Path of Medicine With a System

Zhang Fan left before anyone else right after dinner. He was quite bored as he didn’t understand any of the dinner topics, nor was he able to contribute to the conversation.

So, he simply left after informing the hosts. Wang Qian led Zhang Fan to the front door, and told him, “My husband’s been the cautious type for his entire life. Don’t mind him. Come visit me and have dinner at my place any time that you’re free.”

After the New Year’s, Zhang Fan was transferred to another department: the general surgery department. At Chasu City Hospital, the only sub-departments of general surgery were the hepatobiliary along with thyroid and mammary gland departments. All other general surgeries were under general surgery department #1.

Zhang Fan looked through his System. He hadn’t made much progress with general surgeries, and still needed many more to level up.

The general surgery department of Chasu City Hospital was one of the largest departments, with many teams of doctors. With so many people, things were rather messy, and the people in this department didn’t get along with each other.

Back when Huang Yun was still the superintendent, he was basically in charge of everything in the general surgery department as he was formerly a surgeon. The director of the general surgery department didn’t have enough authority.

Now that Huang Yun had retired, the three vice directors of general surgery had all become skilled enough to be independent, and the current director found it even more difficult to manage or control them.

When Zhang Fan entered this department, he found that this large department with almost 20 doctors was completely silent, with not a single person even chatting.

Not only did the director of general surgery have a poor relationship with his vice directors, the vice directors also had a very poor relationship with each other.

This made things hard on the lower-ranking doctors. They simply buried themselves with the department’s work, and didn’t want to talk unless it was necessary.

Three medical specialist doctors were transferred to the general surgery department, including Zhang Fan and Wang Zipeng. The latter once again stared remorsefully at him, detesting being put together with such a ridiculously skilled doctor who was only one year older than him.

The third doctor was a young woman. Apparently, she had already been chosen by the pediatrics department. She was only here in the general surgery department due to Ouyang Hong’s mandatory new rotation policy, so she wouldn’t know even the slightest bit about general surgery.

On the very first day that she arrived, she even brought unfinished medical reports from her previous department and worked on them. It was quite obvious that she was only here because of the forced rotations, and that she would be going through the motions.

The director of general surgery instantly realized that she had already been chosen by another department, and that she wouldn’t care too much about what he wrote in her assessment.

The director couldn’t do anything about it. Since he didn’t need to find a doctor to teach her, he simply arranged for her to only work with the patients’ paperwork.

He then added Zhang Fan and Wang Zipeng to his own team. Others’ objections would be useless as he was the director.

There were four teams in the general surgery department: one led by the director and one each for the three vice directors. The three vice directors all had the second-highest level certification. Back when Huang Yun had been the superintendent, his policy had been to equally develop all the best doctors. Although this policy had succeeded in a way as the three vice directors all became highly skilled doctors, equal in ability to the director, this landed the director of general surgery in an awkward position. The vice directors basically wouldn’t listen to him.

The vice directors each had their own personal clinics, and they mostly obtained their patients there. Basically, everyone had their own different source of patients. Zhang Fan felt that if it weren’t for the fact that the director cared about his face, he would have split up the department into different departments long ago.

The three vice directors all wanted to split off into different departments in order to become truly independent. Naturally, that would feel much better than having a director over them.

The director of general surgery was named Zhao Quanping. He was in his forties, the prime of his life. The three vice directors had all joined the hospital within one or two years of him. All four of them had almost equal medical skills, and were successful and skilled doctors.

Previously, when Huang Yun had been the superintendent, he managed surgery with a more hands-on approach as he was a former surgeon. That had suppressed the vice directors as the superintendent was much higher-ranking than them. However, the new superintendent, Ouyang Hong of internal medicine, couldn’t care less about directly managing the surgical departments, so now Zhao Quanping was completely unable to get the vice directors to listen to anything he said. He could only feel aggrieved inside.

Zhao Quanping had three attending physicians under him. They would all be given their own patients, and would work together as a team for the surgeries.

