What 'chief physician' means on a Chinese hospital profile

In English, "chief physician" is this site's rendering of the title 主任医师. It is the highest grade in the national title system for medical doctors, and it is a professional title, not a licence. This page explains what the national guidance says the title requires and where a title sits next to a doctor's registration. It does not rate any doctor.

The terms on a profile

The national guidance on health professionals' titles names the doctor titles in order as 医士, 医师, 主治（主管）医师, 副主任医师 and 主任医师. The last two are the associate senior and full senior titles. They can be rendered in English as associate chief physician (or deputy chief physician) and chief physician. These English names are this site's wording.

What the chief physician title requires

The guidance sets a condition of experience and workload for the chief physician title. A candidate with a bachelor's degree or above needs five years of appointment as an associate chief physician, and must complete the set work volume.

For the clinical, dental and traditional Chinese medicine categories, the guidance describes the professional ability expected. The candidate should have systematic knowledge of one field of the specialty, with particular strength in it. The candidate should be able to solve complex or major technical problems independently and should be able to guide junior doctors in the specialty.

The guidance also asks for five to ten case records of cases the candidate treated or led. These can include rescue cases, death cases or difficult cases, and they are used to assess the candidate's ability.

For the associate and full senior titles in the clinical, dental and traditional Chinese medicine categories, the guidance says evaluators use case front-page data across four dimensions: technical ability, quality and safety, resource use and patient management.

What the associate chief physician title requires

For the associate chief physician title, the guidance sets a different experience condition. A candidate with a bachelor's degree or above needs five years of appointment as an attending physician. A candidate with a junior-college diploma who works in a county-level or lower grassroots institution needs seven years of appointment as an attending physician.

For the clinical, dental and traditional Chinese medicine categories, the guidance says the candidate should be skilled in the specialty's basic theory and knowledge, have fairly rich experience, be able to treat critically ill patients skilfully and correctly, and be able to guide junior doctors in the specialty.

How the senior titles are awarded

The guidance says the associate senior title is in principle awarded through an examination combined with a review. It says the full senior title can use an examination combined with a review, or a defence combined with a review. Peer expert evaluation is the base of the review.

Title, post and licence

The Physicians Law says the state sets up a system for setting, evaluating and appointing to professional titles and posts. The law treats title evaluation and appointment to a post as separate parts of that system, so a title and the post a doctor holds are different things on this page's reading.

The Physicians Law deals with the qualification certificate separately from registration and the practice certificate. The law says nobody may practise as a physician without a registered practice certificate.

Checking the doctor, not the title

The National Health Commission's service platform lists a licensed doctor query (执业医师查询). That platform page forwards to the national doctor registration query. The result labels in the portal's script include 医师级别 but none reading 职称, the Chinese term for professional title.

Questions people ask

Does chief physician mean the head of a department?

The national guidance defines 主任医师 as a professional title with conditions on experience, workload and ability. It describes no department head role under that title, and this page does not state what a hospital means by any post.

Is a chief physician always more experienced than other doctors?

The title requires years of appointment at the level below it, as set out above. This page does not compare individual doctors or recommend any doctor or hospital.

Can a title be taken away?

The guidance says a title obtained through fraud or other violations is revoked.

Sources

Each source above was read on the date shown. This page is an unofficial summary of general administrative information. It is not published by the bodies named above, and it is not medical advice. If it differs from the official texts, the official texts prevail, and rules may change after the check date.

This unofficial explanation reflects official pages read on the dates shown in each source note; it does not verify any named doctor and is not medical advice, and the live official record prevails. Medical and legal notice.