Chapter 311: Using connections already

Zhang Fan kept performing surgeries which gradually raised his skill level. Sometimes, you would feel that you had prepared quite excellently already, but the results weren’t what you expected. Maybe other professions would give you many extra chances, but that wouldn’t be possible in the medical profession, as this job would be far too unforgiving of mistakes.

Zhang Fan didn’t have to worry about anything after the operation for the black basketball player. Everyone would fight over getting to do the work, making it seem like the doctors at Zhang Fan’s hospital all felt a sense of danger regarding their jobs. This wasn’t actually the case, as the competition here was only at beginner level since the true competition was regarding the medical system. As the saying went, it was easy to be in the system, yet also difficult to be in the system.

It would be easy to be in the medical system as long as your requirements for the job weren’t too high. It really would be easy for you to just make do in the system until retirement. Just do the job required of you and maintain a low profile. That would be an easy way to spend a life. It was also quite difficult to be in the medical system. Although society was becoming ever freer, there were still far too many regulations which would restrict you in the medical system. There were also many highly intelligent people gathered together who would all cruelly compete with each other with various schemes. It really wouldn’t be easy to stand out in this medical system.

Zhang Fan had been really fortunate to pass through the early competition period. The heavens had truly blessed him. If Zhang Fan had instead first gone to work at a major hospital in a major city with his System, his growth wouldn’t have been anywhere nearly as amazing, as it was likely he would still be busy sewing sutures, doing rotations, and writing medical reports even now.

Only here in the border province did Zhang Fan have a chance to show his talents. Since the snow was sealing off the mountain roads and patients were unable to go anywhere else, the patients would be happy with any doctor who could volunteer and save their life. The patients wouldn’t have the ability to complain about a doctor being young. It was also thanks to the government trying to raise the border province’s medical ability that Zhang Fan then got to go to Bluebird City. Zhang Fan had been among the first to benefit from the government policy.

Success would always have something special about it when you started thinking on how it happened. It would be impossible to describe as success was also highly dependent on coincidence. Still, you would no longer be young by the time that you could understand how special success could be. You would only be able to reminisce about it.

It was around 2:30 p.m. when the surgery finished, which was the normal lunchtime in the border province. Zhang Fan’s hand and foot surgery hospital was becoming more and more famous. Although it was next to Chasu City Women and Children’s Hospital, Zhang Fan’s hospital was already becoming more well-known than the women and children’s hospital. People would always say that this street was where the hand and foot surgery hospital was located rather than where the women and children’s hospital was. Additionally, due to all the business brought in by Zhang Fan’s hospital, lots of food stalls started popping up on the street as well. This originally quiet place had become quite lively.

Monday morning was the major patient checkups, which would be quite different between internal medicine departments and surgical departments. Internal medicine directors, especially the really smart ones, would ask questions about the very principles of the disease, from physiology and tissue culture to the patient’s medical history. Meanwhile, things were much simpler in the surgical departments.

“This patient was hospitalized yesterday due to accidentally tripping and fracturing his femur bone.” This would be an example of what a resident doctor or attending physician would say.

“Finish the relevant checkups as quickly as possible. Arrange the surgery when the patient’s vitals are stable,” the director would say.

Things really were that simple. It wasn’t that surgery didn’t focus on the principles, but rather that it was impossible to focus on the principles. Most surgical problems were sudden problems, while most internal medicine problems were chronic problems. Sudden problems would have a beginning and an end, while chronic problems would usually only have a beginning. That was why it was so important to understand the principles in internal medicine so that the doctor could think of some method to prevent or slow down the progress of the diseases.

If you wanted to find a surgeon, then you would have to talk to them as early as possible before they started working on a surgery. You would have to wait a long time after the surgeon entered the operating room. Shao Hua knew that Zhang Fan was busy, but she didn’t know just how busy he was.

Earlier this morning, her coworker Manager Baiyintibu had come to find her. Shao Hua finished the work she had at hand, and then brought Baiyintibu and her relatives over to Chasu City Hospital to find Zhang Fan. However, when she went to orthopedic department #1, she was only able to find some relatively young doctors, with nobody else around at all.

