Sharing knowledge

Given the challenging healthcare conditions, helping build the local medical talent pool is also on the agenda of the Chinese medical teams to Africa, just as the old Chinese proverb — Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

From 2013 to 2015, Lu Jian, a neurosurgeon from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, joined the 31st batch of the Shaanxi medical aid team to Sudan.

Upon arrival at the China-Sudan Omdurman Friendship Hospital in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, Lu conducted a detailed survey of the hospital's neurosurgery-related work conditions, including personnel, equipment, wards, operating rooms and other facilities.

After a thorough study, Lu found that the hospital's infrastructure fell short of the requirements for neurosurgery. After multiple discussions and exchanges with local doctors, he tailored a work plan primarily focused on outpatient services and training course for medics.

"There are about 40 neurosurgeons in Sudan. In outpatient clinics and wards, I focused on sharing basic theories, principles and methods of modern neurosurgery concerning common and prevalent diseases in the area with local colleagues," Lu says.

He organized lectures, introducing local neurosurgeons to the latest knowledge and innovative technologies in modern neurosurgery. He helped local doctors save critically ill patients. In the face of extremely challenging environment and limited conditions, he successfully translated the second and third volumes of the book, Neurosurgery Practice Manual — Discourses of the Masters.

After the foreign medical aid work, a Sudanese neurosurgeon influenced by him came to Xi'an Jiaotong University to pursue a master's degree in medicine.