The Surgeon’s Studio

Chapter 59: I Don’t Want To Perform Surgery

Old Chief Physician Pan and Little Chang chatted casually along the way.

The untalkative and reserved lady did not shamelessly lick the new chief physician’s boots but held the emergency department in high regard. Every sentence was straight to the point, which pleased Old Chief Physician Pan greatly.

Especially with the two recent events involving the medical administration division—the endoscopic transrectal appendectomy and nitrite poisoning, in Chang Yue’s words, Old Chief Physician Pan was a good commander and had contributed to the success of these two operations.

Old Chief Physician Pan finally managed to get new staff for the emergency department and the first thing he did was to assign Chang Yue to Zheng Ren and to give a few instructions, such as obeying Zheng Ren’s commands, devoting her effort to the establishment of the emergency center and so on.

Zheng Ren had just issued postoperative medical orders and was about to document the details of the surgical case when Old Chief Physician Pan gave him a junior laborer. Thus, he explained the patient’s condition briefly and threw the work to Chang Yue.

Chang Yue did what she was told obediently without impatience or flattering Zheng Ren. She put down her bag without asking for a locker, called the patient’s family member for history-taking and started recording their details.

Zheng Ren went for a ward round in the meantime. The wards in the emergency center were separated from the emergency department observation units, and there was only one patient in it at present—the elderly man who had undergone a cholecystectomy.

The patient had fully regained consciousness from the general anesthesia. He felt slightly nauseous but no emesis was noted.

He complained to Zheng Ren several times about the discomfort caused by the nasogastric tube, but after coaxing and even lying with good intent, Zheng Ren finally managed to calm the patient down.

The nasogastric tube had been inserted into the nostril, passed through the nasopharynx, esophagus and finally to the stomach. Gastric contents could then be aspirated by negative pressure.

When the tube passed through the nasopharynx, the swallowing action would stimulate the pharyngeal mucosa, which was why the patient had been experiencing discomfort.

Well, nothing could be done about it.

After Zheng Ren was done checking the patients, he returned to the office and saw that Chang Yue had finished writing the medical record and was on her way downstairs to request a key from the matron.

The case documentation had been completed in such a short time?

Was this junior doctor not serious in her work? That was Zheng Ren’s first assumption. If she was unable to take her job seriously, he would still have to do all the work personally in the future.

There was no way he would hand over such an important task—medical case documentation—to a sloppy doctor.

Even though Zheng Ren had the System to aid him, it was his habit to handle every clinical matter vigilantly.

If he was unfortunate enough to get caught in a medicolegal issue, all his arguments would be invalid if messy medical records were used as evidence.

However, after casually reading the medical record, Zheng Ren was instantly impressed by Chang Yue’s work. This lady was good!

The medical record was simple, clean and straightforward. There were no unnecessary points or format errors, just as required by medical documentation standards.

Important points from the patient’s medical history and physical examination findings that he mentioned earlier had been written concisely but clearly.

Moreover, she had questioned the family member for further information and recorded additional changes in the patient’s condition as well. A surgeon’s medical case documentation would never reach the standard of a physician’s as it was predetermined by the nature of their work.

Not a single flaw could be found and the record conclusively proved that the patient had to undergo surgery, or his condition would worsen and end in death.

‘This is very good.’ Chang Yue had received Zheng Ren’s preliminary approval through a medical record.

The nurses were idle since there was only one postoperative patient in the ward. Thus, the newly arrived matron made the best use of this time by training the nurses so that they would not panic and delay the resuscitation process when dealing with an emergency.

After Chang Yue received her key, she put her bag in the locker and returned to the office.

“The case is well documented.”

“I won the first place in a regional medical record documentation competition,” answered Chang Yue truthfully.

Zheng Ren admitted that he had no idea what sort of competition that was.

At least she was highly skilled in recording medical cases, but as for her other qualities, they would require careful observation in the future.

Regarding his first… she should be his second colleague because the first place belonged to Xie Yiren forever. Regarding his second colleague, he deemed it necessary to ask about Chang Yue’s requirements and plans for her future.

“I don’t want to perform surgery. I just want to become a good physician,” said Chang Yue.

“Hematophobia or is it something else?”