No matter what, Zhao Quanping was still a director, so the attending physicians led comfortable lives. Many patients would come to Chasu City Hospital rather than a private clinic because they wanted to be treated by a department director. The position was helpful for attracting patients.

Zhao Quanping didn’t mention any specifics about who Zhang Fan and Wang Zipeng would be assigned to. Basically, they were just going to be in this team.

At the general surgery department’s morning meeting, there was almost no discussion whatsoever. Only a few greetings were spoken. The three vice directors were all quite sly, and would only discuss the difficult surgeries that they lacked a guarantee for, trying to shift the responsibility onto others. If there were no difficult surgeries to discuss, morning meetings in the general surgery department would be dead silent.

The atmosphere in this department was quite unfriendly. Wang Zipeng was constantly afraid as he feared antagonizing any of the veteran doctors.

Zhang Fan didn’t care. He was here to work, not act like a coward in order to keep the peace. He would do whatever he needed to without hesitation.

Originally, Zhang Fan had wanted to grind as many surgeries as possible in the general surgery department, but now that he saw the atmosphere here, his dream was no more.

The three attending physicians in Zhao Quanping’s team had a total of almost 30 patients. Just changing the medicine for all the patients would take quite a long time. The three attending physicians also knew of Zhang Fan’s reputation, so they gave the job of changing the medicine to Wang Zipeng.

Zhang Fan felt rather awkward about not helping, so he assisted Wang Zipeng in changing the medicine for a few patients. However, Wang Zipeng then refused to allow Zhang Fan to help anymore. He whispered to Zhang Fan, “I’d like to show them how hardworking I can be.”

Zhang Fan understood, so he simply watched Wang Zipeng change the rest of the medicine. Three appendectomies were scheduled in the morning today for the general surgery department. The director wouldn’t personally perform these surgeries, as an appendectomy would be quite basic, so the attending physicians were given these surgeries.

Li Hong was the youngest of the three attending physicians in Zhao Quanping’s team. Thus, appendectomies, hernias, and simple intestinal obstructions were always given to him.

He was quite hardworking. However, he was a bit of a slow learner, so his medical skills weren’t as good as the other two attending physicians’. Although the other two attending physicians didn’t necessarily bully him, they did slightly look down on him, constantly addressing him as “Little Li”.

Li Hong was feeling slightly depressed. He had been a resident doctor for five years before finally being promoted to attending physician, but with his medical skills, it was often the case that he couldn’t find the appendix for quite a while when performing an appendectomy, that he would have difficulty sewing hernia patches into the patient for hernias, or that he would be unable to seal the intestine well in the deep parts for intestinal obstructions.

The nurses would always tell him to hurry up, and the other doctors laughed at him for his lack of medical skills. Sometimes, he truly wanted to throw away his doctor’s coat and quit this job, but he would only think about it without acting on it. He knew that he would be unable to support himself if he did quit.

Li Hong’s mind was on such things as he washed his hands in preparation for the appendectomy, so his hand-washing took much longer than usual. Wang Zipeng didn’t dare to finish his own hand-washing too quickly, as he still wasn’t even familiar with the proper way to arrange the hospital bedsheets on the operating bed yet. He didn’t dare to finish hand-washing, as that meant he would need to go arrange the hospital bedsheets.

The nurses in the operating room were very strict on maintaining a sterile environment. If they saw any improper sterile procedures, they would even be able to kick out a newbie doctor from the operating room.

Zhang Fan finished washing his hands. Wang Zipeng immediately stopped pretending to wash his hands and followed Zhang Fan into the operating room. He wanted to learn the proper procedures.

Li Hong was still busy being in a depressed funk due to his lack of medical skills, and was still absorbed in washing his hands. Zhang Fan called out to Li Hong, but the latter didn’t seem to hear him. Zhang Fan thus decided to ignore Li Hong.

Zhang Fan had already passed the medical license exam, making him into an official doctor. He just lacked the medical license, which he would only receive in March. However, his position in the hospital was still much better than before he’d passed the medical license exam. Li Hong was busy daydreaming, but the anesthesiologist didn’t want to wait. Zhang Fan simply started the surgery together with Wang Zipeng.

