Path of Medicine With a System
chapter-204

Zhang Fan started independently working shifts in the ICU department. A rotation doctor named Tong Lili was assigned under him. Tong Lili was a young woman who had graduated from the Sichuan University. She was the same age as Wang Yanan. Tong Lili and other rotation doctors around her age would soon be seeing their medical license exam results come out for this year.

Wang Yanan had a guarantee of being able to join the orthopedics department. However, other rotation doctors wouldn’t have the excellent connections that she did. Any rotation doctor who didn’t have a medical license yet would only be able to work their hardest and hope to attract the attention of a department director.

This was the tragedy of clinical medicine in China. Medical college would take at minimum five years. You would have to wait one year after graduation before you would be allowed to take the medical license exam. It would take another year after that to obtain the medical license. Basically, for the next two years after graduation, a new doctor would barely have any rights at all. Additionally, new doctors would have very low income and almost no sense of security. It was highly possible for a new doctor to be fired if they showed too much incompetency.

Moreover, undergraduate students were worth less and less for hospitals now. Graduate school recruitment was up, but the businesses weren’t able to hire so many graduate students. This problem was slowly extending even to the Class A hospitals. Things were slightly better for Zhang Fan’s group, but Tong Lili’s group wasn’t anywhere near as lucky. Many graduate students joined Chasu City Hospital earlier this September. These graduate students all majored in the major departments’ specialties. This was because even graduate students weren’t worth much to the provincial hospital anymore. The provincial hospital was already beginning to only hire doctorate degree students!

Tong Lili’s group of rotation doctors, who all joined at around the same time, truly worked the hardest, hardest, and hardest they possibly could. When Lin Long asked the rotation doctors in the ICU department who was willing to be assigned under Zhang Fan, several male rotation doctors were interested in the idea, but before any of them could make up his mind, Tong Lili instantly volunteered herself. “Director Lin, I’ll follow Teacher Zhang!”

The other rotation doctors had various different opinions, such as that Zhang Fan was only a mere rotation doctor as well, with no right to teach them, feeling too awkward, or being too scared of leaving their current teaching doctor and making the teaching doctor angry, which was why the other rotation doctors had been hesitating. However, Tong Lili was different.

Several graduate students had already joined the internal medicine departments’ major departments. Tong Lili had no powerful relatives, and her family’s financial condition was only average. She had relied on her test scores to get recruited by Chasu City Hospital. However, she was worried about being assigned to a highly difficult or marginalized department. That was why Tong Lili decided to gamble here.

Chances would always be for the prepared. Tong Lili didn’t even dare to consider the thyroid and mammary gland department. That department was known as the flower garden for government leaders, who would often choose the women there. However, there was another department which was quite suitable for women. That would be the microsurgery department, which Chasu City Hospital had only recently established. Nowadays, everyone in Chasu City Hospital knew that Zhang Fan was on the level of directors in orthopedic surgery skill. Tong Lili decided to make a sacrifice here. She would sacrifice the chance to follow Director Lin of the ICU department—Director Lin was rather ordinary. She would instead follow the amazing surgeon Zhang Fan! Tong Lili didn’t care what either man’s character was like. This was about her own workplace survival!

Tong Lili wasn’t bad-looking at all. However, she did have some freckles, which made her feel that she had a small imperfection, and that she would be beautiful otherwise.

“Teacher Zhang, I’ll be relying on you in the future. Should I bow to you?” After the patient checkups, Zhang Fan was about to go to the orthopedic department to arrange a surgery for Bayan when Tong Lili said this to him with a half-joking, half-serious attitude.

“Oh! You’re being too polite with me. You can directly address me by name or call me Doctor Zhang. We joined the hospital in the same year. No need to be so formal.”

“Then I’ll call you Zhang Fan when nobody else is around, and I’ll call you Teacher Zhang when others are around. Does that work?”

Zhang Fan was unable to look Tong Lili in the eyes as she kept trying to blink cutely. He hurriedly turned around and left.

“Do what you like!” Zhang Fan answered as he walked off. He needed to arrange the finger amputation surgery for Bayan today. Bayan had recovered quite well, but it would be impossible to preserve the two carbonized fingers on his right hand.

The orthopedic surgery departments were really doing well at Chasu City Hospital. This was because vice director Li Hongtu of orthopedic department #1 and vice director Chen Qi of orthopedic department #2 had both returned from their half-year study program at Shuitanzi Hospital, one of the best hospitals in all of China. During this half a year, Li Hongtu had been unable to resist Chen Qi’s pleading, and agreed to establish an orthopedic department #3 with him.

The half-year study program caused Chen Qi to gain enough skills to lead an entire department of his own. Not only that, Chen Qi was extremely astute. Director Gao Shijun of orthopedic department #1 was a specialist on joints. Director Wang of orthopedic department #2 was a specialist on the spine. Thus, Chen Qi decided to focus on traumatic injuries and orthopedic microsurgery. During his study program, not only did Chen Qi periodically report to Superintendent Ouyang on what he learned during the study program, he even specially introduced the major developments in the orthopedic surgery department of Shuitanzi Hospital to Superintendent Ouyang.

