Photographs of a doctor holding a 102-year-old female patient in his arms and comforting her as she is given an anesthetic injection have gone viral.

The patient, born in 1914, who fractured her right femur when she fell down, was taken to the First Clinical Hospital affiliated to Harbin Medical University in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province on Dec 19.

Due to her age, medics could not administer general anesthesia, while lying on her side caused her pain, said Dong Yingwei, the anesthetist. On Dec 23, the hospital decided to give her a local anesthetic while she sat on the operating table.