Chapter 123: Drip!
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
After Zhang Fan took his last two rest days, he reported back to work at the hospital administration department. The newcomers at the hospital administration department were really envious of him. They had never seen such a young doctor get approved for an entire month-long vacation that wasn’t a marriage and honeymoon vacation before.
Urology! Zhang Fan was rotated to the urology department. The urology department of Chasu City Hospital seemed like it was only for old men. More than 80% of the patients here had some type of problem with their prostate. The department was filled with old men patients who held urine bags while running around. For prostate problems, there usually wouldn’t be much issue dealing with these problems as long as the urine could be urinated.
The old patients in this department really couldn’t stay still. Zhang Fan saw that the corridors were filled with old men in patient clothes, grabbing their urine bags while chatting with each other. Zhang Fan felt that this scene seemed as if they were all holding bird cages while in a park together! If only the urine bags were actually birds, this really would be just like a park!
Maybe some men would be able to pee for 10 meters despite a headwind, or have sex 10 times in a single night while they were young, making them feel like they were on top of the world and better than other men! But, such men shouldn’t be happy too early. You would have to pay for such abilities later in life, around 60 or 70 years old. The more sexually proficient a man was, the more severe his prostate problems would be later on in life. Maybe a man would be able to maintain an erection for half an hour easily when young, but your prostate would later rebel against you, making it common for you to have to pee for more than an hour at a time.
The more sexually proficient a man was, the more problems he would have as he got older. This was all related to the male testosterone hormone. Of course, it was also related to one’s personal habits. Sitting down for too long at a time, or always holding in your pee for too long would be two such factors that would worsen your urology system’s condition.
Chasu City Hospital’s urology department had very few female patients because female patients with urology problems would mostly go to the gynecology department instead.
The urology department director was Li Jianguo, a veteran doctor who had joined the hospital at the same time as Superintendent Ouyang. Back when the two of them were younger, Li Jianguo had even been Ouyang Hong’s boyfriend. However, the two of them later split up for an unknown reason. Nowadays, Director Li Jianguo felt really awkward around Superintendent Ouyang. He would always avoid any staff meetings involving Superintendent Ouyang as much as possible. Still, he was a loyal supporter of Superintendent Ouyang. The urology department would definitely carry out any command that Superintendent Ouyang gave.
Since the urology department had only recently been split off from the general surgery department, there were three vice directors who were all only one or two years apart in age from each other. Each vice director would do their own things in the department. Of the three vice directors, Vice Director Wang and Vice Director Chen had a particularly acrimonious relationship. They would often fight over and steal each other’s patients. However, Director Li Jianguo didn’t care at all. As long as no problems arose for him, he was the type who was quite happy to see his subordinate doctors fight each other.
The lower-ranking doctors still didn’t know anything about how Zhang Fan had saved the military patient from before yet, but all the directors knew about it as they had been present that night.
Knowing about Zhang Fan’s achievement, Li Jianguo was quite courteous to Zhang Fan when the latter reported in at his director’s office with the urology department assignment. Li Jianguo didn’t act high and mighty like how a typical director would when talking to a resident doctor.
“Doctor Zhang, you’ve finally arrived in our urology department! How about it? Would you like to lead your personal medical team, or follow another doctor? Let me tell you beforehand that I don’t personally manage patients, and I rarely participate in surgeries. I heard from the other departments that it’s usually the department director who teaches you. Would you like to perform house calls together with me?”
“I’ll do whatever Director Li says. I’m just a newcomer here, so I’ll simply go along with whatever you have me do.”
“Haha! Oh you! You’re craftier than a monkey! It seems that you want to do things by yourself. Okay, it’s fine since you have a medical license now. Feel free to have your own medical team while being in charge of your own patients. There’s currently four rotation doctors in the department, and I can only give you one. You might be a little tired with only one person in your team, but I can’t give you anyone else, as my subordinate doctors will be unhappy.”
Director Li Jianguo spoke quite nicely, and was also quite generous to Zhang Fan. The director was truly giving much face to Zhang Fan by allowing a resident doctor to start a medical team of his own with only one rotation doctor.
“Alright, Director. I’ll follow your arrangements.” Zhang Fan was delighted that he would be allowed to independently determine his own surgeries here.
