Chinese medical PhD leaves hospital career for freelance work and music

Liu Zihan, a 31-year-old Chinese doctoral graduate in medicine, has left her hospital career to pursue a varied life of freelance work and part-time music. Before resigning in February, Liu worked as a psychiatrist and postdoctoral researcher at a Grade 3A hospital in Zhuhai, Guangdong province. Grade 3A hospitals are at the highest and most prestigious level of China’s national healthcare classification system.

Liu described the first 30 years of her life as “meritocratic”. She grew up in Hebei, studied for a year at Hengshui High School, gained admission to Sichuan University’s medical school and later completed a doctorate at the University of Macau’s Faculty of Health Sciences. By 2022, she had earned her doctorate and secured a position at the Zhuhai hospital.

She said patients had responded positively to her work, with some sending thank-you letters and gratitude pennants. Liu said she valued communicating with patients without separating them according to identity or social labels, adding: “I prefer genuine communication between hearts.” However, she found the fixed schedule and conventional workplace increasingly difficult to tolerate. It took her two years to decide to leave.

After resigning, she travelled, sold breakfast and sang at a pub. She now delivers food, performs, explores other part-time jobs and continues to practise as a therapist. Liu said she had met restaurant, pub and food-stall workers whose optimism and resilience contrasted with her earlier experience.

She also praised the support shared among gig workers, including delivery riders exchanging traffic information and performers and stall owners looking out for one another. Her parents remain puzzled despite being proud of her qualifications, but Liu said they were gradually accepting her decision. She hopes to host a concert, turn her experience into a film and eventually have a small yard for her cat.