Path of Medicine With a System

The most obvious result of China’s development was that the people’s standard of living was improved. Meat and fish were no longer rare like they used to be. Although there were still more extravagant foods out there, most ordinary families wouldn’t feel any pressure from buying a sheep to slaughter for New Year’s.

In northwestern China, the diet was typically rich in fat and calories. Since it was also New Year’s, everyone was eating much more than normal with all the gatherings going on. People weren’t paying attention to how much they ate. This was the main cause of so many stomach problems during New Year’s.

There was one more week until it was New Year’s. Chasu City Hospital currently had far fewer patients than normal. Since there was also major snowfall recently, the humidity was rising, which meant that there were fewer patients who had colds. Some patients who had elective surgeries or chronic illnesses would also return home at this time, so the medical staff could have it slightly easier over New Year’s and get some more rest.

The proctology director shyly took his young and beautiful new wife out on their planned honeymoon vacation. He probably felt really happy as he was on the beach as a middle-aged man in his 40s with a beautiful woman 20 or so years younger, acting all lovey-dovey!

Since he was now on vacation, this meant it was Zhang Fan’s turn to be the acting proctology director. The hospital administration director personally brought Zhang Fan over to the proctology department. With the proctology director getting a new wife, the doctors under him were filled with complaints because the proctology director had gotten a younger and prettier wife, which meant that he needed lots of money. The proctology director had really tried his hardest to come up with more ways to obtain money no matter what!

Originally, the proctology department’s doctors already had relatively low income among the doctors of Chasu City Hospital due to this department using less medical equipment than others. The doctors would need to rely on the number of patients and some medicine to improve their income. However, the director changed the medical equipment fee allocation, even if he didn’t ask for gifts for his wedding. Before, the director would take half of the medical equipment fees for every patient, split with the lower-ranking doctors. This was barely passable as he was the director.

But since he wanted more money for his new marriage, his lower-ranking doctors became truly unfortunate. The director changed the medical equipment fee allocation to 30/70 instead. Of course, the 70% part belonged to the director. The lower-ranking doctors were really angry, but they didn’t dare to complain. None of them were capable of performing the more difficult proctology surgeries. They still needed to stay in this department for a job, so they could only listen to the director.

Due to all this, the doctors in the proctology department weren’t very motivated. They would always pass on any patients that they possibly could. The proctology department usually wouldn’t take a single emergency patient, or any patients at all whenever the director wasn’t present.

To clarify something, in a hospital, there would be a medical portion and a non-medical portion. Everyone’s salary would be calculated according to their official job title and how many years they had worked at the hospital. This difference wouldn’t be very large between doctors.

The biggest difference would be regarding the bonuses. The non-medical portion of the hospital would issue overall bonuses for the entire hospital. The base bonus would be approximately 700-800 yuan. The rotation doctors could also receive the base bonus.

Meanwhile, medical departments’ bonuses would depend on the number of patients and the types of treatment. Although some departments had good overall income according to the hospital’s accounting, those departments might have much less income for the doctors compared to other departments. This was due to the doctors’ illicit income from medicine and medical equipment.

For instance, the proctology department was one such department where the department’s overall income for the hospital was good, but the doctors wouldn’t receive much money. This was because proctology would use up very little medical equipment. The doctors would only be paid 30 yuan per surgery. Right now, the proctology director was also taking as much money as he could, so the lower-ranking doctors began to silently rebel. They felt that even if they did zero work for an entire month, they would still be able to receive the base bonus. Even if they did work, they wouldn’t obtain much money, so why should they obtain work?

Also, private hospitals were rather unique. Allow this author to explain things for everyone. You wouldn’t be able to find this information on baidu, because baidu would be in cahoots with them.

There were three main types of private hospitals. The largest type was the Fujianese private hospitals. They didn’t open up private hospitals that would treat everything. Their private hospitals mainly dealt in andrology, gynecology, infertility, and dermatology. This would have low risk, good income, and patients who were easy to scam.

