School of Medicine

On December 1st, I began the first day in a four week clerkship at Xuanwu Hospital (宣武医院) in Beijing, in the People's Republic of China. My original goals at the beginning of the clerkship were to: 1) gain an understanding of the healthcare system in the PRC; 2) observe their methods of balancing traditional remedies with evidence based methods; 3) further my knowledge of the Chinese language, with a focus on medical terminology. As this project encompassed "boots on the ground" experience wit hmyself as a primary source, I would like to preface this paper with the statement that all statements made are based off of my own observations, and whatever knowledge was passed to me by the healthcare providers that I interfaced with. Statistics are provided where appropriate, however this paper is meant to be subjective in nature, as a primary source for information regarding first hand interaction with the system.