Path of Medicine With a System
chapter-42

Zhang Fan only treated Li Xiao with rehabilitative massaging because she was terrified of surgeries. However, Director Chen of orthopedic department #2 had been completely accurate in his diagnosis of Li Xiao’s situation. If it weren’t for Zhang Fan’s System from the future, performing surgery would have been the only possible way to resolve Li Xiao’s back pain. With her current condition, if any orthopedic expert was told to treat her with rehabilitative massaging, they would laugh at you and think you were an idiot. This was because there were plenty of examples out there where improper massaging led to the patient becoming paralyzed.

Later that night, Zhang Fan finally returned to his apartment for the first time in a long while. His apartment was covered in dust, so he cleaned it slightly before sleeping. But, in the middle of the night, his cell phone rang. “Zhang Fan, there’s an emergency patient. Want to come?” Zhou Chengfu was currently on the night shift. It was now around 3 a.m., and Zhang Fan was quite sleepy. “I’ll be right over, Brother Zhou.” Zhang Fan immediately rushed to the hospital after washing his face.

In the nearby Chark City, a villager had been riding a motorcycle together with his wife and child to go visit a relative. He had turned a corner too quickly, and crashed into a large truck parked on the side of the road. The border province was truly large. This Chark City was more than two hundred kilometers away from the bigger Chasu City, yet this still didn’t count as “far”. The man was the most seriously injured—he had internal bleeding in his head and a fractured skull. The child was riding in the middle and was only shaken, not injured. The woman had been tossed off the motorcycle, so as a result she had severe road rash, and her right humerus bone and collarbone had been shattered. They had been brought to the local hospital in Chark City, where they were given IV drips before directly being sent via ambulance to the much bigger Chasu City Hospital two hundred-plus kilometers away.

The man was currently in the brain surgery department, receiving emergency surgical treatment. The woman was sent to orthopedic department #1. The truck from the accident had been parked in a no-parking zone. Luckily, the truck’s owner had full coverage insurance from his business. All doctors would love treating these types of patients as they weren’t limited by personal medical insurance, and business insurance would fully cover their treatment costs. The female patient was registered as Zhou Chengfu’s, which meant that he could fully decide which medicines and medical equipment would be necessary. Gao Shijun was rather loose on controlling others in his department—the only rule about medical equipment fees he had was that all spine-related treatments needed to be reported to him, and he would determine the medical equipment for those surgeries. Gao Shijun basically let the other doctors freely decide everything else for their own surgeries and medical equipment.

Zhang Fan was the primary surgeon for the woman’s surgery. When he saw the medical equipment for the woman’s treatment, damn, she would be using only the best imported surgical metal plates. There were two metal plates, which would cost approximately 20,000 yuan. Plus, there was the surgery fees, medicine fees, and hospitalization fees, which meant that the total cost of treatment would exceed 30,000 yuan. “Brother Zhou, will this really be alright?” Zhang Fan asked.

“What?” Zhou Chengfu didn’t understand what Zhang Fan meant.

“You’re using imported metal plates for the surgery. Won’t the medical equipment department give you trouble for this?”

“Not at all. These types of car accident victims are the best type of patient. There won’t be any trouble with their medical fees, because it’s all covered by insurance. This means that it’s easy to use the best and most expensive medical equipment and medicine for them. Just rest assured and begin the surgery.”

Since Zhang Fan was the primary surgeon, Wang Yanan also rushed over. Although it was difficult for her to wake up in the middle of the night, she truly loved surgery. Zhou Chengfu was quite nice and knew that Wang Yanan really wanted to improve her surgical skills, so he let Wang Yanan be the primary surgical assistant as he directly went back to his office to sleep. “Zhang Fan, you can go back home and rest right after you finish the surgery. I’ve already chosen all the necessary medicine, so don’t worry about a thing.”

“Old Zhou is really black-hearted. He’ll definitely use third-rate medicine and report it as the most expensive medicine,” Wang Yanan whispered to Zhang Fan after Zhou Chengfu left.

“Forget it, just go wash your hands. Will you or I be doing the disinfecting?” Zhang Fan was unwilling to talk bad about others behind their back. Besides, there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was perform the surgery as best as he could.

Western medicine had already developed for several hundred years, and China had only recently started catching up. Western medicine and medical equipment was simply of higher quality than their Chinese counterparts. It wasn’t because China wasn’t able to do a good job, but rather because of patent limitations. Even something as tiny as a surgical metal plate with a specific shape, holes, and material would be protected by patents. That was why imported metal plates were better for surgery patients, but of course they would also be more expensive.

The surgery was successful. When the female patient was tossed off the motorcycle, the friction of her skin against the road had absorbed a large portion of the impact, so her bones weren’t shattered severely. After the metal plates were inserted successfully, Wang Yanan shouted, “Let me sew up the fascia, muscles, and skin! I came all the way over here in the middle of the night just to sew up some skin! Would you dare to treat me like this!”

There was no helping it. Zhang Fan understood how it was for her. She wouldn’t feel at ease staying in the surgical department if she didn’t quickly improve her skills. After Wang Yanan began sewing the surgical sutures, the nurse for this operation began complaining. “You guys need to hurry up. I still need to clean up and organize the medical equipment. Orthopedic department #2 has reserved this operating room for a scheduled joint operation this morning, and I still need to disinfect the medical equipment.”

Wang Yanan had just started working. Not to mention, her family was fairly well off, so she was somewhat prideful. Not only would she not care about a nurse, she was also disrespectful to Zhou Chengfu. So, she treated the nurses coldly.

