Munk immediately went to prepare for the surgery when he heard Hu Zengyang’s words. There were only a few staff members of Sumutai Health Center, so everyone knew what they needed to do.
Hu Zengyang immediately started regretting what he’d just said. If a medical incident truly occurred, he would also be blamed for it as he was the leading doctor here. But now, he was no longer allowed to retract his words. A large crowd of nomads was blocking the door to Sumutai Health Center. If he tried to go back on his word, it might be difficult for him to even leave.
‘I hope that it will succeed.’ Hu Zengyang could only mentally sigh to himself as he talked things over with the other two rotation doctors.
One of the rotation doctors was Wang Zipeng, who needed no convincing at all as he immediately started preparing. Wang Zipeng had been with Zhang Fan together in two different department rotations, so he was quite confident in Zhang Fan’s skill.
“First, determine the patient’s blood type. Open up an intravenous line and resolve the patient’s shock.” Zhang Fan immediately began issuing commands. The other doctors started acting on those commands, including Hu Zengyang. This was how life-saving surgical operations were supposed to be, with the primary surgeon issuing commands and the other doctors assisting him. After determining who the primary surgeon would be, the real work would begin. Unless the primary surgeon made a major mistake, the other surgical assistant doctors typically wouldn’t say anything against the primary surgeon’s chosen treatment method.
“The patient has type O 1 blood, RH positive.” One of the health center’s doctors knew how to check blood type. He also added, “Doctor Zhang, we don’t have any blood supply.”
Zhang Fan knew that the health center lacked medical supplies, and so already expected this. Fortunately, he was the same blood type as the patient, so he offered, “I’m also type O blood. Here, draw 400ccs of blood from me.”
The majority of nomads here had never been to an official hospital before in their lives. Naturally, this meant that very few of them knew what blood type they were. This was a responsibility that Zhang Fan took on himself. It wasn’t the other doctors’ responsibility to donate their own blood, so Zhang Fan couldn’t ask them.
“I’m getting old, so I don’t think I can handle donating 400ccs of blood. Draw 200ccs from me; I’m also the same blood type as the patient. Since we’re all a medical team, let’s all do our best,” Hu Zengyang told the health center’s nurse.
Hu Zengyang then spoke to Munk. “We need a minimum of 1000ccs of blood. Let’s immediately start checking the nomads’ blood types for potential donors.”
“We’re only capable of simple blood tests here, we can’t do any other more complex blood tests at all!” Munk felt rather conflicted.
“Draw my blood, it’s also the same type. 400ccs from me. I just had a physical checkup recently. I’m in perfect health.” The other rotation doctor volunteered at this time. “Although I’m against the idea of performing surgery here, I can only go along with the decision now that it’s been made.” This doctor had been rotated through the surgical departments before. He knew the risks of surgery. Sumutai Health Center was incapable of performing anything more than the simplest of blood tests, so there was no helping it.
Zhang Fan’s body was strengthened by his System, so donating 400ccs of blood was absolutely no problem for him. However, the other rotation doctor was really skinny, so he started becoming dizzy after the blood donation! He also felt sick! But, there was no time to care about his condition. He would be fine after a little rest. He could only accept his condition as he was a doctor.
The surgery began with Wang Zipeng as the primary surgical assistant. The temperature was still quite low in early spring, but Wang Zipeng was sweating bullets. He was so tense! He had only been the secondary or tertiary surgical assistant before.
As the primary surgical assistant, Wang Zipeng was unable to meet Zhang Fan’s requirements in many areas. The surgery started with opening up the posterior sheath of the rectus abdominis, then the parietal peritoneum so that Zhang Fan could explore the abdominal cavity. “There’s a stomach perforation that’s still bleeding. Prepare iced salt water!” Zhang Fan ordered Munk.
“The refrigerator here is broken! I haven’t had time to fix it yet.” Munk’s face reddened from embarrassment.
“Oh! Let’s just rinse it with salt water, then.” Zhang Fan glanced at Munk, not knowing what to say.
Zhang Fan closed the wound with sutures, and then covered the wound with the omentum majus. He rinsed once again, and confirmed that there was no more bleeding before sorting the gauze bandages and closing the abdomen incision.
