Since his student days, Zhong Risheng, a 42-year-old anesthetist from Nanning in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has strongly believed that a doctor should be prepared to treat everyone, irrespective of their nationalities. That conviction has spurred him to go to Africa not once but twice as a member of a Chinese medical aid team organized by the government.

"During my first stay in Africa I saw how the people were short of doctors and medicines," he explains.

Cited as an outstanding doctor by China's national health authority in 2013, Zhong took the opportunity of attending the award ceremony in November to visit home.