Saren, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor, keeps guestbooks filled with warm messages in various languages in her consulting room at Sanya International Friendship Sanatorium of TCM. These expressions of gratitude not only document a long medical career, but also vividly testify to how a Chinese doctor has used acupuncture to cure patients from around the world.

The sanatorium where she works was jointly established by Sanya TCM Hospital and the municipal government in 2016, initially aimed at serving international patients. With Hainan Free Trade Port prioritizing the medical and healthcare industry, the sanatorium has undergone rapid development, receiving more than 10,000 visits of foreign patients, a year-on-year growth of over 40 percent. As a result, Saren’s consulting room is always busy.

Chance Healing Opens Doors

Saren traveled south from Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia to Sanya, Hainan Province in 2002. That was a trip she never regretted.

At that time, she had just graduated with a master’s degree from Changchun University of Chinese Medicine. Knowing that the hospital was recruiting new doctors, she decided to try her luck on this beautiful island. However, as is often the case, all things are difficult before they become easy. The difficulties encountered in the initial stages were beyond imagination, and her consulting room was often empty all day long.

The turning point came from an unexpected emergency treatment. A Russian patient with a herniated lumbar disc suffered from unbearable pain after surgery. Following acupuncture treatment by Saren, his pain was largely eased and he was even able to run and hike again ten days later. After returning to his country, the Russian voluntarily publicized TCM. Soon, his friends were flying to Sanya to seek acupuncture treatment. Saren’s medical skills quickly earned recognition among international tourists, and her patients even included political figures from neighboring countries.

Through this experience, Saren realized that she might be able to help people far beyond those who visited her small consulting room. The opening up of Sanya also provided an entirely unexpected international platform for the ancient practice of acupuncture.

“Had I not come here, I might never have had the opportunity to use TCM to heal more pain,” she said .

Healthcare and Tourism Combo 

Word-of-mouth has generated tremendous market demand though, it also brought new challenges. As international patients continued to arrive for treatment, drawn by Saren’s reputation, the limited capacity to accommodate them became a headache.

To meet demand, Saren and her colleagues often loaded heavy wooden massage tables and acupuncture boxes in their vehicles, and drove along the Sanya coastline to provide on-site services for international patients staying at various hotels.

“Leaving home at six in the morning, performing acupuncture and massage, and working until midnight was an everyday routine for a time,” she recalled.

However, earning the trust of international patients involves far more than physical effort. Language barriers, cultural differences, and the short duration of stays all presented practical challenges. To help them, mostly from Russian-speaking countries, understand abstract TCM terms, Saren even picked up the language from scratch. After much dedicated effort, she now is even more professional than many qualified translators.

When speaking about Saren, 78-year-old Tajikistani patient Alimadov Nazurlo was full of praise. He was recommended to her while receiving treatment for a stroke in Beijing. As he recalled, within just one week, the integrated treatment combining acupuncture and moxibustion from Saren worked wonders. “She is professional and witty, and her treatment plan is natural with minimal side effects,” said Nazurlo.

In 2008, with the development of Hainan International Tourism Island, Sanya’s warm climate and beautiful scenery attracted tourists from around the world. Among them, a large number of Russian-speaking visitors brought even greater opportunities for TCM healthcare. Seeing this trend, Saren and her team astutely pioneered a unique “TCM Healthcare Tourism” model. This innovation precisely meets the dual demands of international tourists for health and leisure, rapidly establishing TCM healthcare as a shining hallmark of Sanya’s tourism.

With genuine therapeutic efficacy, Saren’s team have gained worldwide recognition. She has received over 50,000 visits over her past thirty years of medical practice.

TCM Globalization 

“TCM is more about healing; it’s also a messenger of love from China,” Saren said. She has always believed that the acupuncture needles in her hands not only connect the TCM meridian system of the human body, but also bridge mutual understanding among the human hearts. As more and more international patients come to seek treatment, a grander vision has taken shape in her heart: she would go global to create a replicable “Sanya model” for the globalization of TCM.

The first step was to establish an overseas branch. The Almaty TCM Center of Sanya TCM Hospital was established in Kazakhstan in December 2017. As one of the first dispatched experts, Saren served for eight months there. During her tenure, she showcased the benefits of TCM through acupuncture, quickly earning the trust and keen interest of the local people. Subsequently, the hospital sent seven more medical teams in succession. The influence of the center has also grown steadily, serving not only patients in Kazakhstan, but also those from neighboring countries.

Saren’s successful attempt overseas has also made Sanya a sought-after destination for learning authentic TCM. To date, hundreds of students from countries such as Russia and Germany have come to learn from her. Shakhnoza Sharipova, a rehabilitation therapist from Tajikistan, is one of them. She firmly believes that to master high-quality TCM rehabilitation techniques, one must come to China to learn from genuine renowned doctors.

To make her medical techniques replicable and widely accessible, Saren organized her years of first-hand clinical practice into a comprehensive acupuncture textbook. She hoped that this painstaking effort will enable these efficient techniques to be spread globally.

In addition, a more forward-looking initiative is being implemented concurrently. To address the problem of treatment interruptions caused by the rotation of doctors stationed abroad, the Sanya sanatorium has collaborated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to establish an AI-enabled remote teaching and consultation platform for TCM. This platform enables patients overseas to receive continuous diagnosis and treatment from Chinese experts. The AI platform, which brings together the expertise of top TCM practitioners, has been successfully applied in Kazakhstan, France, Canada, and Cape Verde.

After Hainan Free Trade Port launched its island-wide independent customs operations in December 2025, inbound tourism in Sanya has seen a significant increase. As calculated by the Sanya Tourism Board, the proportion of foreign guests in local international hotels has recently risen by nearly 30 percent within the first month. As a result of their arrival, the ancient practice of TCM is becoming increasingly recognized and trusted by the international community, emerging as a unique attribute of Hainan.