Meet Our Board of Managers

Dr. Guo Long, M.D.

Founder, Guolong Hospital Group

January 24, 2020

Overland Park, Kansas

Dr. Guo Long was born in Zhangjiayuan, which is a small village in Tongxin County, Ningxia Province, China. He is the oldest of four siblings that include one younger brother and two younger sisters.

Beginning in the 1970s, "temporary doctors" were present in Chinese rural areas. These temporary doctors were called "barefoot doctors," which was a nickname for part-time paramedical doctors in the countryside trained in simple techniques of diagnosis and treatment. In 1974, I was selected as a barefoot doctor to cure the sharecroppers while working in the country. In 1976, I applied to Ningxia Medical College and became a medical student.

As an old Chinese saying goes, "Nor for a good prime minister, then for a good doctor." It means, "if you can't be a good prime minister to help the king to administer a country, then be a good doctor to cure people." This saying depicts the difficulty of being a doctor. A businessman seeks to maximize profit. Doctors need to treat the patients like their family members and diagnose diseases to control the course of illness.

Being a doctor requires profound knowledge, sound morality, and the professional quality of taking calculated risks.

In 1986, I attended a four-month Sino-US hospital management course at Xi'an Medical University. Beginning in 1989, I served as the vice president of public hospitals. By the end of 1994, the idea of resigning from civil servitude and choosing to run a private hospital occurred to me. In March of 1995, I formally submitted the resignation report and started to prepare the construction of Yinchuan Guolong Hospital. In September of 1996, Yinchuan's hospital was put into operation. In September 2013, Shanghai Guolong Hospital was opened. Lastly, in May of 2019, the expansion of Yinchuan Guolong Hospital was completed.

In my opinion, there are two main challenges in setting up a hospital — first, team building, subsequent cultural construction, and technological formation. The second challenge is the consistency of interests among founders, doctors, investors, and patients.

The proudest aspect of my career is my persistent and simple pursuit: only for patients, not to pursue fame and wealth.

In the next 20 years, I hope to build an international-standard hospital in China. This hospital would meet the standards of our prestigious U.S. institutional partners, Oklahoma Heart Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I am strongly interested in bringing the U.S. hospital experience and services to Chinese patients. By doing this, it will alleviate the stress of traveling abroad for medical purposes. The level of patient care and medical expertise of both Oklahoma Heart Hospital and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is the standard in which I want to bring to Chinese patients.

As it pertains to the partnership between Guolong and PreferUS Healthcare, I am delighted to cooperate with the company, which I believe can make our dream closer and come faster.