“Hello, could I ask if Zhang Fan is here?” Shao Hua happened to ask rotation doctor Little Li of Zhang Fan’s medical team. Everyone else in Zhang Fan’s medical team was currently working on a surgery.

“Doctor Zhang is in a surgery.” Little Li was really busy with writing medical reports, so she couldn’t be bothered to answer in detail.

“Then could I ask around when he will be finished?”

“I don’t know.” This wasn’t Little Li’s fault for not being friendly and passionate. Dozens of people would come looking for specific doctors every day, and on top of that, most people who came directly to the department were the type who used connections.

“Thank you.” Shao Hua felt slightly awkward. She turned to tell Baiyintibu and the latter’s sister, “It’s my fault. I didn’t mention anything to Zhang Fan yesterday. Let me call him.”

“It’s fine. We’ll wait here. This isn’t your fault at all, since I only told you this morning that we wanted to come to the hospital. No need to call him, as we can simply wait.”

The doctors in the department were all so busy that they simply ignored them. Shao Hua felt too awkward to wait in the office area, so she and Baiyintibu’s relatives sat on the chairs outside the department to wait.

They waited for more than an hour, but Shao Hua didn’t see a single doctor returning to the department, although she did see several patients being brought to the patient rooms after surgery. Shao Hua saw that Baiyintibu’s young nephew was becoming rather impatient, so she called Zhang Fan. This was the first time that she had ever called Zhang Fan while he was at work.

“Hello, Doctor Zhang is currently performing a surgery. Who might you be, and what business do you have with him?” The operating room nurse picked up his phone.

Now that cell phones were incredibly commonplace, the hospitals had tried to force doctors not to carry their cell phones with them during surgeries. However, this regulation had turned out to be impossible to enforce. In the end, the hospitals had to compromise, and changed the rule so that a nurse had to answer any phone calls for the doctor during a surgery.

“Hello. Please tell Zhang Fan that this is Shao Hua, and that I have a patient that I’d like for him to see.” Shao Hua broke out in a cold sweat. She hadn’t expected that Zhang Fan would be so busy that he couldn’t even answer his phone.

“Doctor Zhang, someone named Shao Hua says that she has a patient that she’d like for you to see,” the operating room nurse told Zhang Fan while holding on to his cell phone.

“Tell her to wait a while,” Zhang Fan answered without even raising his head. He didn’t explain anything at all, since he was still performing surgery!

Still, the operating room nurse answered Shao Hua in a much politer tone than earlier. “Hello there. Doctor Zhang says that he can be out at noon. Please wait a while longer.” The nurse even went to the trouble of explaining.

“Okay, thank you!” Shao Hua hung up and explained things to Baiyintibu. They then continued waiting in boredom.

“Doctors really are so busy. Just look, the doctors in this department haven’t had any free time at all.” Baiyintibu was worried that Shao Hua would feel embarrassed, so she struck up a conversation. Actually, Shao Hua wasn’t feeling embarrassed, nor was she feeling like she had lost face. Rather, she felt pained for Zhang Fan’s sake, feeling that he was like a criminal who didn’t have any freedom at all so early in the morning.

“Yeah, it’s not easy being a doctor.”

Currently, Zhang Fan, Wang Yanan, Xue Fei, and Jiang Nini were working on a humerus bone fracture surgery. Three doctors were originally sufficient for this surgery, but Jiang Nini also wanted to experience what a surgery was like, so there were now four doctors instead.

After the operating room nurse finished the call with Shao Hua, since this nurse was a veteran nurse, she asked out of curiosity, “Doctor Zhang, who is Shao Hua? I could hear from her voice that she’s pretty young.”

“My girlfriend!”

Wang Yanan interjected herself into the conversation. “What about Shao Hua?”

“It’s nothing. She wants me to see her coworker’s relative’s son.” Zhang Fan stopped talking after that short explanation as he continued to cautiously perform surgery. Normally, Zhang Fan was the type who would always smile, but he would seem like a very serious leader whenever he was performing surgery.

Although Zhang Fan wasn’t very talkative, he couldn’t stop the others from gossiping. This was only a minor surgery, so the others felt really suppressed by Zhang Fan’s atmosphere.

“Zhang Fan, you have a girlfriend?” Jiang Nini exclaimed in astonishment. Although she was covered by a surgical mask, it was easy to guess that her mouth was open in surprise.

