Li Zhisui (December 30, 1919 - February 13, 1995) was a physician and Mao Zedong's personal doctor. Li was born into a family of doctors; his great-grandfather was an imperial physician during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, and his father was a Kuomintang official. Li received his M.D. in 1945 and worked as a military doctor for the Kuomintang and as a ship's doctor in Australia before serving as a doctor in 1951 at the medical clinic of the Central Security Bureau in Zhongnanhai, the organization responsible for overseeing protection for and conducting surveillance on senior CCP and PLA leaders. According to his own account, Li served as Mao's personal physician from 1954-1976. He was the first director of the People's Liberation Army No. 305 Hospital from 1970-1979. In 1980, Li became vice president of the Chinese Medical Association and the Chinese Geriatrics Society, as well as editor-in-chief of the Chinese Medical Journal and the Chinese editions of The American Journal of Medicine. In 1988, Li moved to the United States. In 1994, he published a memoir entitled The Private Life of Chairman Mao, based on his recollection of journals he had kept and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. On February 13, 1995, Li died of a heart attack at his home in a suburb of Chicago.