Now, this nurse was complaining precisely because she didn’t like Wang Yanan! Wang Yanan didn’t even have a medical license yet, but since her pride flared up, she felt that a little nurse couldn’t make any requests of her like that. She intentionally started sewing slower, which made the nurse even more displeased.

Zhang Fan already knew that Wang Yanan would definitely make things difficult on purpose with her temper. He didn’t view himself as a prince on a white horse, but simply wanted to help her out as they worked together. He hurriedly said, “Wang Yanan, try your best to hurry. Little Yi ¹ , please wait a little longer. I know that you must also be tired because it’s the middle of the night. I’ll treat you to some meat buns tomorrow at lunch. I guarantee that they’ll be delicious.”

“Alright, it’s a promise. Don’t you disappear on me tomorrow.” Little Yi was quite happy now, but not because of the meat buns. Zhang Fan and her were both single. She knew that improving a relationship would take time. Zhang Fan had just entered the hospital recently, but he had already become one of the best doctors in orthopedic department #1. His future would definitely be outstanding, so Little Yi was happy to improve her relationship with Zhang Fan.

“You should lengthen the thread, otherwise it’ll fall off right when you pull on it,” Zhang Fan reminded Wang Yanan as she sewed. He then spoke to Little Yi again. “Relax, I’ll definitely treat you. I’m sorry for the trouble. Wang Yanan needs the extra practice. She’s still not completely familiar with sewing surgical sutures yet. Everyone has to start out as a newcomer… please understand.”

“Of course. Practice is necessary for everyone, there’s no rush. It’s almost light out, anyways,” Little Yi said to Zhang Fan.

Wang Yanan gritted her teeth as she completed the sewing. It wasn’t that she was angry, but she felt like she really wanted to snap. She was even more frustrated as she listened to Zhang Fan chatter on with the nurse.

There was no helping it—at a hospital, if you didn’t have a medical license, you would have no power. Wang Yanan was still young. She would mature more after working for a few more years and experiencing more things. In working society, not all things would always go according to how you wanted them to.

After the surgery was completed, Zhang Fan and Wang Yanan went to a random empty room and slept there right in their doctor’s coats until it was morning. At the daily departmental morning meeting, everyone discussed the scheduled surgeries for the day. Superintendent Huang Yun surprisingly appeared at this meeting. Typically, he would only appear on Mondays to check in. He was typically quite busy, and rarely came to the surgical department to check on something specific.

“Was there an emergency treatment surgery last night?”

“Yes, Superintendent. Here’s the medical record.” Zhou Chengfu showed the female patient’s medical record to the superintendent.

“Aren’t the antibiotics used in her treatment of rather high quality?” Huang Yun was the type who spoke nicely and always saved face for his subordinate doctors.

“Some regular anti-inflammatory medicine would have been fine if she only had bone fractures. However, this patient had large amounts of abrasive injuries all over her body from road rash. Her injuries were severely tainted. I was afraid that she would become infected if the disinfecting wasn’t done properly. It would be really troublesome if she became infected.” Zhou Chengfu was a veteran doctor who was the careful and detailed type. He had long since come up with excuses for the patient’s recorded medicine usage.

“Oh, then let’s check up on the patient.” Huang Yun didn’t say anything else. He had also been a surgeon himself before he was superintendent, so he understood how things were. He was acquainted with this patient’s relatives, and they had asked him to take extra care for her. Otherwise, it would be impossible for him to even know about a single patient like this. There would be thousands of patients per day at a hospital like Chasu City Hospital on a daily basis. It would be impossible for the superintendent to know about every single patient.

After checking up on the patient, Huang Yun reminded the group to take extra good care of her before he left. However, Gao Shijun could tell that something was going on. It seemed highly likely that someone had asked the superintendent to take care of this patient. Otherwise, he never would have come over so early in the morning just to check on her.

Gao Shijun checked the patient’s medical record. When he looked at the medical equipment and medicine used, damn! Nothing but the best imported stuff. Of course, since the hospital had such high-quality medical equipment and medicine, the doctors would be allowed to use them. However, there was also the issue of using what was appropriate.

“Doctors, it’s time for our meeting. Nurses, go ahead and start your work shifts. Medical specialist doctors, go change the patients’ medicine.” Gao Shijun entered his director’s office. However, Wang Yanan didn’t have any realization that she was also only a medical specialist doctor. She already viewed herself as a full-fledged doctor of the orthopedic department, and so she also followed the other doctors into the director’s office. Gao Shijun glanced at her, but didn’t say anything. This was an issue of face. It was for the sake of her uncle, the Chasu City director of the Bureau of Public Health. Otherwise, she would have been kicked out of the director’s office already.

“In today’s meeting, I want to talk about something that’s going on, not about any specific person. In the past few months, our department has used up more medical equipment than any other department in the entire hospital. Yes, we’re also performing the most surgeries, but could everyone please restrain yourselves? Some money isn’t that easy to obtain. Everyone needs to work and support themselves and their families. There’s nothing wrong with some extra hard work for more income, but if all you care about is money without holding back at all, you’re going to overstep certain boundaries and run into trouble sooner or later. Since we’re in the profession of doctor, even if I can’t ask you all to hold benevolent beliefs, please at least try to maintain kindness in your heart. Don’t let money blind you. Don’t let money taint your heart black. That’s all that I have to say. Please think over this by yourselves.”