Later that morning, in the departmental morning meeting, Director Li Jianguo announced it to the doctors and head nurse. “Previously, three of our four rotation doctors were assigned to our department’s three attending physicians. Doctor Zhang had some other things to do, so he arrived late by a few days. Still, Doctor Zhang already has his medical license, and is a highly skilled surgeon. Our last rotation doctor will be assigned to Doctor Zhang. Doctor Zhang will be starting his own medical team, and will be assigned under Vice Director Wang. So, Vice Director Wang, please take good care of him.”
Vice Director Wang’s full name was Wang Zongkui. He was the youngest of the three vice directors, and was also rather reserved and introverted, which was why Director Li Jianguo had assigned Zhang Fan under him.
“Okay, Director, not a problem,” Vice Director Wang replied. He then told Zhang Fan, “Doctor Zhang, feel free to ask me about any patients that you aren’t sure about. No need to be reserved.”
“Okay.”
The other vice directors didn’t really react to this. However, the attending physicians were rather unhappy. An extra medical team meant extra competition for patients, and another person to share the bonuses with. As for regular rotation doctors, they only needed to be awarded some money if they did a good job, and they would get nothing if they did poorly. Zhang Fan was technically a rotation doctor as well, but he was directly allowed to have his own medical team, which made the attending physicians really dissatisfied!
But since the department director had commanded so, the lower-ranking doctors didn’t dare to object—on the surface, that was. However, there would be many problems in private. The attending physicians couldn’t accept how Zhang Fan was only a mere rotation doctor with the rank of resident doctor. They had all been promoted to attending physician before being allowed to have their own medical teams. Why was it that Zhang Fan was given such special treatment in their department? Shouldn’t a rotation doctor simply be writing medical reports and changing patients’ medicine? This was attracting far too much attention!
Zhang Fan didn’t care about such things at all. He didn’t care what others thought of him. Either they would get used to him, or they wouldn’t. He would do his best whenever teamwork was necessary, but if the others didn’t want to properly work together, then whatever. Zhang Fan wasn’t counting on the other doctors to actually be able to help him with anything.
There were four other rotation doctors, two men and two women. Since there were only three attending physicians in the department, there had been one extra rotation doctor who wasn’t assigned yet. Intern doctor Wang Zipeng, whom Zhang Fan had first met in the gastrointestinal department, was also currently in the urology department on rotation. Wang Zipeng really wanted to be under Zhang Fan, but this wasn’t up to him.
In the end, Zhang Fan received a female rotation doctor. This young woman dressed beautifully, wore light makeup, and had an aura signaling that she wouldn’t give in to pressure easily around her. The last was the reason why none of the three attending physicians had wanted her for their teams.
Zhang Fan didn’t care either way. He was already quite pleased that he was allowed to have his own medical team.
The female rotation doctor’s name was Lu Shuyan. Zhang Fan was quite astounded when he chatted with her. He learned that she had been a master’s degree gynecology major student. Superintendent Ouyang had recruited her for Chasu City Hospital. She definitely would be going to the gynecology department in the future, and coming to the urology department was only for the sake of the mandatory rotations. She was also one year older than Zhang Fan.
This definitely made it difficult to order her around. Lu Shuyan also already had her medical license and higher academic qualifications than Zhang Fan did. Lu Shuyan didn’t care either way, as she was mostly here in the urology department to go through the motions.
“Zhang Fan! What connections do you have that are so amazing? You’re allowed to have your own medical team right when you entered the department? Did you see how angry the other attending physicians were? Their mouths were completely distorted!” After the daily morning checkup on the patients, since Lu Shuyan and Zhang Fan didn’t have any patients of their own yet, she started chatting with Zhang Fan!
“Oh!” Zhang Fan didn’t know what to say. He felt like it would sound like he was bragging too much if he honestly told her that it was because he was incredibly skilled!
On the very first day that Zhang Fan was here, he was assigned to work both the day and night shift. Since he and Lu Shuyan had zero patients, the latter went home for the night shift. Still, there would be many emergency treatment requests for the urology department during the night. Many old men were often too embarrassed to say that they had trouble peeing. Only when they really had to go at night would they tell their family members.
