Xu Jin checks carefully the medical records booklet while answering the phone. [Photo/Song Jingyi]

However, the pressure of working long and hard and always interacting with patients has made Xu suffer from hyperthyroidism and a chronic sore throat for several years. "More than one third of colleagues in our department are also afflicted with similar illness," Xu says.

Our 2.5-hour interview is interrupted eight times by patients. Almost every time Xu explains to the patients our interview mission and then unhurriedly and carefully works on the patients, although some of them just drop by to ask him some trivial details.

Destined to become an ER doctor

Xu was born in a medical family in Sichuan province. Under the influence of his grandfather and father, Xu chose his medical specialty without hesitation. "From the moment I put down "medical specialty" on my college application card, my life as a doctor was destined," Xu recalls.

After graduation from West China University of Medical Sciences after five years of medical studies, Xu worked as an intern at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

"It's the most tiring period in my whole life, being an intern, when I worked for 24 hours a day and learned the theory part the next day, with no rest at all."

Asked if he regrets his choice to be a doctor, he emphatically replies, "Certainly not."

The emergency room is a well-orchestrated place, although it sometimes looks like coordinated chaos.

"It's like a dance with a lot of adrenalin. Everyone has their steps they must do to make it all work," Xu says.