上醫

A trendy quote amongst our medical student recently is "a good doctor treats the country; a mediocre doctor treats the patient; an inferior doctor treats the disease" (上醫醫國，中醫醫人，下醫醫病).

I consider the statement most misleading.

My concern is simple: It calls for very different skills between treating a country and a patient. It doesn't mean that a person who could lead a people and rule a country well (and I doubt we have such kind of person around) is always a good doctor. Otherwise the best physicians in our history would all be politicians.

And, the worrying tendency recently is the extrapolation of the statement so as to give the impression that if a medical student participates in the treatment of our country, they would be a good doctor.

PS. This famous trilogy of statement originates from the masterpiece of Sun Simiao (孫思邈), Manual of Emergency and Essential Formulary (備急千金要方), Part 1, Chapter 4: Introduction to Diagnostic Techniques (論診候第四). No explanation was given in the text. However, considering the context of the whole chapter, it should be referring to the importance of public health and preventive medicine rather than anything related to politics.

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