Medical career losing appeal as top option

Rising attacks, longer hours, poor salaries blamed for dropping interest

High pressure, low incomes and increasingly tense relationships with patients have sent medical workers' career satisfaction to a new low, research has found.

Not only are doctors unhappy with their jobs — they are discouraging their children from following in their footsteps.

"I used to strongly encourage my daughter to study medicine, but now I'm not sure about that, given the several cases (of injured and murdered doctors) in the last year-and-a-half," said Lu Hai, vice-director of the ophthalmology department of Tongren Hospital in Beijing, which is famous for its eye treatment.

In September 2011, a male patient slashed Xu Wen, a doctor in Tongren Hospital's otolaryngology department, three years after he sued the hospital. The patient had accused Xu, who operated on the patient in 2006 in an effort to cure his throat cancer, of failing to root out the tumor, which he believed could have been eliminated in the first surgery, thus leading to a relapse.

Xu was seriously wounded but survived. Nevertheless, a court sentenced Wang to 15 years in prison in April 2012.

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