Zhang Fan was rotated to the gynecology department. There were only two male doctors in this entire department. All other doctors were female.
The gynecology department was also looked down upon in Chasu City Hospital.
The surgical departments would claim that gynecology was an internal medicine department. The internal medicine departments would claim that gynecology was a surgical department.
There was a rotation doctor whose first rotation was in the gynecology department. He learned some sutures there. For his second rotation, he went to general surgery. The doctors in general surgery laughed at him for so long because of his problems with sewing sutures! That was just how condescension in the hospital was.
The gynecology department had its own small operating room. Most smaller surgeries would be performed here, rather than in the shared operating rooms. The smell of blood was quite heavy here. In fact, the smell of blood here was different from the regular smell of blood, as the smell of blood was far heavier.
The female doctors in gynecology were typically physically stronger than female doctors in other departments. Many of them were quite manly. This was because obstetrics required physical strength. Women with weaker bodies wouldn’t be able to handle the job.
The female doctors in this department also had loud voices. Right when Zhang Fan entered the department, he heard a female doctor shouting loudly, “Hurry, gauze!”
Gynecology and obstetrics was a department with serious responsibilities. If any medical incident occurred, it was common that there would be two lives lost, both mother’s and child’s. China’s government was placing more and more importance on pregnant women and newborns. In most normal departments, even if the patient died, the department wouldn’t need to report it to the hospital leadership unless the patient had died due to a medical incident. But, things were different in the gynecology and obstetrics department. If a pregnant woman died, that would be a major incident. Not only would the department have to report it to the hospital leadership, the hospital would also have to make a report to the Bureau of Health. In addition, the gynecology and obstetrics department often had a high rate of patient disputes.
A newborn would need to exit its mother’s body and suddenly change environments. From pregnancy to childbirth, all sorts of hormones in the mother’s body would be elevated. There would be too many biological changes to list. It truly could be said that mothers giving birth would need to crawl through the gates of hell in order to survive. There were far too many changes in the body as well as unpredictable occurrences.
No matter how careful the doctor was, it would still be possible for a medical incident to occur. The mother and child both dying would obviously be a tremendous shock and calamity to any family. This was why the doctors in the gynecology and obstetrics department were under tremendous pressure. After being under such pressure for too long, very few doctors in this department would have good tempers. They weren’t naturally like this to begin with. This was a helpless side effect of the situation! Please understand how it is for them.
Zhang Fan was assigned to Xiao Hong, a middle-aged female attending physician. She had a thick and strong body. She also spoke, acted, and walked especially quickly. Shao Hong was currently on duty for half a year in obstetrics.
The crying sounds in pediatrics were still tolerable. At most, the children crying there would make you slightly frustrated. However, the crying and screaming in obstetrics were truly heartrending.
On Zhang Fan’s very first day in gynecology and obstetrics, which was a full day shift combined with a night shift, he experienced how hard it was for mothers. Shao Hong’s patient #9 was a pregnant woman who was 28 years old. She had been in labor pains for two days now, but still didn’t show signs of going into labor. She was in such pain that she constantly sweated.
Her husband was all in tears from watching his wife like this. However, this pregnant woman was quite strong. Since the position of the fetus, the fetus’s health, and everything else was quite good, the pregnant woman absolutely insisted on a natural childbirth.
The woman was all by herself on her bed in the delivery room. She was in such pain that she kept twisting and turning. The delivery room was a room for expectant pregnant women who were giving birth soon. Family members weren’t allowed in. The doctors and nurses were all quite busy and didn’t have the time to comfort her. Only a nurse would come by periodically to checkup on the women here.
Patient #9 kept gritting her teeth and moaning from the pain. Her husband brought her some food and pulled the curtain around her bed.
“Liping, how about we just do a C-section? I feel like I’m about to die myself, seeing you in so much pain. Honestly, let’s just do a C-section!”
“No! I’m really fine! Naturally born babies will have a stronger sense of direction, and it’s harder for them to get pneumonia. I’ll definitely have a natural birth!” Although she was saying this, she was grabbing on to her husband’s hand with everything she had.
“Liping!” The husband was crying soundlessly.
“Stop crying! Wait, the baby is coming out, he’s coming out!” The pregnant woman hurriedly told her husband. She could feel a pushing sensation.
