Chapter 14: Invitation
After the surgery was complete, the fatty Li Liang who had also been in the operating room had sparkles in his eyes as he looked at Zhang Fan. This was a living highly skilled doctor right before him!
Li Liang ran a few steps in order to catch up to Zhang Fan. “You’ve been standing for so long already. I have some good tea that I’ll prepare for you. You should take a good rest. Just tell me about what you want written in the medical report. I’ll type it up for you on the medical computer.”
“Don’t worry about the tea, since I don’t know anything about tea and won’t be able to tell if it’s good or not. But if you’re willing to type up the medical report for me, sure. Come back to my office and we can do it together.” Everybody loved a good sycophant. Meanwhile, Yang Chengming rolled his eyes and ignored them.
After finishing the medical report together, Chen Qifa came up to Zhang Fan, and secretly whispered, “Doctor Zhang, you’re doing all these surgeries, yet still record all of these patients as mine. How about I give you half of my medical equipment commission? Otherwise, I’ll feel too embarrassed to keep accepting this.”
“Doctor Chen, no need to be so reserved with me. I know that your child is still in high school, so you must have great financial pressure from the tuition. We can still continue as we always have been.” Actually, Zhang Fan felt like his heart was dripping blood as he refused this money.
Zhang Fan was also really poor. However, he could only spend this money on cultivating a good relationship with Chen Qifa. Otherwise, if Chen Qifa was angered again for some reason and didn’t do his work properly, Zhang Fan wouldn’t have even a single surgical assistant. Vice Director Shi Lei was a brain surgeon, so orthopedic surgery wasn’t his specialty. Plus, with how lazy Shi Lei was, he definitely wouldn’t be willing to come help every day. Shi Lei was also the type who only cared about rising in position without worrying too much about improving his actual skills.
As the older nurses constantly came over to Zhang Fan for massages more and more often, Zhang Fan gradually became well known within Kuake City.
“My back really hurts. I think I’ll go visit the Chinese medicine doctor this weekend.” Some middle-aged women from the Kuake City Communist Party Committee were currently chatting with each other.
“Why go to a Chinese medicine doctor? While the acupuncture may feel really good, your back always hurts again right after.”
“Still, isn’t it better than no treatment?” The middle-aged women in the Kuake City Party Communist Committee either had husbands in governmental positions or other powerful relatives. At any rate, they basically had empty job titles, so all they did every day was chat with each other.
“Stop visiting the Chinese medicine doctor. My niece had bad problems with back pain to the point where her legs were going numb and she could barely walk. Then, a young doctor from the hospital she was working at gave her some massages for several days in a row. Guess what, she can now walk just like normal again!”
“That wouldn’t be a certain type of massage on the bed, now would it? Haha…”
“You’re going into heat again! Be careful that your husband won’t beat that mouth of yours!” They were going off topic. These government official wives basically all had no sex lives with their husbands, so they could only have some fun with chatting.
“What’s that doctor named? I’ll go visit him after I clock out.” The woman who had back pains decided to try seeing him.
Unless a person had a severe condition like herniated nucleus pulposus, Zhang Fan’s massages were able to effectively treat everyone with back pain. Gradually, more and more people started coming to Zhang Fan for back pain problems.
Kang Hua, the female head politician of Kuake City who was also the head of the Bureau of Culture, Education, and Health, had originally been a teacher. Back when she was still a teacher, she had strained her back. After she became a government official, she constantly participated in meetings, and her back pain often gave her trouble. She could only rely on some painkillers as a temporary stopgap measure. She had already been to several hospitals for treating her back pain, but the treatment she received would always be only temporarily effective.
Over the past few days, she kept hearing about her subordinates discussing how amazingly skilled a certain doctor in Kuake City Hospital was at relieving back pain with his massages. Since she was the head politician of Kuake City, seeing a specific doctor would be as simple as a phone call for her.
“Little Zhang, Superintendent Batu has a phone call for you.” Head nurse Guli was now Zhang Fan’s #1 fan. She treated him incredibly well. As she put it, “if only I was twenty years younger, I would definitely get married to Zhang Fan and have his children!”
“Do you still remember the female politician that previously came to the welcoming party for new students? She has back pains, and she called for you to go over and treat her. I’ll be taking you over to her later this afternoon. If you have no emergency surgeries that come in this afternoon, you don’t even need to go to the hospital. I’ll take you to the government office right after your lunch break,” Superintendent Batu told Zhang Fan.
“Okay.”
