'Doctor' in Chinese is written as 医生 (yī shēng), a compound noun formed from two characters: 医 (yī), meaning 'medicine' or 'to heal', and 生 (shēng), which here functions as a suffix denoting a person who practices a profession—similar to '-er' or '-ist' in English. Together, they literally mean 'a person who practices medicine' or 'healing person'. This term is gender-neutral and used for both male and female medical doctors across all specialties.

医生 is the standard, respectful, and universally understood term for licensed physicians in hospitals, clinics, and private practice. It’s appropriate in formal and informal contexts—unlike more technical terms like 大夫 (dàifu, colloquial) or 医师 (yīshī, formal title). While 医 can appear alone (e.g., in 医院 yīyuàn 'hospital'), it never means 'doctor' by itself; only the combination 医生 carries that meaning. The word is also commonly used in compounds like 牙医 (yá yī, 'dentist') or 兽医 (shòu yī, 'veterinarian'), where 医 retains its core meaning of 'medical practitioner'.