accompanied the teacher, as the name suggests, it means accompanying the patient to the hospital for treatment.
In the second-tier city where the accompanying clinician Zhao Kai is located, the price of a day of accompanying clinic is 200 to 400 yuan. The cost of accompanying medical treatment in first-tier cities ranges from 400 to 600 yuan per day. This career does not require too many skills, as long as you have enough time. It is for this reason that they are called "time traffickers."
In the past two years, Zhao Kai has accompanied the client to more than 600 times. He appreciates a saying: "The greatest value of medicine is not to cure diseases, but to comfort and help patients." Zhao Kai believes that this is the meaning of accompanying the clinic.
text × Lin Yue
edit × Conan
It was past 7 o'clock in the morning, and Zhao Kai stood outside the gate before many departments of the hospital opened the clinic. He is not a doctor, but he knows all the departments of this hospital well; he is not a patient, but he is no less worried than patients.
For more than two years, Zhao Kai has been to the same hospital almost every day. This Grade A hospital, , opened at 8 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m., with more than 3,000 outpatient visits per day. Throughout the day, all kinds of patients will come in one after another, and they will see a doctor, check up, and buy medicine to worry about their own health.
There are more than 450 chief physicians and deputy chief physicians in this hospital. In the past two years, in order to facilitate patients' treatment, the hospital digitized many medical treatment processes. But while digitalization brings convenience, it also makes many elderly people and some patients from rural areas confused.
In fact, even young people don’t deal with the hospital often, they will be confused by the process when they go to the hospital. It is this cumbersome procedure that brings business opportunities to the accompanying clinicians.
During the consultation period, Zhao Kai not only had to queue up for the patients, register, buy medicine, get results, buy food, pay fees, convey medical advice, etc., but sometimes he had to chat, eat, take a walk... The meticulous companionship is more attentive than the families of some patients.
However, many people do not understand the work of accompanying clinicians. Zhao Kai said: "Everyone thinks we are scalpers and want to buy an expert account with me. As soon as I refuse, people say that they can't even hang up an expert account, so why should I do a medical consultation?"
"comfort and help"
Zhao Kai is 31 years old this year, 1.75 meters tall and weighs nearly 80 kilograms. He was a little myopic and his eyes were always squinting when he was not wearing glasses. Fortunately, he does not have hair loss . His fat body and a baby face make him feel a natural sense of intimacy.
Before becoming a clinician, Zhao Kai was a gym salesman. His daily job was to wander around the store and say to everyone: "Hello, please swim and exercise."
At that time, Zhao Kai didn't go to work at 10 am every day, but since he became a clinician, he had to get up at five or six in the morning. Fortunately, he lives in a provincial capital city and does not have to take the particularly crowded subway like many office workers in first-tier cities.
Most of the time, his travel tool is shared electric car . Only when he is particularly anxious will he call an online car-hailing car.
On the way to the hospital, Zhao Kai would always buy a pancake fruit on the street for breakfast, and eat while riding a bike.
Although the road was not congested when you went out in the morning, Zhao Kai still rushed to a time and often ran the car to a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour. He said that accompanying the clinic is a race against time.
The reason why I was in a hurry is because this hospital opened a clinic at 8 a.m., and he wanted to be ahead so that the accompanying patients could see the doctor as soon as possible.
The hospital that Zhao Kai often goes to is the best comprehensive hospital in the local area. The patients received here every day include people from the city and province, as well as patients who come from surrounding provinces.
Hospitals are always overcrowded, which also brings business opportunities to accompanying clinicians.Photography: Lin Yue
But for such a long time, no matter how early he went, he never ranked first. Every time I arrive at the hospital, there are always a long queue at the registration window. The floors of famous doctors or experts are already blocked.
Zhao Kai, who has been a clinician for more than two years, is no wonder about this, but those waiting patients all looked worried.
Among them, some people don’t know how to use self-service equipment, some people can’t find the floor for treatment, some people can’t understand the examination form, and some people don’t even know...
Although the hospital also has a medical guide station, there are always many people there. There are also some patients who, even if the staff told them all the procedures in detail, were blinded as soon as they left the medical guidance desk. The obscured state of
is almost accompanied by the entire medical treatment process. Especially when it comes to self-service equipment, many elderly people cannot operate it at all.
