Dr. Richard Cyr of the excellent “My Health Beijing” blog has had a practice, in Beijing, for the past three years.  Sometime ago I communicated to him that it would be fascinating to read how his Beijing experience differs from his experience as a physician, in the United States.

#1 Difference: Chinese patient expectations – Last week I had another of many similar encounters: a young Chinese woman came in with typical common cold symptoms of runny nose and cough, and otherwise was fine. She made it very clear, very quickly, that she expected me to give her not just antibiotics, but IV antibiotics. Even after I explained to her that she only had a virus, she was quite flustered and still asked for the IV, telling me “you are very different than a local hospital”. Ahhhhh, yes indeed…

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