Rural doctor offers a helping hand in Guangxi

Dressed in bright red clothes plus a blue uniform jacket, Pan Jiping slung her medical kit over one shoulder before embarking on a home visit as usual.

Pan, 57, is a rural doctor of the Red Yao ethnic group in Xiaozhai Village of Longsheng County, in the city of Guilin, Guangxi. Living in the mountainous area in Guilin, the ethnic group is renowned for its distinctive red clothes.

More than 1,200 residents live in the hamlet, which nestles snugly at the foot of a mountain at an altitude of 1,900 meters. Before the mountain paths were paved, locals were not willing to see a doctor unless their healthy conditions became too critical.

"Villagers in the mountains lack doctors due to inconvenient transportation infrastructure, so I decided to be a doctor," Pan said. Over the past 31 years, she is there whenever people need her - day or night.

Currently, improved healthcare makes it easier for people to seek medical help if they don't feel good. As a contract family doctor of the village, Pan travels door to door to answer her patients' calls and registers health records of the villagers.

"Helping those in need is what I want to do in my entire life," she said.