A sense of direction

Jiang believes that conducting autopsies is a necessary and meaningful procedure as the pathological conclusion provides the final answer of what happened to the patient.

On April 26, all COVID-19 patients in Wuhan were discharged. Jiang took the train back to Beijing a day later.

Lou Ran, an ICU doctor in Jiang's team in Beijing, recalls that when Jiang returned from Wuhan, she looked bad. "She didn't lose any weight, but she didn't say a word about getting tired," Lou says.

When Jiang was in Wuhan, she still cared about her patients in the ICU wards in Beijing. Each day Lou and other doctors on watch sent her updates about the patients. "She replied every day, sometimes at 12 am, sometimes at 5 am," Lou says.

ICU doctors need a long period of training and a wide range of knowledge. Jiang has been an ICU doctor since 1992.

Lou says when she reads about a rare disease, she will often ask Jiang about it. "I have never caught her out, she always knows," Lou says. "When she is not that familiar with the disease, she will search for some literature about it and share it with us that same day."

ICU doctors and nurses have played an important role in fighting COVID-19, Jiang thinks the building of a solid ICU team is the key to successfully facing a future epidemic.

"Seventeen years ago, we joined the fight against SARS, and hopefully, in the future, the young doctors will carry on our duty," she says.