Wang Qian purchased a complete set of clothing for Zhang Fan. He couldn’t refuse, as that would make her really unhappy. Wang Qian’s son was now studying abroad, and her husband was incredibly busy with work. Work was alright for Wang Qian, but she was always incredibly bored in her free time. Due to her husband’s high status in the government, it was inconvenient for her to make friends with whomever she pleased.
Zhang Fan had a simple and loyal personality. Wang Qian knew all this because she saw it for herself, which was why she really liked him. Not only was he a talented doctor, she felt that he was also of a good character. Li Xiao and Kang Hua also similarly had a high opinion of Zhang Fan.
Wang Qian had received some gift cards from her workplace, as well as some from various other people. After the shopping spree at the mall, Zhang Fan gave Wang Qian a ride home. He was then forced to stay and eat dinner with her. He was also given smokes and tea leaves as he left. That was always how it was every time that he visited her, which made him feel too awkward to visit Wang Qian often.
Kang Hua had managed to get acquainted with Li Xiao thanks to the previous game of Double Rise. Wang Qian was also helping her out, so Kang Hua finally got a chance to meet someone much higher in ranking. The end result was quite good for Kang Hua: she became the acting city leader of Chark City, a city bigger than Kuake City.
Zhang Fan felt that all of this had very little to do with him. No matter if Kang Hua was the city leader of Kuake City or Chark City, Zhang Fan didn’t feel anything about it. That was the pity of someone who only cared about skills. He would see nothing but others’ skills, feeling that only skills were the best.
Since it was almost New Year’s, Chasu City Hospital kept giving its employees free gifts, such as rice, noodles, and cooking oil. Since this was Ouyang Hong’s first year as superintendent, she wanted everyone to be in a celebratory mood for New Year’s.
Director Zhao Jun refused to work on night shifts, which meant that Zhang Fan was also unable to work on night shifts as he was in a team with the director. This entire month had been the freest Zhang Fan had ever been in the past year and a half since he started working.
There was a scheduled surgery the next morning for the hepatobiliary department. It was for hepatic hydatid disease, also known as echinococcosis of the liver, or commonly known as tapeworms. This was a problem common in northwestern China, especially in the nomadic herding areas. The reason for this was because canine tapeworms would live inside dogs’ intestines. The tapeworm eggs would be spread by contaminated dog feces and often stick to herding dogs’ fur or sheep fur, which could then spread to human hands. A person who ate food that was contaminated by tapeworm eggs would then become infected. The tapeworm eggs would hatch with the assistance of stomach acid, which helped the larvae inside break free. The tapeworms would then pass through the intestinal mucosa, the portal vein system… then, most tapeworms would end up in the liver. The larvae would mature for three weeks in the liver before developing into hydatids. The hydatids would then grow in in the liver, pressuring the nearby organs and possibly causing infections, liver ruptures, organ obstructions, or other such medical problems for the patient.
To explain more simply, when in the nomadic district, you would have to be careful when coming into contact with dogs or any water that might have been contaminated by dog feces as that could cause being infected by tapeworms. These parasitic tapeworms would live in the human liver; as time passed, the worms would grow in size and rapidly multiply. The liver would become distorted from the pressure of all the tapeworms, and the patient would feel discomfort, start to vomit, and display jaundice.
There were many surgeries scheduled in the hepatobiliary department today. The medical specialist doctors all rushed to help with the gall bladder surgeries. None of them were willing to volunteer for a tapeworm surgery, because that was far too disgusting. Opening up the patient’s body would always result in seeing a seething swarm of tapeworms. Those with helminthophobia would even faint. Not only that, tapeworm surgeries were highly difficult to complete fully as it was common for a few tapeworm eggs to remain in the patient’s body, which meant that the patient would soon suffer from tapeworms again.
Zhao Jun was the primary surgeon for the tapeworm surgery, while Zhang Fan acted as his primary surgical assistant. This was Zhang Fan’s first time ever working together with Zhao Jun.
Zhao Jun opened an incision, stopped the patient’s bleeding, then drained the blood. Zhang Fan’s assistance made Zhao Jun have the most comfortable surgery he’d ever had. Zhang Fan provided excellent vision for him, and was always one step ahead and prepared for everything that Zhao Jun wanted to do. After Zhao Jun removed the liver capsule, Zhang Fan directly cleaned the lesion with medical alcohol.
