Adel Al-Kalel is a doctor from Yemen. Photo provided to Hangzhoufeel
Hann will soon be promoted to attending obstetrician.
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By Ye Linxiao
As the first large socially run general hospital in China to pass the 6th accreditation of the Joint Commission International (JCI), Hangzhou Shulan Hospital has always been at the forefront of internationalization. It has not only contracted with several international commercial insurance companies, but has two full-time foreign doctors.
Putting on a white uniform, Adel Al-Kalel, a doctor of Vascular-Interventional department from Yemen, always welcomes the new day with a bright smile. Affectionately known as Dr. Adel by his patients and colleagues, he is basically able to communicate with his Chinese patients, even those who speak with a strong Hangzhou accent.
Having worked at Shulan Hospital for 4 years so far, Adel still recall the deep impression the West Lake has left on him in 2006 when he came to Hangzhou for the first time. He was fortunate enough to receive a full scholarship to pursue graduate and doctoral studies in medicine at Zhejiang University. He has been amazed by the changes in Hangzhou in the last decade, after witnessing the transformation of small bungalows into high-rise buildings, the continuous expansion of the subway line network, the widening of the city's scale, and so on. Clean, beautiful, convenient and modern are the words he appraises Hangzhou with.
Adel describes his daily work as an interesting exploration. In the clinic, some patients are surprised to see him as a foreign doctor, while others are a bit afraid to come in at first and may hover at the door for a long time, but when Adel greets them friendly and fluently in Chinese, they immediately get relaxed and confide in him. Believe it or not, what attracts him into the profession is surgery. "I love doing surgery", the passion of his rushing into the emergency surgeries partly explains why he was named a 2022 Advanced Worker of the Year of Shulan Hospital.
After work, in addition to academic activities like doing research and reading papers, Adel likes watching TV shows or movies at home, both to relax and improve his Chinese by learning some idioms and classical phrases—when he was in his medical classes, he often carried a thick dictionary with him to refer to from time to time. His favorites include historical costume dramas, romances and Hong Kong movies. "Overall, I am very satisfied with my current life, with comfortable surroundings and convenient conditions. Although everyone is saying that being a doctor is tiring and hard, I don't feel so." Adel said.
Dr. Gan Kwang Hann from Malaysia, another foreign doctor in Shulan, is no less enterprising. In 2019 he chose to pursue a full-time medical doctorate at Zhejiang University where he did his undergraduate and master's degree before returning to work last year. It was at the university that he met and fell in love with his girlfriend, whom he now calls his wife and with whom he lives happily in Hangzhou with a son and a daughter. To make it more exciting, he will soon be promoted to attending obstetrician.
Hann's choice of obstetrics may be confusing to someone. He recalls his apprenticeship experience in various departments, but his interests in obstetrics remained unchanged, especially in the field of reproductive medicine, because it's very happy and sacred for him to witness and welcome the birth of a new life. Now, busy but used to it, he enjoys his day-to-day work. "The number of emergency cases at night is extremely high. If I'm on duty at night, I often need to get up at 2 or 3 o'clock to do surgeries, and even have to keep watching the conditions of the pregnant women all the time." He downplayed it with his typically cheerful smile.
Despite the busy schedule, Hann still values the company of his children, allowing his hobbies to give way to spending time with them, if possible, to build a mutual bond. People's Daily, the most influential newspaper in China has recently featured Hann, who taught his daughter about stretch marks by hand-drawn paintings to showcase the hard work of moms, and later took the paintings to the hospital for those who are going to giving births to baby to soothe their anxieties towards stretch marks. Hann has gained popularity from the internet, both as an obstetrician, and as a husband and dad.
Who would not love them, the expatriate doctors that have made Hangzhou a better place?