"Now registration, payment, medical records, and lighting are all operated on the machine." An elderly patient said that they don't know how to do it. Sometimes because of vision problems, they can't even see the screen clearly. When they stay in front of the self-service equipment for a long time, the people behind them will still be impatient.
In fact, the hospital where Zhao Kai often goes to specially sends people to guard the self-service equipment, with the purpose of helping people who can't operate it. But sometimes there are too many patients and the staff are too busy.
In addition to not being able to operate the equipment, more patients do not know what to do next when facing the checklists issued by the doctor.
For example, if the transmission photo examination is just for DR, CT, nuclear magnetic field, B ultrasound , etc., ordinary patients can hardly understand it. Zhao Kai had no idea about these before, and he did not understand them slowly after becoming a escort.
Sometimes, many patients have an argument with the doctor because they can't understand the examination items. The most common thing is that many people cannot distinguish between "ECG" and " dynamic electrocardiogram ". The conventional electrocardiogram of
is to produce the results immediately after the examination, and the whole process is only a few minutes; the "dynamic electrocardiogram" is to wear a dynamic box on the patient, monitor it continuously for at least 24 hours, sometimes it takes longer.
But many people think that the two are the same thing, and then after queuing in the "ECG" team for a long time, they finally found that they were standing in the wrong place.
Therefore, Zhao Kai often hears quarrels between patients and doctors: "Aren't you writing an electrocardiogram?" "This is a dynamic electrocardiogram, not an electrocardiogram." "You all say it's an electrocardiogram, and you also say it's not an electrocardiogram." Both doctors and patients were speechless about this.
Many people are always confused when facing the process of the hospital. Photography: Lin Yue
Every time I see this kind of argument in the hospital, Zhao Kai will take the initiative to come forward and take the patient to the right department.
After a long time, the doctors have also known Zhao Kai. Occasionally, when the two sides are arguing, the doctor will shout, "Whether Xiao Zhao is here or not, please take him over."
When Zhao Kai comes into contact with the patient pushed by the doctor, he will take the initiative to hand over a business card and explain that he is a paid accompanying doctor. "200 yuan a day, 400 yuan a day." Zhao Kai said that every half day is calculated in 4 hours. If it ends early, it is also charged for the full period, but every hour exceeds one hour, an additional 50 to 100 yuan will be charged.
Most people can still accept it after hearing about paid accompanying patients. But some people see it as colluding with the hospital in interests and turning around and throwing the business card into the trash can. He has seen his business card in the toilet trash can more than once.
Zhao Kai admitted that this kind of doubt is normal. But he emphasized that he and the hospital do not involve each other's interests. At most, they help doctors move equipment and nurses get express delivery. "All aspects of accompanying the clinic are also human nature." Because, the hospital he often goes to, and there are many accompanying clinicians, everyone is trying to maintain a good relationship with the hospital, at least they cannot be kicked out by the security guard.
Of course, while maintaining a good relationship with the hospital, Zhao Kai thought more about how to serve patients well.
Every time before accompanying the patient, he would go to the hospital in advance based on the patient's condition and remind the patient what he needs to prepare, and then plan the time and try to complete the accompanying patient as efficiently as possible.
After arriving at the hospital, except for where the patient must appear, Zhao Kai will ask the patient to wait in one place, and he will complete all the remaining processes.
In order to facilitate patients, Zhao Kai often puts power banks, masks, umbrellas, toilet paper, reading glasses, etc. in his backpack. He also brought hand warmers to patients in winter and fans to patients in summer, which is even more close than the patients' relatives.
Zhao Kai didn't think there was anything wrong with this meticulousness. He appreciates a saying: "The greatest value of medicine is not to cure diseases, but to comfort and help patients." Zhao Kai believes that this is the meaning of accompanying the clinic.
"They just don't want to go to see a doctor alone"
After more than two years, Zhao Kai has been with customers for more than 600 times. These customers have very concentrated characteristics, usually elderly people whose children are not around, pregnant women and mothers whose husbands rarely accompany them, and young people living alone in the city. Each of them showed a little bit of powerlessness when they went to the hospital.
Zhao Kai's most business is the order placed by children from other places for their parents, especially in the past two years, such accompanying patients have become more common.
