Healing Doctor

Chapter 139 Real Scientific Research

"Teacher, I just heard something." Ji Xiang repeated what General Manager Wu had said verbatim.

"Teacher, are you sure this is true?"

"Yes." The system NPC nodded, acknowledging what President Wu had just said.

Ji Xiang pondered, his mind filled with many thoughts. Whether they were reasonable or not, as long as they existed, they must be reasonable.

"To put it simply, 99.99% of scientific research in the medical field is meaningless right now." The system NPC bluntly gave Ji Xiang a number that filled him with despair.

"but……"

"Promotion and professional titles both require these things; it's only natural," the system NPC smiled. "From my perspective, there's only one truly meaningful scientific research project in the entire country."

"!!!" Ji Xiang focused his mind.

This is a treasure trove.

"You know the oil field company, right?" the system NPC asked.

"I know, PetroChina," Ji Xiang said.

"The oilfield diabetes research project is the only one in China that leads the world in the medical system." (Note)

Ji Xiang originally thought this project would be at Peking Union Medical College Hospital or West China Hospital, but he never expected it to end up at the oilfield hospital.

The local medical standards seem to be quite average, at least not advanced.

It's already quite good if this place can guarantee the most basic medical care, let alone advanced scientific research? Ji Xiang always felt it was impossible.

"That's how it is," the system NPC explained to Ji Xiang. "In 1985, Director Pan of the Endocrinology Department at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital mentioned something during a meeting: he wanted to do some research. But at that time, there was no money; the country didn't have money, and the hospital was even poorer."

"By chance, Director Hu of the Oilfield General Hospital learned about this and took it on."

"A coincidence... is it luck?" Ji Xiang asked.

"It's not just about luck, listen to me," the system NPC said. "After all, it was an oilfield hospital, which belonged to the oilfield company at the time. If you wrote a research report, the oilfield company would allocate 10 yuan."

"This little bit of money."

"The money was a small matter, and it was a considerable sum back then." The system NPC smiled broadly as he spoke of this. "At the time, we collected 110660 samples from the oil field workers."

"Teacher, are you a patient?"

"No, they were people, more accurately, employees of the oilfield company at the time," the system NPC said. "They were from all age groups. When the glucose tolerance screening was conducted, there were only 577 people with impaired glucose tolerance. This group of people is in an abnormal glucose metabolism state where normal blood sugar is transitioning to diabetes."

"These individuals with IGT were randomly assigned to a control group and an intervention group. Within the intervention group, they were further divided into a diet intervention group, an exercise intervention group, and a diet + exercise intervention group."

"In short, that was the first study conducted. As for its significance, we can discuss that in more detail when you rotate to internal medicine."

Ji Xiang nodded.

"The six-year lifestyle intervention ended in 1992."

「2006年做了20年随访、2009年做了23年随访、2016年做了30年随访。

Further data collection and analysis will be conducted to assess the impact of lifestyle interventions on diabetes incidence, cardiovascular events, complex microvascular complications, cerebrovascular disease mortality, all-cause mortality, and life expectancy.

"Teacher, I have a question." Ji Xiang raised his hand.

"You said it."

"A sample size of only five hundred people doesn't seem to qualify as world-class."

"Hehe, didn't I already say it's a sample of 110660 people?" the system NPC said with a smile.

"Uh..." Ji Xiang was taken aback.

A sample of 110,000 people, thirty years later—this sounds like something out of a fantasy novel.

This workload is just too much.

Ji Xiang had no experience in scientific research, so there were some things he could only guess at.

"It was all a coincidence, truly a coincidence," the system NPC remarked.

He mentioned two coincidences in a row, his tone becoming increasingly serious.

"I'm going to say something you don't want to hear."

"Teacher, I'm willing to listen to everything you have to say," Ji Xiang said with a smile. "How about we go to the changing room, and you can talk while you smoke?"

The system NPC hesitated for a moment, then said, "No."

"The first element of success was that the sample population at the time was workers. The working class is very disciplined, a factor that most people probably overlook. When we did the research back then, we didn't consider this point either; we were indeed quite lucky."

"Teacher, why do you talk about discipline?"

"When we followed up 30 years later, the young and middle-aged people at that time had all retired, and the researchers who conducted the follow-up just wanted to make a phone call to ask who could come back for a re-examination."

"There are two more points here. First, all the oilfield workers are registered. It wasn't like it is now in the 1980s. If it were anywhere else, I guess many people would have already lost contact."

Ji Xiang nodded in agreement.

"After making phone calls, I was surprised to find that 95% of the people had flown back from all over the country for medical checkups. This is something that simply cannot be done elsewhere."

"!!!"

Ji Xiang was surprised.

Just as the system NPC said, given enough time, no matter how large the original sample size is, it is difficult to withstand the passage of time, and it will become fragmented and impossible to collect.

The fact that 95% of the people followed up over 30 years flew back was astonishing to Ji Xiang.

"Furthermore, the very research methods used worldwide at the beginning have already been rejected."

"..."

So hasty? This is the first time Ji Xiang has ever heard of something like this.

"In the 1960s and 70s, individual sample studies were popular all over the world, but the oilfield diabetes project in 1985 was a small group sample study, which was ridiculed for many years at the beginning."

"And then?" Ji Xiang pressed.

"Later in the 1990s, small sample studies became the mainstream academic consensus. The DPS study that started in Finland in 1993 and the DPP study that started in the United States in 1999 are both research categories of oilfield diabetes."

"This is a research project. I'll keep it brief; you don't need to get involved for now," the system NPC said. "In short, regarding diabetes research, our country is leading the world through oilfield diabetes research."

In my opinion, this research could yield at least 100 top-tier international papers.

"Has it been published?" Ji Xiang asked.

"Of course, it was already published in The Lancet's diabetes sub-journal," the system NPC smiled. "What, are you interested in academia?"

Ji Xiang nodded.

"You can publish those kinds of academic articles that are just to fool people, but if you want something truly valuable, you need a long-term, large sample size, and you have to do a lot of hard work," the system NPC said meaningfully.

"30?"

"At least."

Ji Xiang scratched his head.

Thirty years have passed, and I'm almost retired. It's been too slow for scientific research to produce real results.

"Take your time, it'll be faster that way."

……

……

Note: This was said when Academician Wang Chen came to guide our work and held a symposium this year. Emmm, Academician Wang is the principal that Teacher Wu in the TV series "The Sleepless Healer" often calls out.

The statement that "China is the only country with world-leading status" is a direct quote from Academician Wang.

(End of this chapter)