The dedication of this medical doctor, who saw a need of his place here, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
The office manager of the local office of sanitations knew ALL of the local elderly residents’ conditions and their habits too…
“Grandma, I’m doctor Fatso!”, the office manager of the Gongliao District’s department of sanitations office, Lin, is a Chinese man from Japan, after he’d returned to Taiwan to intern, he’d fallen in love, with the seaside town of Gongliao, eleven years he’d come to Gongliao, and ever since, he’d been, stuck to the place, unwilling to leave, and started devoting his time there, as a physician. Every week, he’d gone to the scheduled visits to the elderly who lived there, and put that surge of warmth, in the distant areas too.
Lin was born in Taiwan, but was raised in Japan, his family members worked in business, but ever since he was growing up, he’d shown a special aptitude toward medicine. And, originally, he’d had his sight on becoming a surgeon, but a Japanese professor once told him, that, “a good surgeon is only a good physician who has operating license.”, which changed Lin’s belief on becoming a surgeon.
After he’d graduated from N.T.U., he’d chosen to head over to the Badu Miners’ Hospital in Keelung to work as a general physician, later on, he’d gone to the United Hospital, to train as an operation resident, as well as a general physician too, eleven years ago, he was, asked by the Hsinbei City government to start to work in Gongliao. Back then, the local office of sanitations, because of the development of the summer music fest along with the nuclear plants being built there, there’s a shortage of physicians, and numerous patients.
As Lin arrived, he’d started, introducing the outsourcing program, and started making home visits to the elderly there, and, he is on-call to offer them help 24/7; in order to establish a bond with the elderly, Lin worked hard, to learn to speak Taiwanese, and he’d gone on tours once to twice to the homes of the elderly, just to test his Taiwanese speaking abilities, and whenever he’d had the spare time, he’d be out, with his medicine bag, which became his way of testing his own Taiwanese speaking abilities in interacting with the elderly population.
“I treat these elders as if they were elders related to me!”, and now, Lin still made the rounds every single week, and whenever he’d gotten the time, he’d had his medicine bags slung around his back, to “visit the relatives”; and because of the lack of personnel at his clinic, he’d just gone to forty elderly’s homes regularly, he’d hoped, to increase the number of homes to seventy in the future.
Although Lin isn’t fluent enough in Taiwanese, but a lot of the elderly would only take his words, “Doctor, can you please, come console her for us, she wouldn’t listen to any of us”, as Lin made his house calls, he’d often gotten “complaints” from the other members of the family, asked him to remind the family members, to take care of their own wellbeing.
Lin may not be able to recall every single elderly’s name by heart, but, all the habits, the conditions of all of his patients, he’d known, by heart, like the ninety year-old Grandma Chien from before, she’d always asked how he is, and, three years ago, when she’d become demented, she’d become, totally, unresponsive toward members of her family. He said, “Grandma Wen-Chien’s soul may seemed to have been taken away from her, but, seeing how she’d picked up her handkerchief and wiped away the sweat from her lips like a lady, he’d remembered how she was from before, and knew, that “Grandma’s still here”, “Grandma needs me”.
a photo of the man, treating an elderly patient, from UDN.com…
After he’d graduated from N.T.U., he’d not returned to Japan to practice medicine, at first, Lin’s parents who live in Japan were upset, but, after they’d come to Taiwan, and experienced what their son was doing, they’d become, more than supportive of his decisions, and his father had even, donated the medical equipment to the local sanitation department, to support his own son in helping to take care of the elderly who live there.
And so, because this doctor saw a need, he’d decided, to provide it for the elderly who lived in the area, and this man had done right in every single way, because he’d not just offered the medical expertise to the distant regions, he’d also, bring more love to the lives of the elderly population whom he was treating too.