Wang Zipeng glanced at the door of the operating room, and said, “Doctor Zhang, we aren’t waiting for Doctor Li?”

Zhang Fan didn’t even get a chance to speak, because the anesthesiologist interrupted, “Can you hurry up and start the surgery? If you can’t do it, just tell me now! The anesthesia’s effects are almost over.”

Zhang Fan ignored the anesthesiologist. Zhang Fan doubted that the anesthesiologist would dare to cause trouble when the patient was already on the operating table. The anesthesiologist was just trying to bully the two new doctors.

It was all mainly because Li Hong was somewhat incompetent with his medical skills, so the operating room staff had gotten used to bullying him. If they were unhappy, they would find some excuse to make things hard on him. Li Hong was basically on the lowest rung of the hospital’s social ladder.

The surgery began. Wang Zipeng’s skills in holding the laparoscope were only average, so Zhang Fan had to constantly give him guidance.

Halfway through the surgery, the anesthesiologist had a sudden realization. He loudly asked, “Where’s your teaching doctor? Two doctors without medical licenses dare to secretly begin a surgery? Are you suicidal!?”

This time, Wang Zipeng was so scared that he began to tremble, while Zhang Fan was so angry that he gritted his teeth.

This anesthesiologist was intentionally trying to start trouble because he was in a bad mood. His wife was going through divorce proceedings with him. She had left him for a younger man, which caused him to hate all men younger than he was.

The other anesthesiologists wouldn’t care. This surgery would be the responsibility of the general surgery department, and the director there would be in charge of determining the doctors for the surgery. It wasn’t like the anesthesia department would be blamed if anything went wrong with the surgery, so why would it matter?

However, this anesthesiologist was different. He was asking with vicious intentions.

Zhang Fan was truly angry. The laparoscope was already in the patient’s abdominal cavity. Even if the anesthesiologist had to lecture them, couldn’t he speak softer and slower? He was basically shouting loudly as if they were thieves.

Wang Zipeng was already beginning to shake. If he wasn’t careful and accidentally penetrated one of the patient’s organs with the laparoscope, it would cause a huge medical incident.

Zhang Fan used his hand to steady the laparoscope Wang Zipeng was holding. Although Zhang Fan had a calm disposition, he would still have a temper when provoked. To him, shouting in an operating room was no different from treating the patient’s life as a joke.

“Shout! Keep shouting! Keep shouting, and I’ll definitely use this surgical scalpel to kill you even if I can’t be a doctor anymore,” Zhang Fan spoke in a low but severe tone.

The anesthesiologist was stunned. He had never seen a new doctor like this before. All the new doctors in the operating room would always smile at him and call him brother.

He wanted to argue more, but then saw Zhang Fan’s vicious expression, and didn’t dare to speak loudly anymore. He weakly said, “You think you’re in the right when you don’t even have a medical license?”

Zhang Fan ignored this comment of his, and simply said, “I’m in the middle of surgery now. Make sure that the patient has proper anesthesia. Otherwise, I’m never going to let you go.”

Zhang Fan wasn’t afraid of the anesthesiologist trying to report him to the administrative department. Appendectomies were a simple surgery that resident doctors were already allowed to perform on their own. At most, the anesthesiologist could try reporting him for starting the surgery without the teaching doctor present, but the teaching doctor was right outside, still washing his hands. Zhang Fan wasn’t afraid.

When he’d been selling instant noodles, Zhang Fan had seen many such characters who acted rudely because they wanted free food. They would always start behaving and obediently pay up when Zhang Fan showed his temper and went all out against them.

That was why he knew exactly what type of person this anesthesiologist was.

Zhang Fan was daring enough to do something extreme that might get him fired here because he was still young. It would be easy for him to find another job. However, things were different for the anesthesiologist. It would be much more difficult for him to find another job as he was a middle-aged man now.

Zhang Fan had already completed the surgery by the time that Li Hong finally finished washing his hands and entered the operating room. The anesthesiologist glanced between Li Hong and Zhang Fan, muttering, “Nobody cares about the rules anymore. I’m definitely going to have a talk to your director about this.”