“Doctor! Hurry!” The husband stood up in such a hurry that he even spilled the food he brought all over the floor.
“What are you shouting for! Get out!” Shao Hong knew with just one look that the pregnant woman was about to get birth, so she ordered the husband out. However, patient #9’s husband really didn’t want to leave. He was in such pain from seeing his wife in such discomfort.
“Did you not hear me? Get out!” Shao Hong raised her voice several levels and directly pushed the patient’s husband outside the delivery room.
“Use more strength! Use more strength! Hurry! Hold your breath, and push down! That’s right! Just like that! You can do it! Hurry!” The nurse midwife helped the pregnant woman with the delivery. Zhang Fan stood by the side while watching and waiting to assist. He felt his heart clenching up as this was too painful to behold, with how much pain the pregnant woman was in.
The pregnant woman was in such pain that she kept shaking her head. Even so, she did her best to not move her lower body. She was no superwoman. This was simply the power of motherly love.
“Feed the patient some chocolate and a Red Bull energy drink. She’s almost out of energy,” Shao Hong told Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan hurriedly opened up a can of Red Bull and fed a chocolate bar to the pregnant woman. She was no longer in as much pain for the moment. Her tears and sweat all mingled together. When she saw Zhang Fan bringing her chocolate and an energy drink, she took advantage of this lapse in pain to really eat and drink up. The combination of Red Bull and Dove chocolate was so sweet!
Some time later, the patient started hurting again. “You can do it, push down, clench your anus, and hold your breath! Hurry, you can do it, the baby’s head is showing, hurry, use more strength, hurry! If you don’t use strength, the baby will lack oxygen! Hurry!” Shao Hong and the nurse midwife’s voices were really loud and strict-sounding!
The pregnant woman used all of the strength she had. “Ahhh!” It was unknown whether the pregnant woman was celebrating the end of her pain or whether it was the last of her strength. She shouted once, and successfully gave birth to her child!
Zhang Fan felt his hairs all standing up on end! He also had goosebumps all over. He helped to clear the newborn’s airway, cut the umbilical cord, and slapped the baby’s butt. The baby started crying! “Wahh! Wahh! Wahh!” There was a clear crying sound! Zhang Fan felt for the first time ever that the sound of crying was so wonderful.
A child’s birthday would be the mother’s day of pain!
“Doctor! Is it a boy or a girl?” The patient looked towards Zhang Fan. He was about to tell her the answer, when Shao Hong interjected, “Shut up! No matter if it’s a boy or girl, it’s your child! Now’s not the time for you to be worrying about such things!”
Zhang Fan immediately shut up as well instead of saying anything! The patient was still waiting for her placenta to be ejected. The baby was also quite busy as well, as it was necessary to take the baby’s weight, footprints, and so on. Since this had been a natural birth, the baby’s head seemed like a lollipop. Zhang Fan felt that the newborn seemed really ugly!
A ray of sunlight now illuminated the delivery room! It was now daylight! The patient had successfully survived the ordeal of childbirth! She was now quietly sleeping, with her baby next to her. The father and both sets of grandparents all quietly surrounded the mother and child, without making a single sound. However, all of them had blissful smiles! Gynecology and obstetrics was just such a wondrous department. Pregnant women waiting for childbirth might not actually give birth for quite a while. But, then several might all suddenly give birth all at once. Right after successfully delivering this baby, another two expectant mothers were about to give birth. This was a night shift, so there were only three nurse midwives on duty. That wasn’t enough! There was no helping it, so attending physician Shao Hong acted as a nurse midwife, while Zhang Fan acted as her nurse assistant.
“Doctor Zhang, stimulate the patient’s breasts.” Zhang Fan put on light plastic gloves and averted his gaze as he kept playing with a pregnant female patient’s breasts. The reason why he had to stimulate the patient’s breasts was to help her produce progestins, a hormone which would be useful in expediting the baby’s birth.
The patient kept shouting, resting, eating chocolate, drinking Red Bull, and then repeating this process! For women who had longer processes of childbirth, they would almost always be completely drained of energy at the end of the process.
