A new prescription

By Roberta Lipson (China Daily)

The first time I set foot in a Chinese hospital I found my calling. My first visit to a major Beijing teaching hospital was an overwhelming experience.

Roberta Lipson (center) was discharged from hospital after her bout of hepatitis in Beijing in 1985. She said she received outstanding care there.

For me, it was not the thousands of bicycles that crowded the streets at rush hour, nor the bustling crowds at the Beijing train station that drove home the enormity of the task of modernizing this country with such a huge mass of people, but rather the scene in the lobby of the hospital.

I had never seen so many people crowded into such a space before, and on the wards there were beds not only in the rooms but lining the halls, and some beds were crowded with multiple patients. This was the best the country had to offer at the time.

Yet I met incredibly talented and dedicated doctors who were working with only their wits and their hands, their stethoscopes and, in the most fortunate cases, a few very old X-ray machines, microscopes, EKG units and refrigerators. It was clear to me, coming from a recent career in the medical industry in the United States, that I could be of help in this situation.

So we founded our company, Chindex, with the mission of introducing appropriate technology to the medical sector, as well as a few other industry areas. Eventually the company settled on the medical sector exclusively, but in those days there were such great needs in every sector, and so few companies from abroad engaged in meeting those needs, that we were happy to help where we could. How lucky we were to find a role that helped meet some of society's greatest needs and at the same time was a sound basis on which to build a business.