Chapter 153: Husband and wife
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Neurosurgery director Yu Bin was still out on a study program due to the previous emergency military patient surgery achievement. Qin Rongyu had kept her word and acted swiftly. Although her younger brother Qin Nuo was still hospitalized, she had arranged for study programs for the three surgical assistants for her brother’s surgery. Neurosurgery director Yu Bin, orthopedic department #1 vice director Li Hongtu, and orthopedic department #2 vice director Chen Qi were all currently studying under some of the best experts in all of China. The three all had a tremendous number of surgeries to perform. How much they learned from the study program would depend on themselves. For surgery, the teacher could only lead the student into the threshold, but the rest would depend on the students themselves to learn on their own.

Li Hui didn’t go out on vacation anywhere during his marriage leave. He stayed at home and took good care of his pregnant wife. Since his assignation to the respiratory department was approved by Superintendent Ouyang already, he would permanently join the respiratory department right after his marriage leave was finished.

Zhang Fan was still in no hurry to get permanently assigned to a department, He wasn’t worried at all that his lack of a master’s degree would cause no departments to want him. With his current medical skills in orthopedic surgery alone, not only would graduate students not be able to match him, it was likely that even an orthopedic director from a Class A hospital in the provincial hospital wouldn’t be able to compare to him. Zhang Fan was in no panic because he was confident in his skills. He felt that rotations were a good use of his time, as he could learn more about overall medicine. He could learn and understand many things that weren’t written in the textbooks as he went through these rotations.

Shao Hua also started working hard. She purchased many textbooks on accounting, as there was a large difference between accounting for the financial industry and business accounting. Shao Hua truly was impressive. She had good foundations from her college and was able to learn much from just studying the textbooks by herself.

Since director Yu Bin was out on a study program, vice director Liu Zhaoyun was in charge in the neurosurgery department. He was a local from the border province who was the son of farm workers who came here in the army. His ancestors were originally from southern China. Liu Zhaoyun had graduated from Suzhou Medical College. Back when he graduated, he looked down upon the local city hospitals in Suzhou and came back instead to his hometown of Chasu City. But over the past few decades, even the small city hospitals in Suzhou had developed beyond what a Class A hospital like Chasu City Hospital could hope for.

Liu Zhaoyun had many former classmates who had remained behind in the cities of Jiangsu Province around Suzhou. Many of them were eventually sent abroad by their hospitals to continue their studies. There were even some who obtained doctorate degrees from the royal hospital in England. This was all due to the difference in development between Suzhou and the border province.

It was unknown whether Liu Zhaoyun regretted his decision to come back to the border province or not. He no longer had the chance to be at the top of the medical field. He was simply an ordinary doctor now who treated patients and performed surgeries. He would wait for retirement and then take care of his grandchildren in his old age. Meanwhile, many of his former classmates were now shining stars of the medical field. He no longer even had the chance to participate in the same events as them! Nor would the hosts of such events think of a minor hospital from the border province. Even if they recalled such a hospital, they wouldn’t invite him!

Without talking about contributions to the medical field, Liu Zhaoyun definitely regretted things with regards to his medical abilities. As for contributions, he wouldn’t be any less significant than his former classmates with how much he worked here in the border province. He had several decades of experience working as a doctor already, and had saved countless lives.

The neurosurgery department of Chasu City Hospital was one of the smaller surgical departments, although it was still larger than the cardiothoracic department. This was because neurosurgery was far too difficult. However, director Yu Bin highly valued developed everyone’s medical skills and dared to let the lower-ranking doctors take surgeries, so the neurosurgery department’s development was still alright. There were three doctors with the second-highest level certification, along with four attending physicians. Director Yu Bin and vice director Liu Zhaoyun even both had the highest-level certification in neurosurgery.

Liu Zhaoyun personally greeted Zhang Fan when the latter arrived in the neurosurgery department with his paperwork. All the surgical department doctors were highly familiar with Zhang Fan by now ever since he saved vice director Wang Weiping.

“Please have a seat, Doctor Zhang. Back when Director Yu left on the study program, he already told me that I should personally teach you while you’re on rotation in the neurosurgery department. You don’t need to write medical reports or help change the patients’ medicine. Just perform outpatient services together with me and join my surgeries. If you’re confident that you can perform a particular neurosurgery, feel free to ask me to let you be the primary surgeon.” Liu Zhaoyun brought Zhang Fan to his vice director’s office.

“Okay, Director Liu. I’ll listen to what you say.”

“I don’t work night shifts here. Once you get accustomed to our department, you can work independently and take your own patients. Independently managing patients is the fastest way for a young doctor to improve. You need to swiftly get used to work here in neurosurgery.”

“Okay!”

The neurosurgery department had someone who had recently been permanently assigned here. Xia Huadong, a miraculous person who had just finished his master’s degree. As an undergraduate, his major had been traditional Chinese medicine. However, as a graduate student, he somehow started taking the neurosurgery major at a college in the border province. Ever since then, his path became ever more distant from traditional Chinese medicine!

