Mei Lian rides to visit a patient on the grasslands. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In the Kazakh language, baerluke means abundant, rich and having all that's needed.

However, nomads herding cattle on Baerluke Mountain - located on the Chinese border with Kazakhstan in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region - have always lived with a shortage of doctors.

"Baerluke needs me," says Mei Lian, a doctor who has worked for more than 20 years in this region.

Because of her exemplary work in the past two decades, the 47-year-old woman was promoted to deputy director of a regiment hospital under the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in nearby Yumin county in 2012. However, she never forgets her patients in the mountains, and insists on regularly visiting the herdsmen scattered in this area.

"I am a doctor and my duty is to save lives. This will never change," Mei says firmly.

Mei's parents came with the 161 Regiment of the Ninth Agricultural Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps to Baerluke area in 1962, and Mei was born in 1967.

Because of the harsh environment and the lack of medical support, Mei's little brother died of measles at the age of 3. He took his last breath on the road to the nearest hospital - 50 kilometers away from their home.

There were several kids in Mei's neighborhood who died because they could not get timely medical treatment. These painful memories made Mei determined to become a doctor.

Mei taught herself by reading medical books, and then enrolled in correspondence courses of traditional Chinese medicine.