Physician in Chinese / Japanese...

醫者 is a secondary title used to refer to medical doctors or physicians in Japanese Kanji.

醫師 is the title used to refer to medical doctors or physicians in old Korean Hanja.

Notes:
Also means “doctor” in Chinese but is not the most commonly used title.
醫師 is the ancient/traditional form of doctor in Japanese (they simplified the first character to 医 in Japan after WWII).

醫生 is the title used to refer to medical doctors or physicians in China.

Note: Sometimes, this same term is used in Korean, but not common.

The meaning is close to “healer [of] life” as the first character, 醫, can mean medicine, the healing art, healing, curing, medical, to cure, or to treat. The second character, 生, means birth or life.

In Japan, they use a simplified version of the first character (医生 is also used as the Simplified Chinese version of Doctor). If you want this version, please click the characters to the right instead of the button above.

医師 is the most common title used to refer to medical doctors or physicians in modern Japanese Kanji.

Before WWII, this would be written 醫師 in Japan (same as Traditional Chinese).

華佗 or Hua Tuo was a Chinese physician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty.

The historical texts Records of the Three Kingdoms and Book of the Later Han record Hua Tuo as the first person in China to use anesthesia during surgery.

Hua Tuo used a general anesthetic combining wine with a herbal concoction called 麻沸散, literally, “cannabis boil powder.” This was in the second century AD, almost 1700 years before western medicine had any form of anesthesia (1846).