“When treating a politician, you absolutely need to watch your mouth. Don’t immediately say if you can or can’t treat her, and don’t tell anyone that you’re treating a politician.”
“I know.”
“Wear something proper. There’s lint on your shirt collar.” Batu suddenly noticed that Zhang Fan’s clothing was rather worn.
Zhang Fan only possessed two shirts, and one shirt had been brought from his home in S Province. Of course his shirts would become rather worn!
“This is all I have!” Zhang Fan was incredibly embarrassed. He was forced to say this because he had just sent some money home yesterday.
“What about your salary? Did you spend it all on gambling or something?” Batu was rather surprised. The youngsters typically enjoyed looking nice in order to save face. They would always buy some new clothes for themselves with their salaries.
“I sent all my money home. My younger sister is in high school, and my mom’s body isn’t well.” Zhang Fan could only tell the truth.
“Oh you. What should I even say about you? How many times have I told you by now to come talk to me if you have any difficulties? Here at our hospital, I’m not only your boss, I’m also your family. Why not tell me about your troubles?”
Zhang Fan’s face went completely red. He hadn’t taken the superintendent’s words seriously before.
Batu had risen all the way from the radiology department to hospital superintendent. Naturally, he had his own social skills in addition to having a powerful family. He treated all of the most skilled individuals in the hospital well. As long as all those people were loyal to him, Batu would basically be the king of this hospital.
“I want to emphasize once again that no matter if it’s something about work or personal life, you can come to me. Don’t treat me as your boss. Just think of me as your uncle.” Batu then wrote a note and handed it to Zhang Fan. “Go to our hospital’s finance department and show them this. They’ll give you 5000 yuan. Immediately purchase a nice set of clothes. This is a political task, so don’t be stingy. Or do you need me to have Director Wang help you purchase some clothes?”
Zhang Fan was far too embarrassed already. He didn’t want to lose any more face, so he hurriedly promised that he would pick proper clothing.
After leaving the superintendent’s office, Zhang Fan’s eyes became slightly red with tears. No matter what other intentions Batu might have, it was a fact that Batu was treating him extremely well. Zhang Fan was grateful, especially since he was in dire need. No matter what Zhang Fan was like, Batu being able to do this much meant that Batu was quite adept at being a skilled boss.
Later that afternoon, Zhang Fan had changed into newly purchased clothes as he rode in Batu’s car to the city government office. Zhang Fan wasn’t even the slightest bit nervous, as he didn’t have anything he wanted from the politician. However, Batu was quite different as he had been trying to tell Zhang Fan to be cautious on the entire way. “Just do your best if you can treat her, but if you can’t, don’t try to do something you’re not capable of.”
When they met Kang Hua in her office, she was quite polite. “A college student who’s willing to come all the way this far out west must be quite open-minded. I hope that Superintendent Batu will take excellent care of all the college students at his hospital so that they can settle down and work well in our Kuake City.”
As she said this, Kang Hua brought out her personal CT scan, asking Doctor Zhang to take a look. She didn’t say anything else, and only had Zhang Fan look. If Zhang Fan couldn’t even tell anything from the CT scan, that would mean his skills were useless.
“The disc between the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae has slipped slightly to the right, which is causing you painful nerve compression through a bone spur.” Zhang Fan then put down the CT scan and looked at Kang Hua.
“This scan was taken last year at the provincial hospital. The provincial hospital doctor also told me the same thing that you did. Do you have any recommendations?” Although Zhang Fan had been completely accurate in his assessment, Kang Hua still wasn’t sure about his abilities.
“The fastest treatment method will be to perform a minimally invasive surgery for your intervertebral disk.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that. Will there be any other method apart from surgery?” Kang Hua asked while adjusting her sitting posture.
“A massage might be able to help, but it also might not be effective. And if you’re often busy with work, it’s very likely that the pain will keep reoccurring.”
“Excellent. Doctor Zhang is truly skilled. Everything you told me was exactly the same as the doctor from the provincial hospital. Thank you for coming to see me today, Superintendent Batu and Doctor Zhang. I still have work to do, so I’ll see you again later.” Kang Hua then stood up and had them leave.
“It seems like the lead politician of our city is quite satisfied with you.”
“Satisfied? She didn’t say anything, nor did she tell me more about her problem or ask me to treat her.” Batu and Zhang Fan began chatting in Batu’s car.
“Silly boy, how are you supposed to treat her in her office. Just wait. Maybe she’ll summon you again tomorrow.” Batu was quite happy that he could use Zhang Fan to get closer to the head politician of their Kuake City.