Chapter 182: Diabetes
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Local development would greatly affect the medical field. For instance, just look at the surgical textbooks. For the first five editions, the editors were mostly military doctors. Starting from the sixth edition and onwards, doctors from Beijing and Shanghai became more common as the editors. The more recent the edition, the more doctors from Beijing and Shanghai there would be. The editors of such surgical textbooks could be called some of the best Chinese doctors in their respective fields. Since the best doctors were concentrated so densely in only two cities, it wasn’t strange at all for patients to also gather together in only those two cities. This caused all sorts of difficulties for everyone. It became more difficult to get treated, and it also became harder to work as a doctor! Such problems would then explode on the doctors working on the frontlines to treat everyone!

Zhang Fan was stunned even further when he actually looked at the endocrinology textbook that Director Dilibaer had given to him. This textbook was written purely in English, with not a single word in Chinese! There were two countries that were the best in the world at endocrinology: America and Germany, with America being slightly better. It would be far too difficult to study this field. Endocrinology was sort of like the combination of various major modern fields. It would be impossible to fully understand this textbook within one week without ridiculous grinding. There was also a common trait of all medical textbooks: most vocabulary would be ridiculously long, or use ridiculously simple abbreviations. The abbreviations were so simple that even Google would have trouble finding them!

What could Zhang Fan do? He would have to grind to the point of exhaustion. Zhang Fan mentioned this to Shao Hua as he would be eating something right after work every day and then returning to his apartment to grind and study, since there wasn’t much time left. However, Shao Hua didn’t agree, because she was worried that Zhang Fan would ruin his body. She insisted that Zhang Fan return to her home for a proper dinner every night.

In order to properly understand this endocrinology textbook, you would first have to write an index of notes. There were two main types of internal secretion in endocrinology. The first type was internal secretion that was independent from other organs, such as the pineal gland, pituitary gland, thyroid gland, and so on. The other type was internal secretion as part of an organ, such as the pancreatic islets, the ovaries or testes’ sex hormone cells, and so on.

There would then be further categorization based on the type of hormone. Was the hormone a protein or a combination of amino acids and peptide bonds? These hormones all had their own target organs. The hormones would have different effects after combining with the target organ.

Just the categorization would be quite complex, from function to structure to effect. This would all be just the beginning of the basics. Zhang Fan would then have to translate all these terms from Chinese into English. Memorizing all of this vocabulary in English would only be the first step.

If Director Dilibaer had instead given him an entry-level textbook, Zhang Fan wouldn’t have needed to categorize things in so much detail. Entry-level medical textbooks were a bit simpler, after all. It wouldn’t have been as difficult for him to finish preparing it in a week. However, Director Dilibaer had given him the most recent publication!

Zhang Fan really became slightly arrogant after everything went so successfully for him during the past two years! This counted as a bucket of cold water that was suddenly poured on him, helping to completely wake him up!

Since Shao Hua also needed to study for her accounting exam, the two of them simply studied together in Zhang Fan’s apartment. Each had their own room with a light. There was only the sound of flipping through pages and writing notes. At 11 p.m., Zhang Fan drove Shao Hua home and kissed her before returning to his apartment to continue the grinding.

First, he needed to understand the English text. There were far, far too many words that Zhang Fan didn’t know. He could only use the dictionary and search online. It took him three full days before he finally finished reading the entire medical textbook. Thankfully, this textbook wasn’t actually that thick. Otherwise, Zhang Fan truly would have died. Studying was somewhat similar to rushing into a war. One would need courage as well as endurance, being able to adamantly persist and march forward.

After completing the translation, Zhang Fan now needed to fully understand the contents of the textbook. In order to understand the theses in this endocrinology textbook, he would have to go through a large number of other texts as well. Anyone who was capable of writing a thesis for the most recent endocrinology textbook would be someone highly accomplished in the field already. In order to understand what they wrote, Zhang Fan needed to first understand the base logic, functions, and composition before thinking about understanding it all!

Once again, Zhang Fan studied his basics, with chemistry, organic chemistry, histology and embryology, biochemistry, immunology, and so on. Having a goal in studying these texts was indeed quite different. Zhang Fan once again learned many things after he finished studying these basics again.

It was now five a.m., so Zhang Fan’s brain was going numb. He absolutely had to sleep as he still needed to go to work soon. He entered a deep sleep less than 20 seconds after he hit the bed. Even though Zhang Fan normally would always get up at six a.m., this time he was so tired that he didn’t get up until 7:40 a.m., when he finally washed his face and ate some breakfast that Shao Hua’s mother had prepared for him before going to work.

The most common chronic illness in endocrinology was diabetes. In China, some minor government officials had been the first to get this type of chronic disease as they had been some of the first to benefit from China’s improvements.

China’s economy had improved. Such minor government officials had eaten and drunk as they pleased for just a few years, causing problems for their bodies. By the time that they started paying attention to their health, ordinary commoners had just started learning about what diabetes was. Many people who newly became rich would often spend a lot of money on food. Eating as much meat as they pleased together with a diet high in sugar and fat caused China to become the country with the most diabetics already after just a few years.

How scary was diabetes? International medical organizations ranked it as the #3 most major non-infectious chronic disease, ranked only after cardiovascular disease and tumors.

Zhang Fan’s teaching doctor was a young woman who just passed 30 years old not long ago. Her name was Ren Lina. She was beautiful and had a matching beautiful aura and incredibly sweet voice. A government leader had noticed her back when she joined the endocrinology department. She then became that government leader’s daughter-in-law.

“Doctor Zhang, we typically deal with all of the patients’ medical advice in the morning and write the medical reports in the afternoon. We also typically do all patient discharging together. There’s nothing else that’s special or needs to be mentioned.”

“Alright, Doctor Ren, I understand,” Zhang Fan said as he nodded.

There were two types of diabetes patients. Type 1 diabetes patients were relatively rare. Most patients would have type 2 diabetes. Diabetes was a result of complex inherited factors as well as environmental factors. The scary part of diabetes was that it would disturb the metabolism and cause other organs to become unwell. Diabetics would often have problems with their kidneys, cardiovascular system, eyes, as well as often getting infections.

Currently, the goal of treating diabetes was to maintain a state of balance and to try to prevent other such problems from occurring. For a diabetic who was successfully treated, they might live an ordinary and healthy life for the rest of their entire life. For a diabetic who wasn’t successfully treated, or if their condition was serious, all the organs would start having problems. The patient’s vision would become unclear, the heart would become weak, the skin wouldn’t heal itself from injuries, and so on. It would be quite painful.

The most common symptoms of diabetes were also relatively easy to understand. If you often ate, often drank, and often peed, while your weight was lessening, please immediately go to get checked at a doctor! This could be very important if you eat a lot, drink a lot, and pee a lot without getting any fatter at all!

In the surgical departments, doctors would only be afraid of two types of patients. The first would be patients who had infectious diseases that could be transmitted by blood. The second would be a patient with diabetes. A patient with diabetes meant that any injury wouldn’t easily heal and would be especially likely to become infected.

Diabetes was a serious enough problem that it could cause any doctor to collapse. Diabetic foot ulcers and deep tissue damage from infections couldn’t be treated with antibiotics. A patient in severe condition could only have a limb get amputated!

Doctor Ren Lina had 20ish patients. Most of them were middle-aged or older. One of her patients was of rather special status because he was a section chief in Chasu City’s Bureau of Finance.