Synopsis

She helps tiny, palm-sized preemies hanging by a thread in incubators grow centimeter by centimeter, gram by gram. She acts as both their "mother" and their "womb"—she is Dr. Chiung-Hsin Hsu!

▁▁▁▁ A life story that brought the editorial team to tears and filled them with profound respect ▁▁▁▁

There is a group of tiny mountain climbers, measuring only twenty-something centimeters long and weighing just a few hundred grams. From the moment they are born, they must challenge the hyper-challenging peak of life. Under the protection of Dr. Chiung-Hsin Hsu and her medical team, these palm-sized preemies, who were once so close to heaven, have crossed the line between life and death, turning the "impossible" into "possible"!

▍In 1975, breaking through the barriers of the ivory tower of medicine, she became the first female pediatric resident at MacKay Memorial Hospital. For over 40 years, she has dedicated her whole heart to doing one thing—protecting premature babies!

Affectionately nicknamed "Auntie Hsu" by every preemie and family member, Dr. Hsu has just turned seventy, yet she has spent forty years—the greater part of her life—in pediatrics. She has personally "raised" nearly a thousand extremely low birth weight infants (birth weight under 1,500 grams).

In her graduating class of over a hundred medical students, only ten were women. She bravely broke through the male-dominated barriers of the medical hierarchy to become the first female pediatric physician at MacKay Memorial Hospital, and later served as the first dedicated attending physician in Taiwan's very first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

▍If you ask what the most important assets in Chiung-Hsin Hsu's life are?

Her answer is the endless stories of saving her tiny patients.

• Using Viagra to save a young boy from the severe trauma of amputation.

• Performing red blood cell washing to help a 600-gram baby undergo a "blood transfusion."

• Tracking and observing a four-year-old child's bowel movements by reviewing bowel photos for an entire year.

• Just because of a parent's word, she followed ancient customs to accept godchildren, becoming a godmother to many children.

• To allow parents to seek help at any time, she became a "24-hour physician"...

▍Being a family member of a victim of the 228 Incident and suffering the personal agony of losing her own child... she determinedly carries these wounds that will never heal to accompany every preemie and family through the most difficult trials.

Before the third grade of elementary school, Dr. Hsu's name was "Lin Chiung-Hsin." One morning on his way to work, her father was taken away by an unidentified vehicle and was never seen by his wife and children again. At that time, Chiung-Hsin Hsu was just over a year old. At a tender age, she had to be raised by her maternal uncle and changed her surname. It wasn't until her eldest aunt passed away that the woman she always called "aunt"—who was actually her biological mother—brought her north to enter another unfamiliar family.

While Chiung-Hsin Hsu was pouring her heart into caring for the newborns at MacKay, her eldest daughter passed away from a brain tumor. From the onset of her daughter's illness to her passing, Dr. Hsu took only sixteen days of leave.

"I use my own experience to tell them that even if you lose a child, the story doesn't end." Facing every difficult trial in life, she chooses the bravest perseverance and selfless dedication to accompany every palm-sized preemie and their families.

Acclaim from All Walks of Life

She always exhausts her heart, physical strength, and time. It makes one wonder, how can she give so much for so long? — Lien Jiang-feng (Former Vice Superintendent of Taipei Veterans General Hospital)

She delivers love and care to where it is needed most, allowing patients to experience God's love as well. — Chen Chih-ping (Vice Superintendent of MacKay Memorial Hospital, Chairman of the Premature Baby Foundation)

Dr. Hsu is the benefactor who accompanied us through the darkest hours of our lives, and moreover, the "reborn mother" to countless premature babies in Taiwan! — Hsu Wen-hung (COO of WT Microelectronics Group)

To her, "putting patients first" is her primary mission, and she never complains of fatigue. — Huang Fu-yuan (Former Deputy Minister of the Department of Health, Honorary Consultant Physician of MacKay Children's Hospital)

Over the past few decades, Dr. Hsu has healed not only the lives of premature babies in Taiwan, but also the lives of countless families. — Huang Chao-ying (Chief Marketing Officer of KKday and Global Vice President of the Northeast Asia Center)

It turns out there really is such a group of people in the world silently dedicating themselves, truly achieving the ideal of "rather burn out than rust out." — Feng Cui-zhen (Assistant Professor of the Department of Chinese Literature, Chinese Culture University)

A pioneer leaves behind footprints along the path so that future learners, following this spiritual map, can avoid detours and make it all the way to the summit. — Yang Yu-cheng (Former Superintendent of MacKay Memorial Hospital, Chairman of the Taiwan Hospice Care Foundation)

Dr. Chiung-Hsin Hsu is absolutely the most admirable, highly skilled, and ethically flawless physician among physicians I have ever known. — Liu Chien-liang (Superintendent of MacKay Memorial Hospital)

If premature babies are palm-sized fairies, then Dr. Hsu is the "fairy of the palm-sized fairies," the fairy godmother of these tiny feet. — Hsiao Tung-wen (Versatile Media Personality, UFO Radio Program Host)

About the Authors

Oral Account by Chiung-Hsin Hsu

Graduated from the Department of Medicine at Kaohsiung Medical College (now Kaohsiung Medical University) in 1974. Of the more than one hundred medical students that year, only ten were women. After stepping into her hospital internship, she went from "feeling that pediatrics was too close to death" to realizing "as long as you know where the problem is, you can save the child," deciding to make neonatal medicine her lifelong calling.

She was the first female pediatric resident at MacKay Memorial Hospital and has spent more than half her life in pediatrics. When Taiwan's first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit—the MacKay NICU—was established, she served as the NICU Director from 2001 to 2009, setting out to fully upgrade the quality of neonatal medical care at MacKay Hospital, and became the first dedicated attending physician in 2006.

With over forty years of clinical experience, she is known as a "walking textbook." She is always able to precisely and swiftly diagnose clinical cases and is regarded by neonatologists as the ultimate attending physician for clinical teaching. She previously served as a senior attending physician at MacKay Children's Hospital; after retirement, she continued as a part-time attending physician at MacKay Children's Hospital, and currently serves as the President of the Taiwan Society of Neonatology and a Board Member of the Premature Baby Foundation.

Written by Hsiu-Hui Sun

Former Executive Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Business Weekly, Editor-in-Chief of alive, and Dean of the Business Weekly Academy. She is currently a specially appointed chief writer for the editorial department of Business Weekly. Her translated works include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 走出藍色幽谷──告別憂鬱症 (Leaving the Blue Valley: Saying Goodbye to Depression), and Peak Performance, among others. She is also the author of Falling Down on the Travel Map.