The emergency department doctors were highly familiar with Zhang Fan by now. “Doctor Zhang, are you here to observe us at work again?” Doctor Li from the emergency department joked with Zhang Fan. In the hospital, there were very few doctors who willingly joined the emergency department. Most of them had been forcefully assigned there by the hospital leadership.
“Doctor Li, you’re being too polite. I came here instantly when you phoned me, yet you’re saying that I’m here to watch you work. Be less shameless!” Zhang Fan also joked around.
“I was unable to insert this catheter. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have troubled you. Could you take a look?” Doctor Li from the emergency department had tried to insert a catheter for an old man for quite a while, but failed. The old patient had gotten angry, so Doctor Li could only phone the urology department.
Zhang Fan felt his head going numb right from the moment that he entered the patient’s treatment room. The old patient was angrily glaring and obviously on the verge of exploding in anger. Zhang Fan felt even more of a headache when he saw what was on the treatment cart. Even a catheter guidewire had been used.
A catheter guidewire would be a simple metal wire. There were different sizes of guidewires, but the basic function of the guidewire was to help insert the catheter into the urethra. “How many times did you try to insert the catheter?”
“Three times. For the last time, I also used the guidewire, but I failed to insert it! The old patient is quite uncooperative. Not only that, he has a bad temper, and keeps glaring at me,” Doctor Li secretly whispered to Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan took a look. Of course the patient would be irritated. His bladder was as large as a ball, incredibly round. Doctor Li had also tried for more than half an hour to insert a catheter but kept failing, so the patient’s bladder was painful and swollen. The patient obviously really wanted to pee. If it wasn’t for still wanting to have help with peeing, it seemed likely that the old man would start hitting the doctors with how angry he obviously was.
“Sir, the catheter will probably no longer work for you. Fistulation will be necessary,” Zhang Fan informed the patient.
“I don’t care whether it’s called fistulation or whatever! Just hurry up and release my pee! Sheesh! I want to go so badly!” The old man’s wife was standing right by his side, but she didn’t dare to say anything, probably because he had cursed at her before.
The patient now had urethral edema due to Doctor Li’s failed attempts to insert a catheter. It was now impossible even for Zhang Fan to insert a catheter. “Prepare for fistulation!” Zhang Fan said to Doctor Li.
The emergency department nurses prepared the necessary resources and medical equipment for fistulation not long after.
“Doctor Zhang, watch out. This old patient’s temper is really bad. In the short time I was working on him, he cursed at his wife many times. It’s also partly Doctor Li’s fault. He kept failing to insert the catheter, but wouldn’t call for assistance, making the patient suffer,” an emergency department nurse whispered to Zhang Fan.
“Understood, thank you.”
Local anesthesia began. Lidocaine was applied around the bladder area. Zhang Fan then made an incision, used the ostomy apparatus to create a fistula inserted in the urethra to help drain the urine. Zhang Fan released half the urine and then turned off the catheter switch. “Hey! Hey! Young man, why did you turn it off? I still have a lot of urine, I really want to release it all!”
“Sir, it’s not good for you to release too much at once. Let’s release the rest after waiting a while. Also, your prostate is in severe condition. I recommend surgery. Otherwise, you’ll have the same problem of being unable to pee again.”
“Can’t we just do it like this? Why must we have a surgery?”
“The urine bag can’t be left like this for too long in your body. You’ll get an infection.”
“Ridiculous! Let’s talk about it later.” The old man was more energetic now that he had been able to release half of his urine. He had an incredibly combative tone.
“Oh! You also need to come back here to regularly change your medicine. Otherwise, it’s really easy for you to get infected.”
“Got it. I’ll come find you tomorrow! I really wanted to go to the bathroom.” After saying this, the old man took his wife with him and left.
The old man really did return on the second day. He didn’t even ask for the director or any other urologist, and asked only for Zhang Fan. However, Zhang Fan had already finished his day shift and gone home. Zhang Fan could only return to the urology department after work hours.
“I even told you that I would return, but you got off work without even waiting for me! That’s no good, young man.”
“You’re right, sir! How about you sign the paperwork for hospitalization? After a checkup, you should have a prostate surgery.”