The elderly man waiting for treatment alone in the hospital. Photography: Lin Yue
Earlier this year, Zhao Kai took a order from another place. The person who placed the order was named Tian Feng, who is 39 years old and has only a son and works in another place. A few years ago, after his mother passed away, his father was unwilling to live with him in another place, so he stayed in his hometown alone.
During that time, because the local epidemic was serious, Tian Feng could not rush back to his hometown. Coincidentally, his father always said he was chest tightness and dizzy, and his symptoms did not improve after visiting the township health center and hospital in county hospitals.
Tian Feng originally wanted his relatives to take his father to the provincial capital for inspection, but his relatives said they couldn't spare time. His father has been farming at home and although he can use his smartphone now, he will not even take the bus or subway if he goes to the city.
Later, when Tian Feng searched for a co-author in his hometown on a short video platform, he finally chose Zhao Kai. At that time, Tian Feng estimated that it would take one day, so he paid a deposit of 200.
After everything was ready, Tian Feng knew that his father was afraid of spending money, so he asked Zhao Kai to cooperate with him in acting, saying that the two were friends, and Zhao Kai was purely helping. In fact, Zhao Kai often encounters such kind-hearted lies, and he never exposes them. After discussing with
, Tian Feng checked out the account online and sent the screenshot to Zhao Kai. On the morning of the departure, he called his father an online car-hailing service, and the destination was set up as the hospital, and Zhao Kai was waiting at the entrance of the hospital.
What Zhao Kai did not expect was that Tian’s father was afraid of wasting his time on his "friend" Zhao Kai, so he brought him two bottles of honey to express his gratitude.
Accompanied by Zhao Kai, the old man's examination went smoothly. Zhao Kai asked him to sit in the waiting area and not move around, and completed the remaining process by himself. Fortunately, the old man was not in serious condition. After the doctor prescribed the medicine, Zhao Kai sent him home.
Tian Feng was very satisfied with the whole process and finally insisted on paying him 100 yuan more.
Zhao Kai said that he often encounters situations like Tian Feng’s father, and this has become a social problem.
At present, about 190 million elderly people in China suffer from chronic diseases. Many elderly people need to go to the hospital for regular medical treatment, change of medicine, etc., but because their children are not around, more than 70% of the elderly people need to seek medical treatment alone. When they face various instruments and complex processes in the hospital, they are mostly panicked.
With a escort like Zhao Kai, this problem has indeed been alleviated to a certain extent.
Sometimes, if a familiar customer is inconvenient to come to the city for treatment, he will directly ask Zhao Kai to see the doctor and then open the video for consultation. Then, Zhao Kai sent the medicines there.
But Zhao Kai doesn’t take orders from all the elderly. If the other party is too old or has difficulty moving, he will consider it carefully. Unless accompanied by family members, they are generally not accepted.
Compared with the warm lies of children towards the elderly, what Zhao Kai cannot understand is the husbands who often cannot accompany pregnant mothers.
Some of these men have no choice but to work in other places, but many of them are still local. As for the reasons why he could not be with him, he didn't know and the client didn't want to say it.
In Zhao Kai's mind, he actually didn't want to accept such accompaniment. Because many pregnant mothers' examinations involve privacy, some doctors' advice are not too embarrassed to say it.
But he found that most pregnant mothers don’t care about this, and some even suggested that they must be accompanied by men.
"I think women are more sensitive at this time. Maybe they want a man to accompany them, just want a sense of security." Zhao Kai claimed that more than once when he was accompanying them, a mother cried and said to him: "My husband is half as careful as you, so I'm satisfied."
In the early days, Zhao Kai would take some strange orders - some girls placed orders and asked him to accompany them to have an abortion. Because this kind of order is high, about 800 yuan per time, Zhao Kai does not want to refuse.
However, Zhao Kai generally does not allow girls to choose public hospitals, but goes to private hospitals. Then, he often impersonates a girl's boyfriend or relative to sign the list.
Because there are great risks in this kind of accompanying diagnosis, Zhao Kai dares not answer now. He also heard that in the circle, someone in the circle was eventually beaten by the girl's boyfriend after she was aborted.
Many accompanying clinicians line up for patients. Photography: Lin Yue
In fact, Zhao Kai’s favorite list is to accompany young people, especially those living alone. These people were asked to accompany Zhao Kai to treat them. Many times they didn’t have any serious illnesses, but just took wisdom teeth and , had physical examinations, or common headaches and fevers.