“Haha, what, were you interested in our Zhang Fan?” Xue Fei really didn’t like being on the same surgery as Zhang Fan, since it was far too boring with someone so silent.

“No, no, I was just curious,” Jiang Nini hurriedly explained.

The more veteran doctors would be a bit more reserved with Zhang Fan and his accomplishments, but all the new rotation doctors viewed Zhang Fan as their role model. Zhang Fan was a rotation doctor who had been amazingly skilled and made a reputation for himself not long after entering the hospital. Most importantly of all, he would always drive to and from work in a luxury car. Although cars were relatively common now, Zhang Fan drove the best car in the entire hospital.

Since Zhang Fan was so outstanding, it was natural that attention would be on him, especially since young men and women of their age would be at a marriageable age. The young men and women would both be choosing their own partners.

“Haha! It’s fine, it’s not like he’s gotten married yet!” Xue Fei was the oldest member of Zhang Fan’s medical team, so with his experience, he could instantly tell that Jiang Nini had been emphasizing things too much, so he snickered at Zhang Fan.

Even though Zhang Fan did hear their conversation, it didn’t register with him at all, as he treated all of this as meaningless noise that wouldn’t affect his performing surgery.

Meanwhile, since Wang Yanan was Shao Hua’s former classmate, and the two had a very good relationship, she immediately retorted, “Zhang Fan and Shao Hua are preparing to get married soon.”

“But they’re not married yet!” Xue Fei loved to argue with Wang Yanan. Jiang Nini kept silent as she held onto the surgical retractors.

“Stop the bleeding!” Zhang Fan raised his voice since he was getting annoyed.

Zhang Fan immediately stopped Xue Fei and Wang Yanan’s argument. The two of them were like mortal enemies who would always argue with each other every day. The patient’s bleeding was stopped, followed by fixation and rinsing. For orthopedic surgery, especially when a major bone was fractured, the most major and severe aftereffect would be fat embolism. This was really severe and impossible to defend against. The doctor would only be able to rinse as a placebo effect. It was difficult to say whether this was actually effective or not.

“Cast.” Zhang Fan began to create a cast after the surgery and suturing was finished.

“You should leave first. Shao Hua’s been waiting for you all morning,” Wang Yanan told him.

“It’s fine. A few extra minutes won’t matter.” Zhang Fan personally finished the cast before he finally started taking off his surgical attire.

This surgery was the last surgery of the day for Zhang Fan’s medical team. Now that the surgery was completely finished, Zhang Fan hurriedly left the operating room without even taking a shower. Xue Fei sardonically remarked, “Weren’t you in no hurry? Why are you running?”

“None of your business!” Zhang Fan answered as he exited. It was impossible to be serious with Xue Fei, although this also made it easy to interact with him. Zhang Fan returned to the department together with Wang Yanan and Jiang Nini. The two women had directly left because there were too many women waiting in line for the showers in the female changing rooms, as almost all of the operating room nurses were female.

Shao Hua smiled and stood up when she saw Zhang Fan appear. Baiyintibu spotted a tale male doctor in the distance and realized that this was Shao Hua’s boyfriend, so she stood up as well.

“Shao Hua, Manager Bai, I’m sorry to have made you wait for so long,” Zhang Fan said with a smile as he nodded towards Manager Bai’s older sister and nephew.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, there’s no rush. You should rest a while as you just finished a surgery,” Manager Bai replied politely.

“There’s no need. Come, let us sit down and discuss things in my office.” Zhang Fan brought Shao Hua and the others into his office. Shao Hua really would have wanted to gently caress the marks left behind on Zhang Fan’s face by his surgical mask if it weren’t for the fact that others were around. That was how she was as a lover. She worried more about his hardships rather than gaining face.

“Where’s your water bottle? I’ll go pour some water for you,” Shao Hua remarked as she noticed that Zhang Fan’s lips were really pale and dry.

“We have water. Please take a seat. Little Li, please bring some paper cups for me,” Zhang Fan requested. He only had to make such a request because Little Li had no interest in permanently joining a surgical department. Otherwise, a rotation doctor would have long since helped pour water for Zhang Fan’s guests already. This was the pity of being a young intern doctor. They would lack the ability to care about their own so-called pride as the intern doctor would have to ingratiate themselves first in order to learn actual skills and be liked by the teaching doctor.