Xia Huadong’s girlfriend had been hired from Chasu City’s China Banking Regulatory Commission last year. This was why he immediately came to Chasu City right after graduation, for the sake of being with his girlfriend. Since he was a master’s degree student with a neurosurgery major, which Chasu City incredibly lacked, Chasu City Hospital even gave Xia Huadong 100,000 yuan as a resettlement allowance. Xia Huadong was also highly emotionally intelligent. He was really respectful towards the older doctors in the department and soon got along well with everyone here.

On Monday’s daily morning meeting, Liu Zhaoyun arranged the daily work schedule for the department and then took Zhang Fan and Xia Huadong to perform outpatient services. Both youngsters were incredible. One was someone who had already proved to be outstanding in orthopedic surgery, while the other was a master’s degree student. None of the other doctors in the department would be experienced enough to teach them.

Neurosurgery knowledge was far too vast and complex. Zhang Fan currently only had access to level 1 neurosurgery courses in his System. He would need a lot more experience in order to access the more difficult level 2 courses. His current skill level in neurosurgery would be equal to a vice director at a Class A hospital. However, Zhang Fan’s advantage was that he had practiced a tremendous number of surgeries in his System. Experience was highly important in the field of surgery. Since he had even performed neurosurgery for several thousand times already in his System, he would definitely be amazing.

The majority of neurosurgery patients were elderly. It was cold in the border province, so people here often ate food high in fat content along with food that was high in sodium. This meant that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases were especially common. As China improved its overall medical system, there would be more and more elderly people. Additionally, since many people in northwestern China loved to drink alcohol, there were quite a number of people who would die unexpectedly of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease.

It didn’t matter if you had high blood pressure. Nobody at a meal would care about such a thing. There were also many people who would emphasize how they couldn’t drink alcohol before a meal started due to having high blood pressure. But when the meal really started, there would be tons of people forcing you to drink alcohol, as this was the social custom in China. They would refuse to allow you to not drink alcohol.

One week passed. Zhang Fan got accustomed to work in the neurosurgery department and started independently taking his own patients. People in the border province were quite fierce. Sometimes, just a verbal disagreement would start a fight. It was common for people to suffer skull injuries with lots of bleeding from these fights.

The winner of the fight would have to go to jail and receive education along with paying the loser’s medical expenses. The loser would have to suffer at the hospital. Zhang Fan’s first neurosurgery patient was someone who had lost in a fight.

The patient was quite young. He was only about twenty years old, the most hot-blooded age. He had been fighting as one against three at a bar without being at a disadvantage, which meant he was an incredible fighter. But in the end, he had been knocked unconscious by a beer bottle.

He came over with a black eye and nosebleed to Chasu City Hospital. However, he was quite lucky, as he only had a slight fracture of the anterior cranial fossa, which was a light skull injury. After one night of observation at the hospital, Zhang Fan told the patient that he could go home and rest there instead.

However, the patient refused. He insisted that he had a bad headache, and that he wanted to be hospitalized. Zhang Fan rechecked the patient’s X-rays and CT scans and confirmed once again that the patient had only a light skull injury.

When Zhang Fan asked how the patient received the injury, he could only exclaim how incredibly sturdy this patient’s skull must be. The young man had only been knocked unconscious for a few minutes by such a violent blow. Not only that, checkups on his nervous system and cerebrospinal fluid had come back as completely normal, with no side effects. Since the patient was only lightly injured, normally in such a scenario the doctor would only have to give a bit of medical advice and then discharge the patient.

However, this patient absolutely insisted on staying at the hospital. “Your injury isn’t at the standard which requires hospitalization. Even if you stay here, there’s nothing I can do to treat you,” Zhang Fan explained to the patient, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

“Bro, just let me stay here at the hospital! I’ll just take whatever medicine is the most expensive, and feel free to give me whatever checkups are the most expensive! I really do have a headache! If you won’t take me as a patient, I’ll go stay in your office!” The young man was quite shameless in trying to stick by Zhang Fan’s side.

Zhang Fan could pretty much guess that this patient just wanted to fake the severity of his injuries as much as possible in order to obtain more money from the other parties in the fight. It would be quite difficult to deal with such patients. Additionally, headaches were subjective, and couldn’t be detected by any checkups or scans. If the patient said that he had a headache, there was nothing the doctor could do to prove or disprove it. Not only that, the doctor would also have to write the claim of having a headache into the medical report.

In that case, Zhang Fan simply took the patient in. The patient brought over a bag of bananas which were almost completely black to Zhang Fan as a gift, which Zhang Fan absolutely refused. The patient didn’t even feel awkward about this as he sat on a chair in Zhang Fan’s office and continued chatting with him. The patient insisted that Zhang Fan give him checkups from head to toe, and to perform every single possible hospital checkup on him.

His most shameless request of all was that the hospital should even check his sperm count! That was absolutely ridiculous to the point where Zhang Fan ignored him. Yet, the patient kept addressing him as “Bro,””Bro” all the time, not letting him work in peace.

“No matter what you call me, it’s a no. At most, I can give you checkups related to your skull injury. I truly can’t authorize any other types of checkups. Besides, it was just a fight. Why would you need a protein injection?”