This kind of accompanying the patient is very simple. Most of the time, Zhao Kai just accompanied the customer to the hospital for infusion, and then went out to buy a bottle of water, food, etc. The charge was the same as accompanying the elderly.
Looking at such a lonely young man, Zhao Kai is also very complicated in his mind. From these people, he saw more of loneliness and alienation: "They just don't want to go to the doctor alone."
"I met a boy who just graduated. In order to accompany the client, he drank alcohol until his stomach bleeding." Zhao Kai said that his friend called him a doctor. He looked at the boy lying on the bed, as if he saw what he had just graduated.
After the boy recovered, Zhao Kai asked him why he lived alone. The boy said that he had nothing yet and had long been used to living alone and did not want to be disturbed.
The number of single people in China last year was about 92 million. These people usually look free and comfortable, but they still feel vulnerable when they encounter problems.
When accompanying these young people, Zhao Kai was often amused and crying. Because now many people don’t go to the hospital when they get sick, but search online for medical treatment first.
"When you see a doctor online, you start with cancer." Chen Kai said that many people just feel uncomfortable in the stomach. After checking online, they thought they had gastric cancer , and some people had itchy skin, and they didn't think they had skin cancer .
Some people feel that they will die soon, and they cry to Zhao Kai about his "life", and even wrote down their last words and asked him to hand them over to his family in the future.
When they went to the hospital for examination and found that it was just a minor problem, they would sigh and say, "Damn, it's great to live."
Zhao Kai also saw the various aspects of life in these repeated consultations.
"The best life looks"
Zhao Kai's hometown is in a rural area of Hebei. After graduating from college, he has never had a fixed job. He has worked in real estate sales, couriers, Amway sales, and gym sales.
Although these tasks have not been done for a long time, Zhao Kai's social skills have been trained. His understanding of the accompanying clinician was due to his own hospitalization experience in the first half of 2020.
At that time, Zhao Kai was injured in the ankle joint while playing football. During the hospitalization, he found a young man in the bed next door. At first, no one was taken care of, but then suddenly a young man came running around for him.
At first, Zhao Kai thought the two were friends, but later, he learned that the young man was paid to accompany him. At that time, he thought this industry was good, and he almost didn't have to invest in the cost, as long as he had time.
Replacement report is also the service scope of the accompanying clinicians. Photography: Lin Yue
However, after he was interested in entering the industry, he didn't know how to join, so he searched for a doctor on the short video platform, and a lot of content popped up. Among them, there are many people who claim to be mentors, claiming to recruit students.
After some comparison, Zhao Kai contacted a tutor in the south, and the other party said that he didn't have to attend classes at all, just pay 1,500 yuan in textbook fees. Among them, 500 yuan is written information, and 1,000 yuan is video information.
At first, Zhao Kai was worried about being cheated, but thought that he would lose at most 1,500 yuan, so he transferred the money. The instructor quickly sent the information.
These materials are not complicated. In addition to how to be a counselor, they are about attracting customers and operating order-taking accounts.
Zhao Kai only took two days to read all the information. At that time, he didn't have an ideal job, so he decided to work as a escort.
Although it didn't take long to read the information, Zhao Kai spent more than two months in order to find out the situation in the hospital. He almost visited the hospitals of all sizes and sizes of his city and focused on two hospitals.
"One is the best comprehensive hospital here, and the other is an orthopedic hospital." Zhao Kai said that according to his observation, these two hospitals have the most patients, and they are crowded almost every day.
In order to check out the spots, he went to the two hospitals almost every day during that time, looking at them one by one, and recording them one by one. Finally, he was not only familiar with various departments, but also knew every toilet, fire exit, and parking lot location.
worried that the security guard would drive him away, so he bought cigarettes for the security guard every few days and said, either calling me brother or uncle. Before the official start of construction of
, he also took a lot of empty shots in the hospital, and then accompanied it with copywriting that creates emotions and anxiety, and sent it to the short video platform for the purpose of accepting orders. For example: "What should I do if my parents are sick and I can't come back from the epidemic?" Of course I will accompany you in the treatment! 》, "How can one go to the hospital alone? You don’t have a partner but you have me.”
patient in the hospital. Photography: Lin Yue
The first order he received was a young couple taking their children to the provincial capital for medical treatment. At that time, the little girl had acute lymphocytic leukemia , and Zhao Kai accompanied them for examination and hospitalization.
