The labor union at one of the city's top hospitals held a taekwondo class Tuesday evening to teach medical staff members how to defend themselves.

The class, which was one of a series of activities that the union regularly holds for staff at Zhongshan Hospital, attracted an unusual amount of attention both inside and outside the hospital because it happened so soon after a series of violent attacks on doctors and nurses in the region.

"This isn't the first time we have held a taekwondo class," said a union staff member surnamed Wu. "We had one last year, but it was not nearly as popular. People are paying much more attention to this one because there has been a lot more concern recently about the safety of doctors and nurses."

There has been a spate of reports about patients attacking doctors and nurses in the news recently.

At a hospital in Zhejiang Province on October 25, a patient stabbed one doctor to death and injured two others in a random attack that stunned and angered the public.

The attack rattled many doctors and nurses around the country. At Zhongshan Hospital Thursday morning, more than 100 doctors and nurses held a silent vigil in honor of the dead doctor, Wang Yunjie.

Tuesday's class aimed to teach doctors and nurses how to defend themselves in the face of violence, according to the poster for the activity.

"The class is open to our medical staff," Wu told the Global Times. "It will teach them how to react to an unexpected attack."

The class, however, begs the question of whether doctors and nurses ought to be charged with their own security.

The safety of the staff should be the responsibility of the hospital and the government, not the doctors and nurses, said Lu Xiaowen, director of the Institute of Sociology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"I don't think doctors and nurses should be learning taekwondo to defend themselves. It could further strain the relationship between doctors and patients," Lu told the Global Times.

Lu pointed out that the public has become more sympathetic toward doctors in light of the recent violence.

"The best thing doctors and nurses can do is to simply treat patients with respect," he said.