The tapeworm surgery was now mostly complete. All that was left was to sew the surgical sutures. Zhao Jun wanted to see Zhang Fan’s skills, so he said, “General surgeries are quite different from orthopedic surgeries, aren’t they? Are you familiar with how to sew the abdomen? Would you like to try sewing the sutures?”
Although Zhao Jun had heard rumors about how amazing Zhang Fan was in the orthopedic department, he had never personally witnessed Zhang Fan’s skills for himself, so Zhao Jun wasn’t that certain. That was why he wanted to ascertain Zhang Fan’s skills. Zhang Fan glanced at Zhao Jun, and responded, “Sure, Director Zhao. It should be no problem at all.”
Zhang Fan thus began sewing the surgical sutures. He was especially swift at sewing the peritoneum, fascia, and muscles. The nurse in charge of the operating room’s medical equipment wasn’t even able to keep up with threading. Zhang Fan was extremely well practiced regarding sewing surgical sutures, even to the point where he had ridiculous speed. He wasn’t trying to intentionally show off; this was simply his usual speed.
Zhao Jun remained silent for a while as he watched Zhang Fan sewing surgical sutures. After some consideration, Zhao Jun spoke up again. “Zhang Fan, you’ve been in our hepatobiliary department for one month now. How have you been with watching the surgeries? Are you familiar with how to do a gall bladder surgery now?” Zhao Jun viewed Zhang Fan as someone who was skilled for a resident doctor. To Zhao Jun, he was asking a normal question, and he even admired Zhang Fan’s good foundations.
“Gall bladder surgeries are easy,” Zhang Fan stated directly. He had been incredibly bored and frustrated by this month with nothing to do, so he answered without even considering Zhao Jun’s feelings.
“Oh!” Zhao Jun almost choked, hearing such an arrogant statement. “Alright then, I’ll arrange a gall bladder surgery for you tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”
“Of course.” Since Zhang Fan already said what he had, he felt that there was no need to back off and ease his tone.
Zhao Jun was now truly angry. He wouldn’t have been so angry if someone had said that he was unskilled. He was angry because saying that hepatobiliary surgeries were easy was to deny all his hard work and glory after spending half his life as a doctor. Of course he would be angry. Not only that, due to the nomadic districts in the border province, the hepatobiliary department of Chasu City Hospital could be considered quite good in all of China for hepatobiliary surgeries.
Although Zhao Jun was angry, he didn’t argue with Zhang Fan, for he felt that it would be too childish.
During the following day’s morning meeting, after discussing the day’s surgeries, Zhao Jun announced, “Our Chasu City Hospital has the new policy of rotating new doctors through different departments in order to help the younger doctors become familiar with the most common patient illnesses in each department, along with being able to complete the simple and most basic surgeries of each type. We must take this seriously. Soon, the medical specialist doctors in our department will be rotated to different departments again. Our department is thus going to hold a test, and the test results will be recorded in your assessments. Today, Doctor Zhang Fan will be performing gall bladder surgery on the patient in room #5 as his graduation exam from our department.”
This announcement made the other medical specialist doctors turn pale. Even for the ones who had been helping with surgeries every day, this had still lasted for only one month! Wanting a newbie doctor to perform a gall bladder surgery after only one month of observation? The hepatobiliary department director was crazy! Not only that, the surgery would be critical for the new medical specialist doctors’ assessment? That was such terrible news for them!
Zhao Jun had indeed thought of this while he was angry. Out of the three general surgery departments, the hepatobiliary department was the first to be split off from general surgery. However, even up until now, apart from being good at tapeworm surgeries, the only other surgery the department was good at was gall bladder surgery. The other surgeries weren’t as well developed. Right now, even pancreatic cyst surgeries were quite rare. The director of the overall department of general surgery kept saying that Zhao Jun shouldn’t have split off to create a department of his own. That was why Zhao Jun decided yesterday to make Zhang Fan perform a gall bladder surgery after hearing his words—it was to teach him a lesson and show it wouldn’t be so easy to perform hepatobiliary surgeries after all.