Wang Yanan and Jiang Nini also soon came over to Zhang Fan’s office. “Shao Hua! You didn’t even tell us beforehand that you were coming. You must have waited all morning. What’s with Zhang Fan? He didn’t even explain to you that we usually can’t leave during surgeries in the morning.” Wang Yanan passionately grabbed Shao Hua’s hands and glared at Zhang Fan for her good friend’s sake.

“It’s fine. Look at you, you have the same marks on your face as Zhang Fan from the surgical mask. Does it hurt?” Shao Hua felt awkward about asking Zhang Fan, but she could ask Wang Yanan instead. Wang Yanan’s tender skin showed even more obvious markings than Zhang Fan’s skin.

“It’s fine. I’ve gotten used to it. They’re…?” Wang Yanan asked in a whisper as she glanced at Baiyintibu and her relatives.

“They’re here to receive Zhang Fan’s treatment. I don’t know the specifics,” Shao Hua answered in a whisper as well. They then gathered around Zhang Fan to watch Zhang Fan treating the child.

Jiang Nini stood three meters away at the computer desk as she looked over Shao Hua. ‘All she has is a nice aura!’ Jiang Nini thought to herself.

“Who’s this woman?” Little Li asked Jiang Nini because it seemed like Shao Hua was really familiar with Wang Yanan.

“Someone who used connections to see Zhang Fan!” Jiang Nini answered.

“Doctor Zhang is really amazing! People are even using connections to see him!” Little Li remarked.

Baiyitibu was Mongolian. There were many ethnic minorities in the border province who would usually have their own languages which weren’t Chinese. There were several common languages in the border province. Mongolians were truly amazing at linguistics—many Mongolians were capable of speaking fluently in five or six local languages quite easily. For instance, Batu was fluent in many languages. Zhang Fan was really was really envious of Batu’s linguistic ability. Zhang Fan had been in the border province for more than two years now, but was still completely unknowledgeable in the ethnic minorities’ languages. He didn’t have any natural talent for speaking languages.

Baiyintibu was stocky to the point where her bank uniform was almost about to burst, but she was still within normal limits. Meanwhile, Baiyintibu’s older sister had a rather oily smell to her. The nomadic district wouldn’t lack food or clothing, but there was a lack of water.

“Doctor Zhang, this is my nephew. Please take a look at him.” Baiyintibu pushed over a similarly oily young boy.

The boy wasn’t afraid at all. He widened his eyes with curiosity as he stared at Zhang Fan’s stethoscope on the latter’s chest. Zhang Fan observed the boy as the boy observed the stethoscope.

It was quite obvious that the boy’s shoulders were of uneven heights. “Does this hurt?” Zhang Fan gently pushed the child’s shoulder while observing his reaction. Children would be different from adults, especially young children like this around six or seven years of age. Children were often afraid of injections and medicine, so sometimes they would lie to the doctor, which was why it was highly important to watch a child’s expression.

“Come over here and take off your clothes,” Zhang Fan requested. Baiyintibu and her older sister hurriedly helped the boy to take off his clothes.

In the city, people would wear clothes according to the season as spring and summer would have different seasonal clothing. However, that wouldn’t be possible out in the plains. Even in June, it would be possible for there to be a sudden snowstorm, which was why Baiyintibu’s nephew was wearing a lot of clothing. Baiyintibu and her sister seemed like they were peeling an onion for quite a long while before they managed to remove all of the boy’s clothing.

While standing behind the child, Zhang Fan extended his palms out like a fan and pressed them on the child’s chest along the ribcage, with fingers connecting. To describe this, it would be similar to a position that a man would use when caressing his girlfriend’s breasts from behind. “Inhale! Exhale!” Zhang Fan sensed the changes in the child’s chest as the boy breathed.

“Okay, put on your clothes, let’s not catch a cold.” Zhang Fan then imperceptibly furrowed his eyebrows. The others didn’t notice, but Shao Hua understood Zhang Fan far too well. She knew that his expression meant that this was rather troublesome.

“How is it, Doctor Zhang?” Baiyintibu and her sister asked Zhang Fan in a gentle voice.