This article was written by Shi Huanzhong
In the past week, I have read about 75% of the first, second, and third volumes of the novel “The White Tower” published in 1963 by Japanese female author Toyoko Yamazaki.
Except for the fact that the writer is a layman and inevitably exaggerates certain events, such as the importance of international conferences, the role of daily medical details, the role of authority, etc., the novel as a whole is documentary , 1 million words of plain description can make people have the desire to read it in one breath.
Through this book, I learned that the Japanese medical community in the late 1950s/early 1960s had many similarities with what we heard about not too long ago.
Japan’s young doctors are the main force in the hospital, and their income is extremely humble. From unpaid to paid residents, assistants, lecturers and associate professors, they are fighting for their lives.
Associate professors can hardly rely solely on academic excellence or medical excellence in order to secure a professorship. In the whole process of the game of life and death, the creed of “do things first and then be a man” is no worse than ours.
On our side, if a leader who has a strong voice is bought with a lot of money to successfully pass the test, they must buy most of the members of the “Professor Committee” of the hospital.
Associate Professor Shimae Goro, First Department of Naniwa University Affiliated Hospital, in order to win the professorship, the price of each affirmative vote increased from 70,000 yen to the final transaction price of 100,000 yen .
Later, Professor Chai Qian, who bought the professor, promised the dean a budget of 2 million yen in order to get a position like president of a local medical branch, not including 1 million yen to cover the expenses of students going out to pray. Note that this is the price of 60 years ago, and I don’t know what the daily medical market has risen to today.
In addition to seeing the life-threatening struggle between Japanese professors, I also saw that professors and associate professors routinely receive drug rebates, patient red envelopes, special consultation fees, and drug dealers or device manufacturers. gifts, meals, and sexual bribes.
During a lawsuit involving a doctor-patient dispute, the hospital formed a team to intimidate the witnesses in the hospital, colluded together to give false testimony, and bought off the patient’s witnesses. It looked so familiar.
All in all, the occasional chaos we’ve seen and heard is no less common in the early ’60s in Japan in The White Tower. It would have been impossible to get research funding without the Shantou brothers touting each other and looking after each other. The bosses who control these resources can take the funds as gifts to people on the same boat, or exchange them for commodities such as votes.
Most of the doctors in “The White Tower” are ordinary doctors living within the high walls of the feudal White Tower. They are generally indifferent and cruel, struggling to survive, and when necessary, they can Mutual harm without hesitation.
There are only two honest and kind-hearted doctors who are devoted to the medical career, one is Associate Professor Shuji Satomi of the First Department of Internal Medicine, and the other is Professor Kawachi of Pathology who looks like the “Great Buddha of Nara” . The former was kicked out of the University Hospital for insisting on giving testimony against Chai Qian in court.
July 25, 2021
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