Visitors to Yang's clinic believe he will see them, anytime day or night. [Photo provided to China Daily]

However, Yang only visited the daughter in Wuhan once about two decades ago and he never paid a visit to Shanghai. Actually, he hasn't been to the county town for 23 years.

Wang has no complaint at all - she's very proud of her husband.

"In some cases, the patients who were brought here by stretchers finally can walk by themselves," says Wang, who studied medicine in a vocational school when she was young.

Despite Yang's reputation for treating rare and complicated illnesses, not all visitors go home with satisfactory results.

A man from the neighboring city Changde of Hunan province stood in line at the clinic for a whole day to ask Yang one question: "How can my bone hyperplasia be cured by having traditional Chinese medicine?"

Yang had no answer for it.

"I cannot do miracles. It is impossible to cure the disease. I simply told him to go back and do moderate exercise," Yang recalls.

"I am a TCM doctor and what I do is to figure out the nature of the disease. Then I can prescribe the proper herbs to deal with it. Only in this way, can the medicine be effective."

"While we have already sent some on-the-job doctors to most neighborhoods, we don't have one in Shaliwan. Yang's work is for sure helpful in an area short of medical services and supplies," says Qu Zhaohui, vice-director of the health center in Yangjiaotang town.

They have sent a pharmacist to help Yang, and as a result, the clinic serves as the health center's community-level section for outpatients in Shaliwan.

Yang was brought up in a family where he had witnessed his grandmother, a surgeon, practice medical ethics since he was young.

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