Practice of the Self: ‘Barefoot Doctors’ in Post-reform China

This chapter depicts the experience of a group of relatively disadvantaged doctors—the former ‘barefoot’ doctors. The barefoot doctors, who had been motivated to work hard and contribute to the health of the mass peasants since the collective era, had improved health care in the rural areas. Yet in the post-reform era, they were quickly forgotten in the state’s aims of economic development, the scientific development of medicine, and the modernisation of the health system. Barefoot doctors changed to village doctors, had to continue medical practice without any salary or a pension. They lack institutional training and qualifications, are viewed by the authorities as being inadequate and in need of self-investment and self-transformation. Indeed, these former barefoot doctors actively fostered their own transformation by gaining further training and qualifications, working hard to earn their own salary. However, it is not easy or feasible for every doctor to rapidly adapt to the market. Old, vulnerable, and less productive, many of them become uncompetitive in the market. The former barefoot doctors become increasingly disappointed when they are confronted with subsistence needs, sense their loss of status, and perceive the difference between themselves and other professional groups. They began to put their pension claims into action.