The alarm rang. As Yuan pulls herself from her bed, she glances over at her laptop’s clock: 6:15am. This was pretty standard for Yuan, as she needed to be at the hospital, ready for the nurses’ meeting at 7:30am, right before rounds at 8. She quickly showers and picks out her outfit from the crowded little closet in her one room apartment on the top of a relatively run down complex building. It wasn’t much, but the hospital provided it for her, so she thought nothing of it. She grabs her bag and runs down to the ground floor, and on the way to the hospital, she picks up breakfast from a local street vendor selling fried dough (youtiao) and soy milk (doujiang). As she makes her 15 minute walk to work, she takes in the sights, the heart of Nanchang already beating, bustling and hectic even this early.
Yuan was a 20 year old, working as a nurse in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University’s Oncology department. Although originally from Jiujiang, she travelled to Nanchang for a 3 year nursing school program after high school and stayed in town for a job. She wasn’t particularly intrigued by the Oncology department, but it was a department where nurses were always in high demand. As she walked to the 3rd floor of the Oncology building, she moved to the nurses changing room, where she puts her bag and jacket in her assigned locker, and puts on her white coat, nurse’s cap and face mask. She thinks to herself, another day, another shift.
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