Roy Wang did not want to be a doctor but his grades were too low for engineering so his southern China university transferred him to a course for weaker students: medicine.
      王大夫(Roy Wang)当年本不想当医生，但他的高考分数没有达到工程专业的录取分数线，因此被他报考的那所华南大学调剂到医学专业。医学专业的录取分数线较低。
      In most western countries, medicine is a profession that guarantees prestige, high salaries – and the approval of parents who love to brag about “my child the doctor”.
      在大多数西方国家，医生这个职业意味着体面、高薪以及父母的认可——父母都喜欢炫耀说，“我的孩子是医生”。
      But in China, the reverse is true: doctors are ill-paid, overworked and maligned or even attacked by patients while many parents would prefer that they became bankers instead.
      但在中国，情况正好相反：医生工资不高、工作辛苦，还可能被病人辱骂甚至殴打。许多中国父母更希望自己的子女成为银行家。
      Even Chinese doctors prefer their children not to follow them into the profession: according to a 2011 survey by the Chinese Medical Doctors’ Association, 78 per cent of respondents said they hoped their child would not don a white coat.
      在中国，甚至连医生也不愿自己的子女继承这个职业。2011年中国医师协会(China Association of Medical Doctors)的一项调查表明，78%的受访医生不希望自己的孩子穿上白大褂。
      Many of China’s less prestigious medical schools find it hard to recruit students to train as doctors and others find that students with lower scores on the national university entrance exam, or gaokao, use the lower requirements of some medical schools to gain entry to university, only to then transfer to faculties with higher earning potential.
      中国许多不太知名的医学院出现了招生难现象。还有些高校发现，一些高考分数较低的学生利用一些医学院录取分数线较低的机会考进大学，目的只是为了在入学后转到其他更有“钱途”的专业。
      “Compared to western countries, the social status and income of doctors in China is not the highest, so [some medical schools] definitely are not able to attract the best students and the result is that the profession of doctors is not the most elite in Chinese society,” says Huang Gang, vice-dean of Jiaotong University medical school in Shanghai.
      上海交大医学院(Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine)副院长黄钢表示：“与西方国家相比，中国医生的社会地位和收入都不是最高，因此（有些医学院）肯定招不到最好的学生，结果造成医生在中国社会中也不属于最精英的阶层。”
      Top faculties such as Jiaotong usually have little problem filling their quota for students with good marks, he says, adding that he would prefer to lower his grade expectations if the student were truly committed to       studying medicine.
      他表示，交大等一流医学院要招到高分学生通常没什么问题，不过他补充称，如果学生真的有志学医，他愿意降低分数要求。
      He says only about 5 per cent of Jiaotong medical students transfer to another faculty each year. But less elite medical schools, such as the one at Xiamen University where Dr Wang studied, struggle to fill available spaces. Xiamen medical school recently waived all fees for those training to be doctors, to attract better candidates.
      黄刚表示，上海交大医学院每年只有约5%的学生转系。但厦门大学医学院（Xiamen University Medical School，开头提到的王大夫就毕业于这里）等名气较低的医学院，则很难招满学生。为吸引更好的生源，厦大医学院最近免除了医学专业学生的所有费用。
      Dr Wang, 25, says he estimates about 80 per cent of his intake class at Xiamen medical school in 2006 did not end up there because they wanted to be doctors: he estimates that less than half ended up wearing white coats. Some chose instead to work in the pharmaceutical industry, now embroiled in bribery allegations which could further damage the public image of the medical profession.