Television dramas definitely weren’t exaggerating how pale women could be after giving birth. In real life, it would be even worse than what television dramas would show you. The women would often have completely messy hair, lips completely drained of blood, and be completely listless.
In modern society, pregnant women had better nutrition and would move less than before. However, this would actually make difficult deliveries more common than before. In the past, it would be considered miracle news for a baby to weigh four kilograms at birth. Nowadays, four-kilogram newborns could be found everywhere!
Zhang Fan was having a hard time already after his first night shift in gynecology and obstetrics. This was far too painful for him. It really would require a heart of steel for a doctor to be able to last long in such an environment.
Sometimes, having empathy wouldn’t always be a good thing. When a pregnant patient ran out of energy, talking nicely to her would be useless. Orders given in a severe tone would actually be the most effective.
“Hurry! Use more strength!” Shouting that loudly could shock the pregnant patient into using a little more strength.
Successfully delivering a baby would obviously be wonderful news for any family. It was only natural for the families to want to thank the doctors.
In other departments, it was strictly forbidden for doctors to openly receive any gifts. However, Chasu City Hospital didn’t regulate the gynecology department in this matter strictly at all. It was quite common that the gynecology department would always have plenty of fruits, milk, and other gifts of food from the patients’ families!
Some sophisticated families would gift the doctors with eggs wrapped in red paper. There were also superstitious families who would insist on having the doctor in charge of the childbirth give a nickname to the child three days after the birth. The superstition was that obstetricians had powerful energy that could help keep the newborn safe from illness.
Zhang Fan still couldn’t leave even though it was now morning and the end of his night shift. The gynecology and pediatrics departments combined were doing a major checkup on all patients in unison, with both department directors acting together. This was a major event with a huge number of people.
Zhang Fan had bravely fought for the sake of protecting the nurses in the pediatrics department. Although he hadn’t won, just his courage was enough for the entire pediatrics department to become really friendly towards him.
“Zhang Fan, it’s my birthday tomorrow. Come sing karaoke, and remember to buy me a birthday present!” This was from a young resident doctor who was just permanently assigned to pediatrics.
“Hero Zhang, what’s the matter? You look so tired. That’s not like you at all.” Pediatrics director Tang Liuhong joked with Zhang Fan when she saw that he seemed a bit fatigued.
“Haha, hello, Director. It’s just that I was up all night for a night shift!” Zhang Fan chuckled as he responded. He thought that he would get some sympathy, but instead, Director Tang told him, “You’re already like this after just one night shift? You need to exercise more! It’s bad for you to be so weak at your young age!”
The directors’ checkups hadn’t even started yet, but the pediatrics doctors were already joking around with Zhang Fan. Lu Shuyan was incredibly jealous as she watched this. She had permanently joined the gynecology department now, having finished with her rotations. Although the gynecology and pediatrics departments usually did their checkups together, everything was usually quite serious. It was extraordinarily rare to see such a joking atmosphere.
“You’re pretty good! You’re so popular with others everywhere you go! How about you settle down here and get yourself assigned to gynecology? If we team up together, we’ll definitely be the best team in gynecology!”
“Hey! Teacher Lu! I really didn’t expect to see you here!” Lu Shuyan was currently in gynecology, while Zhang Fan was in the obstetrics section of gynecology. This was why the two of them hadn’t met each other yet after both leaving the urology department to join gynecology. Zhang Fan felt awkward about directly refusing her, which was why he intentionally changed the subject!
“Damn you!” Lu Shuyan was the one who felt awkward now. Although she had a master’s degree, she was still only a resident doctor. Zhang Fan addressing her as “Teacher” made her feel way too awkward.
Although Zhang Fan was absolutely exhausted after a full day and night shift, today was the weekly Monday major departmental checkup on all the patients. Any doctor who was still capable of moving was absolutely required to follow the directors for this departmental checkup.
The point in common between gynecology and pediatrics was children, especially the newborns. This was why the most importance for this dual department checkup was placed on the newborns. Every single room, every single pregnant woman, and every single newborn child was checked up upon.
The departmental checkup finally finished at two pm. Everyone hurriedly returned to their departments. It still wasn’t time for them to eat yet, as the major checkup took up far too much time. There was still so much work left undone.
