The core competitiveness of a medical institution lies in its doctors, and especially in those with both exceptional skills and a compassionate heart.
In mid-2018, Distinct Health’s full-time doctors first exceeded 100.
By the end of 2020, the number of full-time doctors at Distinct Health first exceeded 200.
Over the three years of the pandemic, despite facing tough times like many other industries and businesses, we still adhered to our original aspirations and moved forward steadily – in November 2023, the number of full-time doctors at Distinct Health first exceeded 300!
From 4 to 300
In 2012, when Distinct Health was first established, there were only two departments and 4 doctors:
Internal Medicine doctors Yan Zhu, Tao Pan, Tao Li;Pediatrician Ying Chen.
Before joining Distinct Health, they were all key talents in well-known public tertiary hospitals.
At that time, it was very sensational news for doctors to leave the system and go to the market, requiring great courage and often not being understood by others.
Yan Zhu is a co-founder of Distinct Health Healthcare and also the earliest doctor to join Distinct Health.
After nearly a year of consideration, he decided to resign from Peking Union Medical College Hospital and join Distinct Health despite various resistances.
He said that what truly touched him was the shared vision with the founding team; everyone hoped to start from the essence of medical care, truly patient-centered, and provide scarce high-quality medical services to the market, allowing both doctors and patients to get rid of the trouble of “waiting for 3 hours, seeing a doctor for 3 minutes”.
But leaving the system was just the beginning, how to complete the huge transformation from public to private was an even greater challenge.
The first clinic of Distinct Health was located in the Shenzhen Coastal City business district, and there was only one child patient visiting in the first three days of opening, which made Dr. Ying Chen, who just joined from a tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, feel uneasy and anxious. A few years later, in her retrospective article, she admitted:
“I was really a bit anxious,” Dr. Ying Chen’s way of dealing with anxiety was to face difficulties and actively seek solutions. She began to write popular science articles continuously, give lectures in postpartum care centers, and interact with fans on Weibo to answer questions. One fan interacted with her more than 600 times on Weibo before finally deciding to come to Distinct Health for a visit.
“It’s probably our efforts and intentions that touched everyone, and we survived,” Dr. Ying Chen recalled.
With the accumulation of customer reputation and a steady increase in customer volume, more and more excellent doctors chose to join Distinct Health, and Distinct Health’s business has gradually expanded from pediatrics and internal medicine at the beginning of its establishment to more than ten departments:
First Child Health Specialist Yin Ping (2013)
First Obstetrics and Gynecology Doctor Cheng Li (2014)
First Dermatologist Zhao Gang (2014)
First Dentist Qiu Jing (2015)
First Anesthesiologist Zhang Wenjun (2016)
First Otorhinolaryngologist Li Wenting (2017)
First Ophthalmologist Li Jin (2017)
First Aesthetic Medicine Doctor Luo Yaojia (2018)
……
In addition to treating patients, these excellent doctors are also actively involved in the academic construction of Distinct Health, establishing a medical quality management system that is in line with international standards and very strict.
To be the best
private doctor practice platform in China
Recruiting doctors has always been a pain point for all private medical institutions, and Distinct Health’s recruitment standards for doctors are particularly “strict”:
1. They must agree with the concept of “returning to the essence of medical care” and practice evidence-based medicine, truly being “patient-centered”.
2. Distinct Health has high requirements for the educational background and professional capabilities of doctors. They generally graduate from top domestic and foreign medical schools, such as Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Medical University, Sun Yat-sen University, West China Medical Center, Xiangya, Tongji, etc., and have many years of practice experience in well-known domestic and foreign medical institutions. More than a quarter of Distinct Health doctors have experience studying or working abroad.
3. Distinct Health requires doctors to have empathy, pay attention to the psychological needs of patients and their families, have a strong self-drive, continuously update knowledge, and maintain professional competitiveness…
It is precisely because of the persistence and strictness in the quality of doctor recruitment that Distinct Health doctors have not only won deep trust from patients but also formed a good reputation among peers.
Outstanding Distinct Health doctors win the recognition of patients, and in turn, patient recognition attracts more excellent doctors to join Distinct Health.
Distinct Health pediatrician Yue Yao worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada for 4 years before returning to China. He recalled that when he first visited Distinct Health, he was touched by the sincere smiles of the medical staff and the heartfelt trust of patients in doctors, so he accepted the job without hesitation.
To attract more excellent doctors,Distinct Health has made “becoming the preferred practice platform for doctors” one of its corporate visions, creating conditions for the growth and development of doctors from multiple perspectives such as corporate culture, development paths, training systems, and professional support.
There are many doctors like Dr. Yue Yao who choose to return to China from abroad to join Distinct Health. Taking Singapore as an example, obstetrician Chun Yang, pediatrician Qianqian Yang and Zheng Gao, surgeon Yi Luo, and general practitioner Fang Ruan have chosen to return to China to practice and join Distinct Health.
In their view, Distinct Health places great emphasis on the cultivation of clinical skills and has established a discipline system that can support the career development demands of young doctors.
The practice environment and atmosphere provided by Distinct Health also allow them to practice the concepts they learned in Singapore in China, allowing them to truly experience the sense of achievement of being a clinical doctor.
Since 2019, Distinct Health has launched an Internet hospital service, where doctors can not only provide high-quality medical services to patients in offline clinics but also use Distinct Health’s online platform to provide convenient services to patients, such as online consultations, video visits, a large amount of medical science popularization, drug delivery, online follow-up visits, etc.,breaking through the limitations of time and space, and truly achieving integrated online and offline medical services.