“Bro, you probably didn’t know, but they stomped on my penis during the fight. Even now, my penis is swollen! If you don’t believe me, I can take my pants off and show you right now! I still haven’t gotten married yet, so are you going to take responsibility if something happens to my penis?”

“Even if they did stomp on it, a checkup won’t be necessary. All that’s needed is an ultrasound. Don’t even think about getting any protein. I won’t authorize it for you. This is ridiculous.”

“Rest assured, the cops caught all of the guys responsible for attacking me. They won’t get away with this! They’ll be paying for the medical fees! Just give me the protein injections, and I won’t actually take them. I’ll go sell them off outside, and we can split the profit! I’ll take 40%, you can have 60%!

“Okay Bro, you can have 70%! I really can’t give you any more!” the patient tried to bribe Zhang Fan again some time later.

Zhang Fan was truly rendered speechless. This patient was obviously an unreasonable troublemaker. Zhang Fan decided to stop being nice. Otherwise, there would be no end to this. “If you keep spouting rubbish and acting ridiculously, I’m going to kick you out of the hospital!” Zhang Fan warned the patient severely.

“Fine, fine, fine! So you’re a high and mighty clean guy, I understand! Still, Bro, at least give me that ultrasound or whatever it’s called. My penis really is swollen!”

“Hurry and go back to rest in your patient room already!” Zhang Fan was running out of patience!

This was the first time he had ever met such a patient. Zhang Fan truly didn’t know what to say. The parents of the other three young men who fought against him all arrived at the hospital. Since their sons were all locked in jail, the three sets of parents saw to the patient’s every want and need, hoping that he wouldn’t file charges so that the incident could be privately resolved.

There were several patients in the neurosurgery department who were in severe condition. The patient in worst condition had already been in a coma for an entire week. He was solely being kept alive by nutrient solution. This patient’s medical fees cost more than 6,000 yuan on a daily basis. His family wouldn’t be able to support his medical fees for much longer. It was likely that they would soon give up on treating him. For such a patient, it would be really difficult to determine when the patient might wake up only based on the patient’s vitals.

The patient might never wake up again. The patient also might wake up on the very next morning. The patient and his family could only wait every day in such agony with the unknown. The patient was also in great pain. Over the past week, if it wasn’t for his family working hard at turning his body around for massages, he would have long since started having bedsores already. The medical fees would have been even more expensive if special nurses were required for this instead of the patient’s family doing it themselves!

The patient’s family was also in great pain. Not only was there the great financial drain every day, it would require two strong men to flip the patient over and massage him every day. Those who were older wouldn’t have the necessary strength to turn him over. Not only that, the doctor in charge was unable to tell them when the patient might wake up again, or if he would even ever wake up again. Even a family in healthy financial condition would go bankrupt if such medical fees lasted for two months straight.

“If you want to continue the treatment, you should prepare to sell your home!” Those were the words of the attending physician in charge of this patient. As the attending physician looked at the patient’s family members who were getting skinny with worry, he found himself unable to tell the patient’s family to give up.

But, what could even be done? The patient’s family barely had any money left after paying for a week of such expensive medical bills already. The only way to continue treating the patient was indeed to sell their home. The patient’s wife cried to the point where her internal organs hurt as she covered her mouth! She could only think about her husband’s laughter and their son who was still unmarried!

Even though she was crying, she couldn’t cry in front of her son. Her son was having a hard time as well. The son was a handyman, just a normal job with a normal salary. Of course he wouldn’t have much money. As the patient’s wife looked at her son’s callused hands, she told her comatose husband, “I’m so sorry that I must do this. You go ahead first, and once our son gets married, I’ll come to see you right away. You must walk slowly and wait for me, as I’ll be following after you. We won’t feel cold as long as we’re in the afterlife together! You always seemed so healthy, so why did this suddenly happen?

“Doctor, we give up on the treatment. Pull his tubes! For real! Pull his tubes! It’s all my fault! Dear husband! Just blame me!” The patient’s wife was crying so much now that she had to support herself against the patient’s bed. She could barely breathe due to too much crying.

But no matter how much pain she was in, she was the one who had to sign the paperwork to officially give up on medically treating her husband. Her hands trembled severely as she signed her name, writing that she was the patient’s wife. She had been together with her husband ever since young. This incident had shattered her heart and given her heartrending pain. She felt as if she was the one personally responsible for cutting off all hope that he might come alive again. She was the one who killed him!

The doctor and nurses began to remove all sorts of tubes from the patient while also removing his breathing mask. The patient’s old wife used her dry lips to gently kiss her husband on the forehead. Her tears dripped down onto his gaunt face. “It won’t hurt! Just bear with it! It will be over quite fast! If you want to hate someone, then hate me!” One tear got stuck in the patient’s lofty cheekbones!

“Wahh! Wahh! Wahh!” The old lady embraced her husband and cried! Her husband’s heartbeat finally stopped! The electrocardiogram showed only a straight line that signified the end of life! There were no ifs; there were no redos! There was now only the old wife who had fainted on the floor, and the son who still didn’t know what happened as he worked overtime, trying to make more money!

On Zhang Fan’s second ever night shift in the neurosurgery department, an emergency call came in for the nurses’ station!