After dinner, Wang Qian walked with Zhang Fan’s group out the door. Evenings in Chasu City during summer were particularly beautiful. It was currently almost 10 p.m., but the setting sun had only reached the foot of the mountains. The world seemed so beautiful with the illumination of the setting sun, a nice cool breeze, the fragrance of flowers, chirping of birds, and smiles of those dear to you!

Jingshu held on to one of Zhang Fan’s arms, while Shao Hua held on to his other arm. The three of them walked together on the wide roads in Kaifa District where Wang Qian lived. There were few people and few cars out on the roads at this time of night. Zhang Fan felt incredibly blissful as he listened to his younger sister chatter on.

As usual, Zhang Fan received a three-day vacation after his rotation ended. He used all three days to have fun together with his sister. When his vacation ended, Zhang Fan received his new assignment from the hospital administration department. He was assigned to pediatrics! This seemed like a hellish department to him!

Zhang Fan really was afraid of pediatrics. The children here were too young to communicate what they needed. They didn’t know how to say where they were uncomfortable, and since children’s organs weren’t completely developed yet, pediatricians had to take many more precautions with their patients.

In China, there was incredibly strong social pressure to have children. If you were already married but still childless, not only would both sides’ parents and relatives pressure you to have children, even the neighbors next door and your friends would tell you that it was wrong to have no children. In China, having children was at the level of a responsibility and duty.

Children represented hope, future, and flourishment. Everyone knew how important children were. However, things were different in Chinese medical society. China was extremely lacking in pediatricians.

There were many reasons for this. The first and most important reason was that pediatrics was highly difficult. It would be extremely important to have careful observation skills in pediatrics. However, this would be impossible to obtain without at least seven or eight years of experience in pediatrics.

Secondly, pediatrics was tiring. Not only was pediatrics physically tiring, it would be mentally demanding as well. The majority of hospital departments would be really quiet. If any patient or their family members spoke even slightly too loud, the nurses would scold them severely. “This is a hospital! Other people need to rest!” But, the pediatrics department would always be noisier than a flea market. There would always be the regular sound of crying!

Thirdly, pediatricians had lower income than other doctors. This was because the doctors’ kickbacks from pediatric medicine were much lower. Pediatric medicine was far cheaper, usually at about 25% the price of adult medicine.

Fourthly, it was common for there to be communication problems with parents who didn’t understand what was going on. Both the pediatrics department and emergency departments would always be on the brink of outright warfare with the parents. Chinese parents would often be in a bloodthirsty state of mind when their children were in pain or ill. It was common that a fight would erupt just because a parent thought you looked at them wrong.

There was a joke that doctors told which went like this: two doctors met each other for the first time and had a chat.

Doctor A asked, “What department are you in?”

“I’m in the emergency department! How about you?”

“Pediatrics!”

And then, the two doctors hugged each other and cried!

That was the current situation of China’s medical field. There were very few doctors who would voluntarily join the pediatrics department. Most had been forced to join pediatrics by their bosses, causing many doctors to cry.

Chasu City had two Class A hospitals. One was Chasu City Hospital, while the other was Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital. The latter had only been promoted to being a Class A hospital last year. However, Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital didn’t have enough doctors with specialties to cover all departments. This hospital actually lacked both a pediatrics and gynecology department!

Chasu City also had some smaller hospitals which focused only on pediatrics or gynecology. Although such hospitals focused on only one specialty, anyone who had children or female relatives who were in even slightly serious condition would instead prefer to take their relatives to Chasu City Hospital instead, for Chasu City Hospital was the biggest and best hospital in all of Chasu City.

So, the #1 preferred place to go find a pediatrician in Chasu City was still at Chasu City Hospital. This meant that the pediatrics department here was often overflowing. Chasu City Hospital provided an independent three-story building to the pediatrics department in order to express how much importance they placed on the future flowers of China, but Zhang Fan privately felt like the hospital just wanted to isolate the pediatrics department because it was far too noisy!

The pediatrics department was split up into three smaller departments: newborns, pediatric urgent care, and general pediatrics.

The director of the entire pediatrics department was Tang Liuhong. She was a calm woman who had a stern expression, but whenever she was facing young children, she would instead seem like a gentle and kind Buddha.

Tang Hongliu had become the pediatrics director when she was in her thirties. She had previously studied pediatrics at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai. The pediatrics director at Ruijin Hospital had really wanted to keep her there. It was likely she would have stayed there if it weren’t for her mother having fallen gravely ill, so she returned to Chasu City instead.

