed.

"This doesn't sound like a big problem, but I went over to have a look and found that the baby was choking on the milk. The incident made me very nervous, because if I hadn't gone to check that time, it is very likely that the child would have died," she said.

"When I chose this field as a career, I heard that obstetricians are always exhausted. At the time I thought it was nothing, and a young person could bear it," she said. "Later, I discovered that the descriptions were true."

In addition to her clinical duties — including performing surgery, outpatient clinics and ward tours — there are tasks such as teaching medical students, publishing articles and learning new techniques.

"I can only take one day off per month," she said.

Despite the fact that doctors take time to become experts, many have noted that the younger ones have certain advantages.

Chen Kailun, a physician in Huanggang, Hubei province, said younger doctors tend to be better educated and quicker at picking up new techniques.

The 29-year-old said doctors from the previous generation mainly passed on their skills through apprenticeships, and most of them were trained at vocational schools so their academic training was of shorter duration.

"When they approach retirement age, most older doctors enter a semiretired state, and take up less-strenuous tasks, such as overseeing outpatient clinics," he said.

"There is also a reemployment system, but it is generally aimed at a small number of well-known experts and academicians. Most of us still retire at the regular time."