Hu Zengyang, who remained outside the operating room, was incredibly nervous. He felt more nervous than if he himself were performing the surgery. He kept blaming himself for not stopping Zhang Fan while also hoping that the surgery would succeed. The other rotation doctor, Doctor Li, was resting on a bed while receiving intravenous injections. He was in poor physical condition, and the health center’s nurse was inexperienced, so she had drawn his blood too quickly.
More and more nomads gathered outside the health center. The nomads were all Mongolian, and shared the same ancestors. Hu Zengyang didn’t understand any Mongolian, so his hands even began to tremble as the nomads kept increasing in number. ‘If this patient’s surgery doesn’t go well, and if this mob swarms up, we’ll probably all die here! Yikes!’ Hu Zengyang’s hands became sweaty and cold as he imagined what could go wrong. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was sitting in a chair, he probably would have collapsed already.
While surgeries were simple to describe, they weren’t simple at all to perform. Wang Zipeng had zero experience with gastrointestinal surgery. Zhang Fan had to teach him in great detail about many things that he needed to do.
Still, the patient was quite lucky today because he had the most common blood type of all, and three of the doctors had the same blood type. Otherwise, there would have been no way to replenish his blood and deal with his state of shock. Zhang Fan finished the surgical sutures for closing up the abdomen. The patient was no longer in urgent condition now.
Since Zhang Fan was no longer under pressure, he glanced at the now stable patient before saying to Munk, “Old Munk, this place must be jinxed. I always meet with serious incidents here whenever I come.”
“Ridiculous! This place has excellent fengshui! Even Genghis Khan has been here before, that’s how good this place is! Will you be coming back here again this summer?”
“What, does your family need your help with shearing the wool again?” Zhang Fan joked with Munk.
“Haha.” Munk also felt relieved now that the surgery was over.
“Okay. Old Munk, you’ll have to take good care of the patient over the next few days. The surgery was highly successful, so let’s not have any problems with the patient’s postoperative care. You absolutely must watch his stomach tube. Don’t allow him to secretly remove it.”
“I’ll break his hand if he dares to remove it! Hurry and go rest a while. I’m truly grateful to you, performing a surgery right after donating blood.”
Munk and the nurse wheeled the patient out of the operating room. Hu Zengyang was already trembling to the point of no longer being able to stand when he saw Munk leaving the operating room with a smile. With so many burly nomads standing around, and being unable to communicate with them, Hu Zengyang had been incredibly tense.
“The city doctors saved Mutu’s life! The city doctors also personally donated blood to him! They are our best friends! Let us welcome the city doctors with the best party we can!”
“Okay!” Although the nomads were quite noisy, none of the doctors could understand their Mongolian. Still, Hu Zengyang could tell that they all seemed to be quite happy. When he saw Zhang Fan and Wang Zipeng leaving the operating room, Hu Zengyang said, “Hurry and pull me up, my legs are trembling too much to stand. How was the surgery? No incident will occur?”
“There were no problems. Doctor Zhang did an excellent job. The patient isn’t bleeding at all anymore,” Wang Zipeng replied excitedly. This was the first major surgery that he had been the primary surgical assistant for.
“That’s good, then. Sigh! I really am getting old,” Hu Zengyang exclaimed.
He had been under the impression that he was only supposed to come here for some parasite extermination, yet he was almost scared to death. Luckily, the end result was good.
Later that night, the entire nomadic group came over. The wide plains helped to create the nomads’ open and direct personalities. They all sang drinking songs and hung snow-white hada silk around the doctors’ necks.
The party had only mutton for food. The oldest nomad among them used a small knife to cut the first piece of mutton, giving it to Hu Zengyang. “Dear friends from far away, please taste the mutton from the plains.”
The nomads treated the city doctors in the friendliest fashion possible because they considered the doctors their friends from far away.
Hu Zengyang became drunk, and embraced Munk while dancing with him. Meanwhile, Wang Zipeng kept laughing foolishly. They no longer felt like strangers here. Even though it wasn’t possible to communicate, that was no problem, as they could drink alcohol together! It was a fun night party! Meanwhile, Zhang Fan was the first to get drunk, so he knew nothing about what happened at the party afterwards.
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