After about six months in the village, her husband was transferred to the city of Xingyi, the seat of the prefecture, 80 kilometers from the village. Staying in the village alone was out of the question, Zhong says. However, there were others who were tugging at her heartstrings-the patients whose trust she had worked so hard to win.

"Soon some were coming in unsolicited to settle unpaid bills, and many invited me to their homes for meals."

Local villagers' obvious sadness at the prospect of seeing her leave prompted her to put a proposal to her husband.

"I would stay for six months and see how things work out," she says.

Zhong says she vividly remembers the day after her husband left.

"Many villagers waited outside my house early in the morning. They had prepared rice, chicken and vegetables as gifts, hoping to persuade me to stay."

The following six months turned out to be mutually therapeutic; Zhong helped soothe the villagers' pain while they warmed her to the core.

"They left food at my clinic and kept me company when I was distributing medication door to door," Zhong says.

She was especially touched when she learned an 87-year-old villager often thought of her in her last few days.

"That rarely happens in big hospitals. The relationship between villagers and doctors here is more like a family," she says.

When Zhong's husband visited her and saw the care the patients were giving her, he gave full support to her decision to keep practicing medicine in the village.