Villagers' health in hands of dedicated medic

Motivated by the death of his grandpa, a barefoot doctor has made patients in a poor mountainous region his priority

Letang, a poverty-stricken mountain village that sits beside the Yellow River in Shanxi province's Daning county, is home to about 500 farmers. As a local saying goes, "Letang is the last place in the world a woman should look for a husband."

Today, most young people from Letang work elsewhere, leaving only about 200 villagers-mostly age 60 or older - to live a hand-to-mouth existence in loess cave dwellings.