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Can Doctors Take On Multiple Roles?

Medical practitioners argued that doctors could take on part-time work elsewhere

By Zhang Qingchen Updated Mar.20

Recently Hu Yiwen, a doctor at a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province, was sacked due to taking on part-time jobs outside his full-time public hospital post. But some medical practitioners and officials argued that doctors could be allowed to do part-time work at multiple hospitals.　　

Wang Zhibiao, a professor at Chongqing Medical University, noted that hospitals should gradually simplify the formalities to open up the possibility of part-time medical jobs.　

A similar idea that doctors could take on multiple roles was also supported by Luo Guangwei, another doctor, who works in Wuhan First Hospital. Yet Luo stressed that doctors should register these part-time roles and put them on record with their full-time hospitals because otherwise they might disrupt the work schedule. As Huo Yong, a doctor at Peking University First Hospital, said, doctors who take multiple jobs in the  private sectors have to find a balance with the relationship with their full-time hospitals.　　

Huo added doctors could integrate medical resources, in a similar fashion to how lawyers cooperate in a law office, to establish groups for medical treatment or communication, improve the quality of medical service in private hospitals, exchange medical knowledge and make full use of the medical resources in different hospitals.　　

Zhang Zongjiu, director of the Bureau of Medical Administration under China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, responded that the government has introduced the new regulation, implemented from April 1, to encourage licensed doctors to work in multiple hospitals.