Although Zhao Jun was quite angry, he had selected a young patient whose condition wasn’t severe, which meant the gall bladder surgery would be extremely easy. It would lower the amount of risk for the patient if Zhang Fan didn’t know what he was doing. Zhao Jun would personally act as the primary surgical assistant so that he could step in at any moment if Zhang Fan messed up.
In the hepatobiliary department, Zhao Jun typically didn’t allow the new medical specialist doctors to bore holes in patients or perform laparoscopic surgeries, because he was afraid of medical incidents. If the inexperienced doctors didn’t control the strength properly, it would be easy to accidentally penetrate a vital organ and cause a serious injury to the patient. Zhang Fan began the surgery after washing his hands and disinfecting. Zhao Jun originally wanted to just have Zhang Fan start the surgery, and then lecture him and kick him out if his techniques were insufficient, telling him that it wasn’t good to be so arrogant. However, right from boring the holes, Zhang Fan’s techniques were precise with no problems whatsoever.
Zhang Fan exposed the cystic duct, isolated the gall bladder artery and performed ligation, removed the gall bladder, and then stopped the bleeding. His movements were incredibly well practiced. Zhao Jun had intended on stopping Zhang Fan right from the start if he couldn’t even hold the laparoscope correctly, yet Zhao Jun went from worried to reassured, and then astonished. Zhao Jun didn’t have to say a single word to Zhang Fan during the entire surgery. Zhang Fan ended the surgery with deflation and sewing up the bored holes. Zhao Jun immediately left the operation room after the surgery, still without saying a single word.
The secondary surgical assistant was an attending physician from the hepatobiliary department. “Doctor Zhang, you’re amazing. You rendered our boss completely speechless. I don’t think even I can compare to how precise your movements in this surgery were. Why are you still classified as only a low-rank medical specialist doctor? If you ask him, Director Zhao will probably be willing to ask the superintendent to permanently assign you to our department.”
After Zhao Jun left the operating room, he returned to his office and sat completely still in his chair in a daze for quite a while. He had quit smoking long ago, but he lit up a cigarette for himself for the first time in many years. “Could it be that I really was wrong to have created a hepatobiliary department for myself? Are our surgeries really that simple?” He felt like his entire worldview was about to collapse.
On the second day, Zhao Jun continued having the newer medical specialist doctors start performing surgeries. As a result, the first doctor almost caused a medical incident right from the first task of boring the holes. Zhao Jun immediately kicked that doctor out, causing them to cry. Of course it would be impossible for a new doctor to pass such a surgical exam after only one month of observation without ever having any hands-on experience with boring holes in a patient’s body! Although Zhao Jun had to kick the doctor out, he wasn’t angry at all. Instead, he was quite happy. He learned from this that Zhang Fan was only a special exception, and that none of the other new doctors were even close to being capable of independently performing hepatobiliary surgeries yet. This meant that hepatobiliary surgeries were indeed difficult after all! This made Zhao Jun feel much better.
Zhao Jun invited Zhang Fan to a meeting in his director’s office, where he handed a cigarette to Zhang Fan. Zhang Fan politely took out a lighter and lit the cigarette for Zhao Jun. Zhao Jun then said, “Very good job, you’ve worked hard at studying for the past month. You know, hepatobiliary surgeries truly have great potential. Liver transplants and pancreatic neoplasms are both difficult world-class surgeries. How about it? Would you be interested in permanently joining our department? If you are, I’ll directly go ask the superintendent to permanently assign you to our department.” Zhao Jun now personally understood just how amazingly skilled Zhang Fan was, which meant he didn’t want to let go of the opportunity to recruit Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan had yet to open up organ transplant surgeries in his system. However, the hepatobiliary department of Chasu City Hospital truly had many surgeries due to the eating habits of people in northwestern China. Gall bladder stones were especially common, and due to the nomadic districts here, there were more tapeworm surgeries here than anywhere else in all of China. However, Zhang Fan’s only goal was to grind as many surgeries as he possibly could. He didn’t care at all which department he was assigned to. “Director Zhao, thank you for giving me so much face by inviting me. I’ll be sure to come here if none of the other departments want me.” Zhang Fan made no promises, because there would also be plenty of surgeries in general surgery, urology, heart surgery, and so on.
“Oh!” Zhao Jun didn’t know what else to say. It was obvious that Zhang Fan was unwilling to join his department.
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