PRACTICE OF CHINESE MEDICINE IN CLASSICAL TIMES

Going back to classical times in China, practitioners of medicine were paid by results. A physician would be retained by a family and would be paid regularly while all the members of the family remained well and in good health. If one of them fell ill, however, payment would be stopped until the illness was resolved.

This seems to me to be a wonderful way to approach the practice of medicine and one that it would be good to try to emulate today.

It reminds me of a Chinese proverb:

“The superior doctor prevents sickness. The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness. The inferior doctor treats actual sickness.”