Tang Hongliu had now been the pediatrics director of Chasu City Hospital for more than 10 years already. With so many successful years, she was quite renowned in the local area. However, she still went to work just like normal every day. She didn’t even attempt to get any further promotions. She did her best at being the pediatrics director. Over the years, the pediatrics department became one of the most unique departments in the hospital.

Director Tang’s principle was to avoid using medicine whenever possible. She preferred to use physical methods to resolve the young patients’ problems. Strangely, she had an amazing talent for being able to calm down children who were crying or throwing tantrums for no apparent reason just by a few touches or squeezes. The children would even smile and laugh instead of cry!

Doctors constantly came and went in the three pediatrics departments. The pediatrics department would truly test the doctors in their medical skills as well as patience!

When Zhang Fan brought his rotation paperwork to the pediatrics department, he felt as if he had suddenly stepped behind enemy lines. He was surrounded by sounds of children crying and screaming. “Wahh! Wahh! Wahh!”

Director Tang didn’t need to personally deal with assigning rotation doctors. There was a different doctor who was in charge of all the rotation doctors, as well as being a pediatrician. When this doctor saw Zhang Fan’s paperwork, she didn’t waste any time, and immediately told Zhang Fan to go find attending physician He Fang, who would be Zhang Fan’s teaching doctor!

Attending physician He Fang was a female doctor in her thirties. She had recently returned from maternity leave, and was in the general pediatrics department. When Zhang Fan located He Fang, she was currently eating an additional meal. Since she had to breastfeed her child, she often felt hungry.

“I apologize, Doctor Zhang. Please wait for me for a moment while I go wash my hands. I just had some cake!” He Fang was somewhat embarrassed to be seen by Zhang Fan like this. She felt embarrassed that she was seen eating cake at work when it wasn’t even mealtime!

“Not a problem! No problem at all.” Zhang Fan chuckled. He then sat down and waited for He Fang.

There were eight doctors in the general pediatrics department. Three were male doctors, and the other five were female doctors. Much like the hospital’s other departments, everyone was busy.

“Head nurse, stop the medicine for patient #8. I forgot to stop it this morning!”

“Who has extra laboratory test result sheets? I need several sheets, I’m out!”

“Doctor, why is my son still coughing? He’s already been hospitalized for an entire day!”

People who didn’t have enough mental fortitude would easily suffer a breakdown from listening to such a clamor all day long, but in addition to listening to all this, the pediatricians also needed to treat the children’s illnesses and problems, as well as deal with all sorts of parents!

After He Fang returned from washing her hands, she told Zhang Fan, “Doctor Zhang, I’ll be troubling you for the next month. Still, I don’t have that many patients currently. The two of us should be fine with the workload. Oh, I need to tell you that I must return home during lunchtime for one hour every day. I’ll be counting on you if you’re working during that time.”

“It’s fine. There shouldn’t be a problem unless there’s some special situation.” Out of all of Zhang Fan’s courses, his pediatrics had been the worst ¹ . Zhang Fan was somewhat afraid! He was even a bit slow to reply! He had already been working for two years already, and this was his first time showing hesitation at work!

“No problem. I’ll tell the emergency pediatrics doctors about you. Rest assured, you’ll get used to things here in just a few days.”

Zhang Fan’s physique was that of a surgeon. He also had relatively dark skin, so he would likely scare into crying even the children who weren’t crying to begin with.

He Fang was quite polite to Zhang Fan because she needed to go home every day to breastfeed.

“Wahh! Wahh! Wahh!” Zhang Fan listened to such sounds for the entire day on his first day in pediatrics. His ears were ringing so much. Concentrating on work for such a long period of time in such a noisy environment while also diagnosing patients was truly so difficult!

Later that night, Zhang Fan seemed rather unfocused as he ate dinner with Shao Hua and Jingshu.

“What’s the matter? You seem so tired today! Did you have more surgeries than usual?” Hua asked out of curiosity.

Jingshu also looked with worry at her brother.

“I didn’t do any surgeries today!”

“What happened, then?”

“I was rotated to the pediatrics department! Even now, my ears are still vibrating!”

“Oh! Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?”

“What? What did you say? I can’t hear you!”

“I’m going to beat you up!”

“Cough! Cough! Cough!”