“No, I just like to chat with people.”

It was a simple conversation, but Zheng Ren knew that she was not interested in assisting with his surgery. At least she could write medical records well and take care of his patients, which were also equally important.

After all, he could devote all his attention to surgery after throwing all his other chores at her in the future.

During their conversation, a phone call from the emergency department came in about a suspected acute appendicitis case which required Zheng Ren to confirm the diagnosis.

Zheng Ren then brought Chang Yue to the emergency department.

The patient was a young male college student who had been sent over by his classmate.

The diagnosis was confirmed and he was admitted to the ward for preoperative preparations.

Zheng Ren had achieved at least the Master rank in his appendectomy skill. Objectively speaking, Zheng Ren figured that he was a grandmaster whose skill could rival every surgeon in the province even though he had not yet reached the peak.

After examining the patient, Zheng Ren started reading medical literature to hone his skills. A slight increase was better than nothing. That was his mindset after experiencing prolonged suffering since childhood.

He assigned the chores—patient-doctor communication, preoperative counseling and preparations—to Chang Yue.

“Ding-dong!” The System gave him a mission all of a sudden.

[Long-term Main Mission: The Best Surgeon.

[Task: There is still a long way to go to become the best surgeon. For every ten operations completed, depending on the degree of completion, a reward will be given accordingly.

[This mission will not overlap with other missions.

[Reward: 10 skill points and 1000 experience points will be rewarded for every ten tier-one surgeries with a completion rate of 80 percent. One tier-two surgery is equivalent to two tier-one surgeries. One tier-three surgery is equivalent to four tier-one surgeries. One tier-four surgery is equivalent to eight tier-one surgeries. The System will announce a new calculative index when more advanced surgeries are complete.

[Time: Forever.]

This mission… Zheng Ren savored the moment for a while. The System must be encouraging him to perform advanced surgery. If this was a long-term main quest, he would have a continuous flow of income hereafter.

As he recalled the forty-nine appendectomies and one endoscopic transrectal appendectomy he had performed just recently, some heartache crept into his chest.

It would have been better if the System had assigned him this main mission earlier as he would have easily gained a few hundred skill points and several thousand experience points. Even though these rewards were incomparable to those gained in the sudden mission, they were still extra profit.

Ninety minutes later, Chang Yue had made the necessary preparations and Zheng Ren brought the patient into the operating theater.

Twenty minutes later, Zheng Ren brought the patient back to the ward before Chang Yue even had time to sit down and take a sip of water.

The twenty-minute surgery included fifteen minutes of anesthesia as well.

Zheng Ren was delighted to see the 10 percent progression rate under the long-term main quest—The Best Surgeon—that he had just received.

Chang Yue was a little surprised, but hid her emotions well.

She continued her busy work afterward. She took over the patient, gave postoperative advice, and waited for Zheng Ren to finish documenting his perioperative procedure before she started writing the postoperative records.

Zheng Ren felt refreshed, having passed all that tedious paperwork to Chang Yue.

His mood improved further when he recalled that the laparoscopic cholecystectomy—a tier-three surgery—had contributed to 40 percent of the progression rate.

Unfortunately, Zheng Ren had performed only two surgeries on the first day of the emergency center’s grand opening, which dissatisfied him to an extent.

Chang Yue was prepared to leave work in the evening.

On the other hand, Zheng Ren volunteered to stay in the ward twenty-four seven as there was no corresponding doctor in charge of the emergency ward. He even considered terminating the tenancy agreement on the house he had rented together with Little Zhao.

Originally, chief residents were required to stay in the ward at all times. It had previously been a special situation in the emergency department.

It was inhumane, but it was how things were.

It was just a temporary measure, though. Zheng Ren would not have to do this any further once the emergency center was fully staffed in the future… In the meantime, he had to stay in the ward twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and four weeks in a month until the next chief resident took his place.

Just as Chang Yue was about to leave work, Old Chief Physician Pan returned cheerfully with two familiar-looking women following closely behind him.

“Zheng Ren, I brought two more pairs of hands for you.”

“…” Zheng Ren recognized them after taking a closer look. They were the twin sisters—Chu Yanran and Chu Yanzhi.