Chinese doctors experience work at Yeovil District Hospital

Two Chinese doctors have been experiencing life in a UK hospital through an exchange programme supported by Yeovil District Hospital.

Out of 200 who applied to go on the three month exchange 20 medics were chosen. Yeovil hosted the only paediatrician in the scheme, Dr Ge Zhang (known as Jack), and the hospital’s Gastroenterology Department provided a placement for Dr Changrong Bu. The pair will return to China this weekend.

Dr Bu said: “I have really enjoyed my time at Yeovil - the medical system is very different here compared to China. I have been able to spend much more time with the patients which I have really liked. The staff patient ratio is much better in the UK – whereas Yeovil has around 2000 staff and 350 beds the hospital I work at has 800 staff for 600 beds.

“It has also been interesting to deal with an older age group. Life expectancy is much higher here than in China, the average women lives to 77 and a man just 72. Here at Yeovil I have seen many patients in their 80s and 90s.”

Dr Bu has been enjoying time in the UK. It was his first time overseas and he visited Edinburgh, the Lake District, Oxford, Bath and Stonehenge during his time off.

Dr Zhang’s experience in the UK included spending time in Yeovil’s Special Care Baby Unit and visiting children at home with the hospital’s paediatric community nurses. He also had the opportunity to take part in a communication workshop with the Myrtle Theatre Company in Bristol.

He said: “YDH is a smaller hospital than the one I work at. I was really impressed with how the doctors and nurses and other staff work as a team – it is so much nicer.”

Pictured: Dr Bu and Dr Zhang with Dr Paul Heaton, Consultant Paediatrician