Taiwan's top hospital confronts staffing gaps with viral video
TAIPEI (TVBS News) — What happens when a doctor's life depends on the students he trained? For Chen Jin-Shing (陳晉興), Taiwan's leading lung cancer surgeon, the answer arrived on a tennis court in February 2023, and it has since become the centerpiece of his hospital's recruitment campaign.
National Taiwan University Hospital (台大醫院), the island's premier medical institution, released a recruitment video on Thursday (Oct. 1) featuring a near-death experience that illustrates its philosophy on medical education. The video targets 18 resident physician positions in the surgery and emergency medicine departments. Applications closed Sunday (Oct. 6).
What happened on the tennis court
The incident occurred on NTUH's campus. Chen, now deputy superintendent, was playing tennis with his mentor, neurosurgery professor Tsai Jui-chang (蔡瑞章), when he heard a loud thud from the rest area. Tsai had collapsed.
"We immediately checked Professor Tsai — no pulse, no heartbeat," Chen said in the video. "I knew this was extremely serious."
Chen called emergency services while NTUH's emergency department dispatched a medical team. Initial resuscitation failed to restore Tsai's heartbeat or blood pressure. Chen ordered the professor transferred to the emergency room for ECMO — extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a life-support system that temporarily takes over heart and lung function.
Tsai survived. In the video, he appears alongside his wife, walking through NTUH's corridors in his white coat.
Tsai's wife recalled waiting at home that night, growing anxious when her husband failed to return by 10:30 p.m. When she learned he had suffered OHCA (out-of-hospital cardiac arrest), she prepared for the worst.
"It was the students who saved the teacher," she said.
Why NTUH is telling this story now
The video arrives amid a nationwide shortage of medical personnel that hospital administrators have called a "major concern." NTUH's emergency department has seen record patient volumes, according to NTUH superintendent Yu Chung-jen (余忠仁).
Chen attributed part of the surge to a recent uptick in infections.
For Chen, the incident crystallized a lesson about medical training. "After this experience, I understood more deeply that I must teach my students well," he said, "because one day, including myself, we will all need the young doctors we trained to save our lives."
"The training at National Taiwan University Hospital is not about passing on my personal experience," Chen said in the video's closing statement. "It's about building your capacity for independent judgment. When you stand alone at the operating table, facing a life-or-death moment, any hesitation costs the patient their life."
"Medicine is an inheritance that never stops," the video's opening declares — a sentiment that, for the doctors who saved their teacher's life, is no longer just a slogan. ◼