Doctor Titles in China: What 主任医师, 主治医师 and 'Chief Physician' Mean

China Medical Index · Reviewed and last checked 2026-09-11

Chinese doctor profiles can contain several layers of titles at the same time:

• 主任医师 — chief physician;
• 副主任医师 — associate chief physician;
• 主治医师 — attending physician;
• 科主任 — department director;
• 教授 — professor;
• 博士生导师 — doctoral supervisor.

These terms do not describe the same thing.

The most important distinction is:

A professional title is not the same as a hospital job, and neither one proves that a doctor is the best specialist for your exact condition.

The formal professional-title system

China's national health professional-title system divides medical professional titles into junior, intermediate and senior levels. For medical personnel, the formal titles are 医士, 医师, 主治（主管）医师, 副主任医师 and 主任医师.¹

For international patients, the clinically relevant sequence usually looks like this:

Translations vary by hospital. “Chief physician” and “associate chief physician” do not map perfectly onto titles such as “consultant” or “attending” in another country.

What about 住院医师 — resident physician?

This is where many English explanations become inaccurate.

住院医师 is commonly used for a resident physician or an early-career clinical role/training stage. It should not simply be substituted for 医师 as though it were the first formal national professional title.

China's standardized residency system defines resident training as postgraduate clinical education in which medical graduates train as resident physicians in accredited training bases.²

CMI should therefore separate:

• professional title — formal rank;
• training/clinical role — for example resident physician;
• hospital job — for example department director.

How doctors progress through the system

Older descriptions often say Chinese doctors are promoted through “years + exams + publications.” That is now too simplistic.

China's 2021 national reform explicitly called for evaluation based on practical ability and performance and for moving away from excessive reliance on papers, academic credentials, awards and prestige labels.¹

For clinical medicine:

• junior and intermediate qualifications have national examination mechanisms;
• senior-title evaluation is handled through senior professional assessment mechanisms;
• clinical workload, technical ability, quality and real-world performance matter;
• publications may still matter in academic careers, but they are not a universal one-line requirement defining seniority.¹³

Do not infer a doctor's clinical quality from the number of papers alone.

主任医师 does not mean “head of department”

主任医师 — chief physician

This is a professional title.

A large department may have multiple 主任医师.

科主任 — department director

This is a job or leadership position.

Department directors are commonly senior clinicians, but professional title and administrative position should be recorded separately.

A profile can say:

主任医师、教授、神经外科主任

meaning that the doctor simultaneously has:

• senior professional rank;
• academic title;
• department leadership role.

These are three different attributes.

What do 教授 and 博士生导师 mean?

At teaching hospitals, a doctor may also hold academic titles.

教授 / 副教授

Professor / associate professor.

These indicate an academic appointment associated with teaching and research. They do not by themselves establish superior clinical outcomes.

博士生导师 / 博导

Doctoral supervisor / PhD supervisor.

This indicates authorization to supervise doctoral students.

For patients, these titles can signal academic standing and research involvement. They should not substitute for procedure-specific clinical evidence.

A professor may be a world-class researcher but not the highest-volume surgeon for your operation. A non-professor clinician may have extraordinary practical experience in a narrow procedure.

Standardized residency training in China

China formally established a national standardized residency-training system beginning in the 2010s. The main model is commonly described as 5+3: five years of undergraduate medical education followed by three years of standardized residency training for the principal target group.²

The national policy identifies the principal trainees as medical graduates with bachelor-level or higher clinical qualifications who plan to enter clinical practice, along with certain already-practicing physicians who require standardized training.²

It is therefore too broad to say that “every new doctor in China must complete exactly the same residency.”

A more accurate conclusion is:

China has made postgraduate clinical training much more standardized, but training quality, hospital exposure, mentorship, subspecialty experience and case volume still vary.

How much should a patient care about title?

Professional rank is useful—but it answers only:

“How senior is this doctor within the Chinese professional-title system?”

It does not answer:

• Is this doctor the best person for my disease?
• How many of my procedure does this doctor perform?
• Is this doctor's subspecialty relevant?
• Does the doctor treat complex referrals?
• Does the doctor operate personally or supervise a team?
• Does the doctor speak English?
• Can I actually book this doctor?
• Which campus does the doctor work at?

For medical travel, those questions often matter more.

How to choose a doctor in China

1. Start with the subspecialty

“Cardiologist,” “surgeon” or “oncologist” may still be too broad.

Look for the disease and procedure.

Examples:

• electrophysiology rather than generic cardiology;
• skull-base neurosurgery rather than generic neurosurgery;
• hepatobiliary surgery rather than generic general surgery;
• sarcoma oncology rather than generic oncology.

2. Look at the hospital's strength in that specialty

A 主任医师 at a weak department is not automatically preferable to a 副主任医师 working in a nationally leading disease program.

Related: Best Hospitals in China: How Hospital Rankings Work

3. For procedures, ask about procedure-specific experience

Useful questions include:

• Does the doctor routinely perform this exact procedure?
• What is the department's annual volume?
• What is the doctor's own volume?
• Is the doctor the primary operator?
• What types of difficult cases are referred here?
• Are complication or outcome data available?

Do not make cross-country volume comparisons unless you have actual procedure-level data.

4. Treat international training as context, not proof

International fellowships can be relevant to language, networks and exposure to techniques. They are not a quality guarantee.

5. Separate reputation from fit

The most famous doctor in a department may not be the best fit for a narrow disease.

For complex care, a stronger decision rule is:

strong center + relevant subspecialty + appropriate seniority + high disease/procedure volume + accessible appointment

How CMI should structure doctor data

text professional_title clinical_role department_role academic_title doctoral_supervisor_status specialty subspecialty disease_focus procedure_focus hospital campus ordinary_clinic_availability vip_clinic_availability international_clinic_availability international_training languages source last_verified

This prevents the common mistake of compressing a physician into one prestige label.

Common title translations

Bottom line

When reading a Chinese doctor's profile:

主任医师 tells you seniority. 科主任 tells you leadership. 教授 tells you academic status. None of the three, alone, tells you whether this is the best doctor for your specific disease or procedure.

For international patients, subspecialty match and clinical experience should come before title prestige.

Related CMI guides

• Hospitals in China for Foreigners
• Public, VIP or International?
• Best Hospitals in China: How Rankings Work
• What Is a 3A Hospital in China?