There was a certain cruel joke. A doctor who worked at a Fujianese private hospital in gynecology and obstetrics saw a middle school aged couple come and pay for an abortion by using New Year’s red packet money. After the abortion was over, the couple then held hands while putting on their backpacks and going back to school! The doctor immediately rushed home and checked his own middle school aged daughter’s New Year’s money to see if it was still there or not!

This was something that wouldn’t happen at a public hospital. Abortions counted as a type of surgery, and any type of surgery at a Chinese public hospital would require a direct relative’s signature of approval. If the person getting the surgery was underage, then the parent or guardian’s signature would be required, which was why such a thing would rarely happen at a public hospital.

The second type of private hospital was for hand and foot surgery, usually involving limb replantation. This surgical department hadn’t developed nationally, because many years of experience would be required for a doctor of this specialty to mature. It wouldn’t be easy to make quick money. Normally, some private hospitals that had accumulated a decent reputation and skill level would be in this field. Nobody would dare to go without the hospital having a decent reputation first. If a doctor wasn’t skilled enough, every time they performed limb replantation surgery, it would fail. Nobody would go in such a situation.

The third type of private hospital was for proctology. Although it might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that nine out of 10 men had hemorrhoids, it wouldn’t be by much. Doctors at the public hospitals didn’t like to deal with all the hemorrhoids. This also wouldn’t be very popular with the larger hospitals’ directors. A skilled doctor would usually at most end up becoming the director of their department. An incredibly skilled director might get further promoted to vice superintendent. But if you wanted to become the superintendent of a Class A hospital, that would require far more.

Besides, have you ever heard of a superintendent or vice superintendent of a Class A hospital being from the proctology department? Of course not! That was why it was common for some proctology directors to take their disciples and open up their own private proctology hospitals. Since they weren’t able to become the superintendent at a public hospital, then they would be the superintendent of their own hospital instead!

Chasu City had a rather unique private proctology hospital that had been started by a former proctology director from Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital. He had left Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital to start his own private hospital. Not only did he perform proctology surgeries at his hospital, he also performed many services from traditional Chinese medicine, such as massages, medical baths, steaming, and so on. This private hospital’s business was alright. Due to Ma Wentao’s new private hospital’s sudden appearance, other private hospitals were also learning from his strategies.

This proctology private hospital used Ma Wentao’s technique of paying doctors from public hospitals for surgery referrals. Each patient would be worth 500 yuan in the doctor’s pocket. This was another reason why the proctologists weren’t willing to work hard. The proctologists would send almost all of the patients to the proctology private hospital instead as long as it wasn’t an emergency patient or if the proctology director wasn’t around.

To describe the typical situation at Chinese hospitals, most doctors who worked at Class A hospitals would still wish to improve their medical skills through surgeries or other means. As long as the doctors’ bosses weren’t too ridiculous, the doctors would normally work hard to study and learn, hoping that they could become highly skilled themselves. That was because these doctors had a better and higher-level workplace, which was why they would still have expectations for the future.

Meanwhile, doctors at small or medium-sized public hospitals would send away far more patients. They would feel that performing surgeries would barely have any benefits, being paid at about 30 yuan per surgery. These doctors would thus waste the government’s money that was being paid to them as they were waiting just for retirement or to find another job at a private hospital or clinic! Since the Chinese government didn’t place any importance on developing proctology departments, it was common for the proctology department in most smaller hospitals to be quite inactive. This also gave the proctologists very little hope. They would only try to take it easy with work.

Chasu City Hospital’s hospital administration director brought Zhang Fan to the proctology department and introduced him to everyone. “For the time being, Doctor Zhang shall be in charge of daily work in the proctology department. Head nurse, you’re the most veteran person here, so help Doctor Zhang out. Please let him know about anything that he doesn’t know about.”

The hospital administration director then left after this rather short introduction as even the hospital administration department didn’t really value the proctology department.

Zhang Fan immediately noticed that something seemed to be off about the atmosphere in the proctology department as the doctors in this department weren’t busy at all. They also seemed to mostly ignore the hospital administration director, along with all having an aura of defeatism.

The head nurse of the proctology department was still rather warm and friendly. This was because anyone in any surgical department would already know of Zhang Fan by now.