There was a large group of patients and their family members gathered in the gynecology department. They either needed discharge paperwork, have their medicine changed, or so on. It would be quite a bit past three p.m. before all of this was finally finished. If a doctor was really starving, all he or she could do was eat some chocolate really fast!
All of this work was supposed to be done by the resident and rotation doctors! Zhang Fan finally finished all this work and went back to his apartment to take a shower. He then fell asleep on his bed in less than five minutes! Before Zhang Fan went to sleep, he texted Shao Hua saying, “I won’t be at your place for dinner tonight. No need to wait for me, I need to sleep!”
Jingshu obtained her driver’s license successfully. Her driving was quite steady, although she still didn’t dare to drive long distances yet. Still, she wouldn’t have any problems driving in Chasu City. Every time that Shao Hua got off work, if she had nothing to do, Jingshu would drive Shao Hua and the two women would go out having fun together. Although Shao Hua was also busy with her studying to become an accountant, Zhang Fan was far too busy to accompany Jingshu, so Shao Hua was the only one who could accompany Jingshu. Besides, Jingshu could only stay for a few more days in Chasu City.
The gynecology department was run by a group of female doctors who were quite manlike. It could be said that there was little difference between day and night here. What would a doctor be most afraid of? They would be most afraid of being called in to work.
Most ordinary people could enjoy their sleep and turn off their cell phones. That would be impossible for doctors! Doctors would have to put on their clothes while answering their cell phones even if it was in the middle of the night! The call would never be for anything good. There would only be one thing: “Hurry over, there’s an emergency patient.”
The hospital wouldn’t care even if you were currently in the middle of having sex, or if you were feeling tired. An emergency patient would require you to come over instantly! Any doctor who had worked for more than two years already would be especially sensitive to their cell phone ringing. Just the ringtone was capable of causing them to tense up.
A sudden cell phone ring would instantly cause the doctor’s adrenaline to raise and heartbeat to rapidly increase!
There was a certain joke that doctors told. An injured doctor went into shock, and using medicine on him was quite ineffective. While the other doctors were feeling helpless, the superintendent declared, “Sound the alarms! Call his cell phone! There’s a patient that he still needs to save. It’s not time for him to die yet!” As a result, the doctor in shock woke up!
Each profession would have their own pains. You wouldn’t know unless you were in that profession.
The renovation on Zhang Fan’s new apartment home was almost at an end now, with Shao Hua’s father watching over the renovation. Shao Hua’s father felt like he still wanted to watch more, because he was quite bored and had so much fun chatting with the renovation workers! The renovation on the new apartment home that Zhang Fan purchased for his parents in Lan City was almost completed now as well, as there were only simple renovations there, which was why things had been so quick.
Shao Hua had already decided for certain that she would take both her own mother and Zhang Fan’s mother together to send Jingshu off to college. She had already purchased the necessary plane tickets. Zhang Fan didn’t have the time to go, and he felt rather bad about letting his sister go without him. However, he did feel reassured since Shao Hua was going. Shao Hua was indeed stronger than Zhang Fan in many areas.
Li Liang finished his six month study program at Chasu City Hospital. His time here had been so fulfilling as well as tiring! Although he was still unable to accomplish difficult orthopedic surgeries, he no longer had any problems with handling simple internal fixations. Li Liang really didn’t want to leave, but he had to. There was no helping it, as he didn’t have an official job at Chasu City Hospital.
Zhang Fan treated Li Liang to a meal. Shao Hua, Wang Yanan, and Li Hui also attended. The fatty Li Liang’s round face had become slightly skinnier after half a year of hard work. He was quite a capable worker. Although he wasn’t nearly as ridiculously hardworking as Zhang Fan had been, the doctors in orthopedic department #1 had plenty of praise for him.
Although Li Liang wasn’t very handsome, he had good emotional intelligence. He was already on texting terms with Wang Yanan now. Although this didn’t count as much progress in their relationship, this was still an important first step.
Li Hui was also much better now than he was before. He had started a relationship with a high school biology teacher. Still, it was only the beginning for now.
The atmosphere at Li Liang’s farewell dinner was quite nice. There was no sadness of separation. Li Liang was quite open-minded. No matter if it was work or finding a girlfriend, he had to have his own abilities first. As long as he worked hard enough, he would have no regrets!
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