Although it was a little nervous for the first time, Zhao Kai did not reveal any flaws in the face of the patient's family who was even more nervous than him.
Slowly, as more and more orders were received, he gradually became confident.
Now, Zhao Kai's order acceptance channels are divided into online and offline. Online relies on short videos and e-commerce platforms, and offline relies mainly on patients, acquaintances, doctors and hospitals.
After more than a year of entering the industry, Zhao Kai already had his own small team. At present, his girlfriend is responsible for recruiting and receiving orders online, while Zhao Kai often hangs out in the hospital to open up the offline market and personally accompany him to the hospital.
However, most of Zhao Kai's team members work part-time, and he draws 30%-50% of the fee per order.
At the same time, Zhao Kai also explored a fixed workflow. Usually, if you want to find a doctor, you have to make an appointment two or three days in advance. When the appointment is completed and the connection begins, they will remind you to register first.
"If you don't register, we can assist in registering, but we don't register because we are not scalpers, and we can't post an expert account that customers can't post, so we basically can't post it." Zhao Kai said that scalpers often ask for cooperation with him, but he refused. "There is nothing special in this industry, and it can't even go to the line. I often queue up for patients for a few hours."
Before accompanying the doctor, Zhao Kai had to ask the patient whether it was the first time to visit the doctor or the re-examination, and the appointment to make an appointment to get the medicine or the examination. There is another rule in the industry that you must collect a deposit first, because many customers are often swaying. As soon as the deposit is paid, both parties will start signing a entrusted accompanying contract and confidentiality agreement . The reason why
signed the agreement was that Zhao Kai said that it was mainly to avoid some responsibilities: "What if an accident occurs during the accompanying consultation?" After working on
for more than two years, Zhao Kai felt that this job is not easy to do now. Due to online promotion reasons, the accompanying clinicians are being paid more and more attention, and more and more people are entering the industry. There are often news in the media that the accompanying clinicians have a monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan.
"In big cities, it may be more than 10,000 yuan, but it is difficult for second- and third-tier cities." Zhao Kai said that because the threshold for attending a clinicians is too low, the quality of personnel is uneven, and the market is generally very chaotic. Everyone is fighting a price war, resulting in the cost of attending a clinic: "This industry has a not very high-end income, and it is just enough to make a living."
Just after the attending a clinician became popular, its surrounding business also improved. The "selling classes" that Zhao Kai encountered when he first entered the industry was one of them. In fact, those courses are similar, but after being packaged as "Bible", the course business has skyrocketed.
Zhao Kai also processed the courses he had bought and sold them repeatedly for 2,000 yuan per set.
In addition, before the accompanying clinicians entered the "National Occupational Classification Ceremony (2022 Edition)", some companies have begun the "accompanying clinician certificate" business. The admission brochure of an institution shows that they divided the accompanying physicians into three levels: assistant accompanying physicians, accompanying physicians and senior accompanying physicians, with the corresponding tuition fees of 3,800 yuan, 6,800 yuan and 9,800 yuan respectively.
"There are 5 unified examinations every year, in April, June, August, October and December respectively." The institution staff said, "The examination courses include professional courses, public courses and English."
Zhao Kai didn't care about this. He said that no one who really enters the industry buys a certificate: "Just do it seriously. If you do it carefully, it is called a 'patient', and if you don't care, it is called a 'patient'."
Accompaniment and care are two completely different services. Photography: Lin Yue
talked about which customer affected him the most after entering the industry. Zhao Kai said that he was the first little girl who suffered from leukemia .
He said that shortly after the service, he saw the girl's father forwarding the fundraising link in his circle of friends. A few days later, the girl's father posted on WeChat Moments and said, "My daughter has turned into an angel and will no longer be sick."
Every time I think of this girl, Zhao Kai feels a little conflicted. On the one hand, he wants to take more orders, and on the other hand, he hopes that everyone will be safe and healthy: "When everyone no longer needs a doctor, it is the best way to live."
(At the request of the interviewee, all the characters involved in the article are pseudonyms)
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