Chen Qi had successfully gained much knowledge from the study program. He and Li Hongtu swore their fealty to Superintendent Ouyang, who finally agreed to create an orthopedic department #3 which would be focused on orthopedic microsurgery. This caused a big commotion among everyone. The new graduate students in the orthopedic departments who weren’t doing well originally, as well as orthopedic surgeons who had a good relationship with Chen Qi, were now all thinking about joining the new orthopedic department #3. This was because a brand-new hospital department would be like starting a new kingdom. The earlier you joined, the more authority you would have, meaning more chances and more benefits.

Chen Qi’s strength was that he was highly astute. He knew that Zhang Fan was incredibly skilled, young, and greatly favored by Superintendent Ouyang. Although Chen Qi really wanted to recruit Zhang Fan for his new orthopedic department #3, Chen Qi didn’t even try to make a move. This was because Chen Qi had already realized that Superintendent Ouyang would likely get personally involved if Zhang Fan was to be permanently assigned to a department.

Before, the two orthopedic departments had a relationship like America and the Soviet Union did during the cold war. The two orthopedic departments would constantly fight each other for patients. Superintendent Ouyang had gotten angry multiple times over this, but even she couldn’t do anything about it, as patients equaled money, which was forever the biggest motivator for the doctors. However, orthopedic department #3 was soon to be established. This would mean an era of three kingdoms instead. Superintendent Ouyang had agreed to establish yet another orthopedic department mainly in order to balance out the orthopedic departments rather than continuing the conflict.

Orthopedic department #3 would be established, but the total number of personnel in orthopedic surgery wouldn’t change. This meant that Chen Qi would need to rely on his own ability in seeing how many people he was able to recruit for his department from the other two departments. Normally, Chen Qi acted quite nicely to others, and rarely got angry. He indeed had a good relationship with most of the other doctors. He had also secretly promised several doctors that he wanted to recruit some good conditions. Including Li Hongtu, Chen Qi would start with almost 10 doctors in his department.

Superintendent Ouyang was quite pleased with this. The two orthopedic departments in Chasu City Hospital were extremely large. Both orthopedic departments were also extremely prone to going over budget. Superintendent Ouyang was delighted at this opportunity to cut the orthopedic departments down to size.

Superintendent Ouyang summoned all orthopedic surgery department personnel for a small meeting. “Starting next year, Chasu City Hospital’s new emergency treatment center will be finished. We must be ready for the new building rather than making the new building wait for us when it’s finished. That’s why I’m going to establish a new and temporary emergency department, separate from the current emergency department,” Superintendent Ouyang announced while drinking some water. She glanced at the leaders of the orthopedic surgery departments, but none of them had any reaction to this.

Superintendent Ouyang then continued, “The future emergency treatment center will have multidimensional capabilities. Not only will it be able to send out ambulances, all emergency surgeries will be performed right there in the emergency treatment center.” These words caused noticeable changes in all the orthopedic surgeons’ expressions.

Of course the orthopedic surgeons would be noticeably affected. Traumatic injuries and bone fractures were the most common types of surgeries in orthopedic surgery, so if all such surgeries were done at the emergency treatment center in the future, all orthopedic surgeons who weren’t at director or vice director rank would likely no longer have any surgeries to perform. This was because if traumatic injury and bone fracture surgeries no longer went to the orthopedic surgery departments, all that would be left were major surgeries on the joints or on the spine. The less experienced doctors wouldn’t be able to handle such surgeries. That would leave the regular orthopedic surgeons with zero income, so of course they would be concerned!

Superintendent Ouyang finally smiled as she looked at the surprise on the other doctors’ faces. ‘Go ahead and keep acting up! Let me see just how you all can act up once the new emergency treatment center finishes construction!’ thought Superintendent Ouyang to herself.

She drank some more water to clear her throat before announcing, “My plan for the new emergency treatment center is for the various attending physicians and lower-ranking physicians to take turns on shifts in the emergency treatment center to treat patients there. The regular patient rooms in the orthopedic surgery departments will no longer accept emergency patients in the future. That’s why I’m taking this opportunity to confirm the three different orthopedic departments’ main focuses to specialize in. Hospital administration director, please announce this for me.”

The hospital administration director then announced, “After a hospital leadership conference on this matter, it has been decided that orthopedic department #1 will focus mainly on the joints and joints-related problems. Orthopedic department #2 will focus mainly on the spine and spine-related problems. Orthopedic department #3 will focus mainly on orthopedic microsurgery and pediatric orthopedics.”

After the hospital administration director announced this, Superintendent Ouyang glanced at the three orthopedic directors (as Chen Qi was being promoted to director), and said, “Anyone who has an opinion about this can come discuss it with me in private. The hospital administration department will arrange for your three departments to take turns from now on with traumatic injury patients. I don’t want to see any more fighting over patients from now on!”

Superintendent Ouyang settled matters with that.

Since Bayan’s finger amputation surgery counted as orthopedic microsurgery, Zhang Fan took Tong Lili over to the new orthopedic department #3 to arrange this surgery. No matter how many orthopedic departments there were, Zhang Fan would forever be at home with orthopedic surgery. All three orthopedic department directors really liked Zhang Fan. Also, Zhang Fan was officially registered as an orthopedic surgeon of Chasu City Hospital according to his work contract. That was why Zhang Fan went to orthopedic department #3 as if he was returning home!