[Photo provided to China Daily]

Sometimes when there are no patients, Dr Panda talks with friends about medical issues they have encountered. Sha Daidai, who is also called Er Shixiong because he looks like the pig monk Zhu Bajie (Er Shixiong) in the 16th-century novel Journey to the West, often asks questions, and Dr Panda dutifully supplies the answers.

The number of subscribers to the WeChat account has grown rapidly since the cartoons first went online in March, by about 10,000 a month, according to WeChat statistics.

"Reading Little Doctor Cartoons is one of the most enjoyable things for me in a day," says a reader surnamed Cao.

"The character illustrations are simple but really lifelike. Coupled with the humorous conversation, the cartoon makes dry, hard-to-understand medical information funny and easy to remember."

One of the most recent stories that was particularly popular was titled "A few things about appendicitis", posted on July 31, which has attracted more than 12,500 readers.