Recently, at the commendation meeting of the "Anti-Epidemic Heroes" held at the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of TCM, 66-year-old Huang Xiaomin was greeted with a flood of applause and his humorous icebreaker speech drew hearty laughter from the audience.

Huang Xiaomin is the former director of the emergency department of Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of TCM. On Feb 20, he was dispatched to Wuhan from Hangzhou to join the "Severe Treatment of TCM Experts Group" established by the National Health and Health Commission to carry out the joint inspection of Chinese and Western medicine for severe cases. On March 20, he returned back to Hangzhou safe and sound.

Worked as a doctor for more than 40 years, Huang has fought many "battles": participated in a supportive team to Africa in 1995; fought against SARS in 2003; rescued victims in the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. 

After arriving in Wuhan, his daily work is to cooperate with western medicine experts, identifying critically ill patients in the isolation wards in the designated hospital. It is his duty to promote possible integrated treatment of Chinese and Western medicine and make every effort to improve the success rate while the mortality rate is reduced.

As the integrated treatment of Chinese and Western medicine plays an important role amid this epidemic, more and more people give credit to the traditional Chinese medicine, for which Huang Xiaomin is deeply gratified.

April 24 was an unforgettable day for Huang Xiaomin in that there is a piece of exciting news from Wuhan: as the last serious case of COVID-19 cured, Wuhan wiped clean all the severe cases! After waiting for such a long time, he finally got the exciting news.

During 28 days in Wuhan, Huang Xiaomin was too busy to meet with his comrades from Zhejiang. He was shocked yet sad later to see his young comrades became thin and pallid with white hair growing.

In addition to the medical staff, there are volunteers from all walks of life who provide assistance, and he is deeply moved by them. During isolation in Anji, he received a special photo.

It was a picture of a farmer who had helped Huang and his colleagues when they were in Wuhan.

On April 20, Huang returned to his normal work. The patients were very excited to see him and crowned him as a hero. Yet Huang believes that he has just done his duty as a medical worker.

"It's great to be a doctor," said Huang Xiaomin. To help patients recover from illness is the happiest thing for him in this world.

(Compiled by Xu Yuhong)