The special coin left by Dr. Yu Chuanqing; In Dr. Yu Chuanqing's prescription IOUs, the word "owe" is circled in red where the arrow points; A photo of Dr. Yu Chuanqing taken at his doorstep while he was alive; Dr. Yu Chuanqing left more than 500 prescription IOUs.
Dr. Yu Chuanqing, village doctor of Yongjiu Village in Shayaung County, Jingmen City, practiced medicine for 38 years. When he passed away, the only heritage he left for his family were over 500 prescription IOUs and a special fifty-cent coin.
On the morning of November 7th, his son, Yu Daixiang, an intern doctor born in the 1990s, brought this special coin to donate bone marrow to a four-year-old girl from Beijing.
Yesterday, we visited Yongjiu Village to explore the selfless and altruistic spirit of these two generations of medical practitioners who ask for nothing in return. Dr. Yu Chuanqing started practicing medicine at the age of 18 after studying at Dengzhou Medical Clinic in Lishi Town, Shayaung County, and until his death, he was the only doctor in the village.
The Yu family only has one bungalow with a roof made of asbestos tiles, standing out among a row of buildings. This room was where Dr. Yu Chuanqing and his wife Zhu Lanying got married. We noticed that although the furniture inside was old, it was exceptionally clean, as if telling us about the owner's simple and humble life.
Zhu Lanying carefully took out seven bundles of prescription notes from an old medical box, totaling around 500 pieces. Almost every piece had the word "owe" written on the top right corner, ranging from a few yuan to a couple hundred yuan, amounting to more than 20,000 yuan in total. She said, this was just the last five years' worth of notes.
Zhu Lanying tearfully recounted how honest her late husband was, never mentioning how many IOUs there were until after his death when she discovered this "secret." She said that during his lifetime, Dr. Yu often told villagers seeking medical help, "Treat the illness first, don't worry about the money, we'll talk about it later..."
Regardless of rain or snow, no matter how late it was, as long as someone knocked on the door for help, Dr. Yu would immediately get dressed, grab his medical bag, and go out to treat patients; if a patient needed to be transferred to the township health center, he always accompanied them throughout the journey.
An elderly woman from the village suffered from stomach problems and hemorrhoids, but her children worked outside and couldn't take care of her. Dr. Yu visited her daily, providing injections and medication without ever discussing money. Over time, the elderly woman considered Dr. Yu as her closest person. Even until her passing, Dr. Yu never asked her family for payment.
When news broke that we were interviewing, the elderly woman's son specially came to the Yu residence, praising Dr. Yu as a great man, "Once my financial situation improves, I will definitely repay the money owed to Dr. Yu; otherwise, I wouldn't feel at ease. These past two years, whenever we have minor illnesses, we always wish Dr. Yu were still here."
After practicing medicine for 38 years without leaving any savings, a coin was found among his ashes.
On April 1st, 2009, Dr. Yu Chuanqing passed away due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Afterwards, both his family and villagers tearfully remarked, "He was exhausted from overwork."
The day before Dr. Yu fell ill, he spent all the family's 2000 yuan buying common medicines, storing them in the village clinic. After falling critically ill, the family could only gather up 200 yuan.
At the time, Yu Daixiang was preparing for his college entrance exam at Jingsheng No.1 Middle School in Shayaung County. He deeply regretted not being able to see his father one last time: "By the time I rushed home, my father had already passed away, unable to see me again."
After Dr. Yu Chuanqing was cremated, Yu Daixiang unexpectedly found a fifty-cent coin that had been deformed by high temperatures in the ashes! Yu Daixiang recalled this discovery with surprise. After practicing medicine for 38 years, his father ultimately left behind this special legacy.
These stories, along with that special coin, are regarded by Yu Daixiang as precious keepsakes left by his father. "Especially this coin, it's my talisman, my lucky charm."
Accompanied by his father's coin, the son saves lives by donating bone marrow.
Speaking of his father, Yu Daixiang vividly remembers a hurried figure leaving the house. When he was young, he was often woken up by urgent knocking sounds, seeing his father quickly getting dressed and taking his medical kit to treat patients. Sometimes, little Daixiang would pout and try to stop his father from leaving, but his father would gently push him aside and comfort him, "Saving lives is important, saving lives is important!"
"Midnight visits" accompanied Yu Daixiang as he grew up. The medical kit, stethoscope, and prescription pads were his favorite childhood toys. The siblings often played games pretending to be doctors and patients, taking turns playing each role. Yu Daixiang sheepishly told the reporter that when he was younger, he often lost to his sister and ended up playing the patient more often.
Dr. Yu Chuanqing never forced his children to follow in his footsteps in medicine, but when Yu Daixiang filled out his college application, clinical medicine was his first choice, and his sister attended Shayaung Nursing School. Neither sibling ever thought of pursuing any other career because "the influence of our father was too profound."
In the year Dr. Yu Chuanqing passed away, Yu Daixiang became a freshman majoring in clinical medicine at Yueyang Vocational and Technical College in Hunan Province. Soon after starting school, Yu Daixiang decided to donate blood voluntarily in memory of his father and registered to join the Hunan branch of the China Marrow Donor Program.
On May 12th this year, Yu Daixiang, now an intern doctor at the First People's Hospital of Tianmen City, received a notification that his hematopoietic stem cells matched those of a child patient from Beijing, and he immediately agreed to donate. "At that moment, I truly felt like my father was protecting me, allowing me to continue saving lives in his place."
On November 7th, the 21-year-old Yu Daixiang carefully placed the fifty-cent coin, which had become deformed and blackened due to high-temperature burning, into his shirt pocket. Throughout the morning, he lay quietly on the bed at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, gazing at the ceiling. Half a meter away from him, a blood separator was working, extracting hematopoietic stem cells from his blood.
That evening, Yu Daixiang's hematopoietic stem cells were delivered to Beijing and transplanted into the body of a four-year-old girl named Nana.
Reporters: Wu Wei, Yu Le; Communicator: Zhang Sheng