At present, the average monthly activity of doctors on Distinct Health’s online consultation platform is more than 400, and their entry threshold is also quite high. In addition to about 70% being full-time doctors of Distinct Health itself, there are also many excellent young and middle-aged doctors from well-known domestic and foreign medical institutions.
In order to enable more doctors to master the skills of internet diagnosis and treatment and maintain professional, high-quality consultation quality, Distinct Health continues to provide training for doctors on the online platform, including platform standards, consultation guidelines, online communication skills, etc.;
Before officially opening consultations, doctors will also undergo simulated case assessments;
After officially opening consultations, Distinct Health’s quality control team and the medical committee’s professional groups will continue to review consultation records and help doctors with quality control.
In the nearly 5 years since the launch of online medical services, the total number of consultations on Distinct Health’s online consultation platform has exceeded 600,000, with a high praise rate of 99%, and 72% of consultation users are repeat customers.
It can be said that both online and offline, Distinct Health is getting closer to the goal of becoming the best private doctor practice platform in China.
What is it like to be a Distinct Health doctor?
Changsha dentist Jingyu Wang, who has been with Distinct Health for 5 years, described it this way:
There is a phenomenon in nature where a plant grows short and monotonously when it grows alone, but it grows deep and vigorously when it grows with many similar plants.
People call this mutual influence and promotion phenomenon in the plant world “symbiosis effect”.
And in Distinct Health, there is also a “symbiosis effect”. Being with excellent people makes oneself better.
Distinct Health’s selection of employees, especially doctors, is almost strict, including but not limited to character, technology, communication, thinking, etc. Being with so many excellent partners, the consequence of peer pressure is to strive to make oneself better.
Chongqing Distinct Health ophthalmologist Qi Zhang, who has been with Distinct Health for a year and a half, lamented:
Every treatment plan for patients can withstand scrutiny with ample evidence-based evidence, without any subjective color and prejudice.
There are many medical institutions in China that can do this, butto do it so extremely, Distinct Health is indeed unique.
Yaojia Luo
As a doctor who joined Distinct Health during the initial stage of Ruiqing Aesthetics, she experienced and witnessed the process from 1 to the current 11.
She said:
Distinct Health respects the personal development wishes of doctors. Some doctors are capable and willing to explore broadly. As long as they are passionate and capable, Distinct Health will provide a platform for further education and learning.
Some doctors are like craftsmen, very focused, with their own areas of expertise, and Distinct Health will also provide a space for specialized clinics.
Being a doctor here, you feel that as long as you work hard, you can go far because the support behind you is strong.
Beijing Distinct Health pediatrician Lingkai Kong, looking back on the past two years, felt the most wasDistinct Health is doing the right medicine, and here you can “strive” with doctors who love to learn.
He thought he was quite a learner, always wanting to figure out what he didn’t understand, but after coming, he found that there were quite a few people at Distinct Health who were even more “striving” than him!
At the memorable moment when the number of full-time doctors exceeded 300,「Distinct Health Faces」column invited some doctor colleagues to write articles, sharing their stories with the profession of doctor, their stories with patients, and their stories with Distinct Health… Click on the picture below to view the latest article, through these articles, you may be able to understand Distinct Health and read Distinct Health more.
📝Attached historical articles, click on the title to view:
1. Dr. Yue Yao “From The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto to Distinct Health – My Second Revolutionary Change” (Published in August 2020)
2. Dr. Wenwen Zhang “We Keep Each Other in Mind at Distinct Health” (Published in November 2018)
3. Dr. Wang Ping “How Long is Twenty-Two Months?” (Published in October 2018)
4. Dr. Xiong Huijuan “Where is Happiness for Doctors?” (Published in October 2018)
5. Dr. Duan Xiaoxiao “I am No Longer the ‘Ascetic’ in This Journey of Being a Doctor” (Published in August 2018)
6. Dr. Li Shuang “With Sky and Sea, I Can Fly and Leap – My Three Years at Distinct Health” (Published in August 2018)
7. Dr. Yang Hanjun “I am Becoming Happier at Distinct Health” (Published in July 2018)
8. Dr. Chen Zhibin “From Emergency Medicine to General Practice” (Published in July 2018)
9. Dr. Che Ning “Be True to Myself, Embrace Change” (Published in July 2018)
10. Dr. Chun Yang “Three Years at Distinct Health, No Questions West or East” (Published in July 2018)
11. Dr. Yuan Quan “It Took Me Twenty Years to Become a Pediatrician in My Heart” (Published in July 2018)
12. Dr. Zhao Gang “I Found the Best State of Practicing Medicine at Distinct Health” (Published in July 2018)
13. Dr. Zhong Le “My Four Years at Distinct Health” (Published in June 2018)
14. Dr. Yin Ping The Choice Brings Different Excitement (Published in June 2018)
15. Dr. Ying Chen The Unregretful Years – Remembering My Six Years at Distinct Health (Published in June 2018)
16. Dr. Tao Li Distinct Health and I (Published in June 2018)
17. Dr. Yan Zhu “Don’t End Up Mediocre in the Continuous Pursuit of Excellence” (Published in June 2018)
18. Dr. Yu Jinquan “A Year Ago, I Submitted My Resignation Letter” (Published in December 2017)
19. Dr. Zhang Zengfang “Choosing Distinct Health, Seeing the Original Intention of a Doctor” (Published in August 2016)
