Mute Eating Goldthread

​哑巴吃黄莲

2017

‘Greet each patient with a smile, and they will feel better’, as my consultant used to say, doubtless repeating advice other doctors once passed to him. So I too wear a smile. 

An attitude of stoicism is a pervasive feature of medical culture. Despite the stressors faced by doctors, these unspoken pressures are concealed behind a smile of equanimity.   

Renowned though its medicinal properties may be, the taste of the herb Goldthread is bitter. My ancestors of the Southern Song Dynasty coined the idiom: ‘mute eating Goldthread’ to describe the idea of suffering in silence. A mute, with Goldthread overflowing their palette - bitterness that only the self can know; an ineffable sorrow that through no words can they share.  

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So I smile. 

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想当年，上司劝我：‘大夫待病人，该多笑；笑了病人则心安。’我因此脸上常戴笑。

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医学上常鼓励‘斯多葛式的冷静——铁面无私’。而工作之艰亦该微笑掩之。

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黄莲良药苦口。南宋以‘哑巴吃黄莲’ 暗喻有苦说不出。其中苦唯有自知，苦而难言。

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我，一笑置之。

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