Chapter 137: Girls, please treat yourselves well
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Li Liang went back to Kuake City. He intended on working hard at studying so that he could take Chasu City Hospital’s recruitment exam again. However, his luck was poor, and his chances wouldn’t be good, because it was now the time of year for master’s degree students to graduate, and Chasu City Hospital would be targeting such students for recruitment!
Zhang Fan’s work in obstetrics was quite repetitive. It was all about natural births and C-sections. During the day, things would be easier, as most pregnant women who wanted natural births had already done all the necessary pregnancy checkups. The position of their fetuses, their fetal health, size, and so on would all be quite good. There would also be many nurse midwives on duty during the day.
The main work for the doctors was performing C-sections. Although Zhang Fan was still unable to access gynecology courses in his System, he wasn’t scared of C-sections one bit due to all the experience he had with general surgeries in his System already.
For the C-sections, Shao Hong would be the primary surgeon, with Zhang Fan as her surgical assistant. All C-sections were mostly quite similar. Shao Hong felt that her surgical work was quite easy with Zhang Fan as her surgical assistant. After a few days of being a surgical assistant, Zhang Fan already felt like he had nothing more to learn about obstetrics surgeries.
Although Zhang Fan hadn’t gone through any gynecology or obstetrics in his System, he already had his own understanding of surgery. He truly was beginning to accumulate his own foundation. Even as he watched obstetrics surgeries, he would be able to clearly imagine the 3D interior of the human body.
He could clearly imagine every angle, nook, and cranny! This was the result of an increase in his medical skills after he performed a certain number of surgeries. It would be impossible for typical surgeons to have such mental imaging without at least 20 years of experience. Although obstetrics was now classified under gynecology, just one or two decades ago, many general surgeons would also work part-time in obstetrics. Obstetrics also counted as a type of general surgery.
Shao Hong was quite skilled at performing C-section surgeries. After Zhang Fan assisted her for a few times, he felt like he could probably do C-section surgeries himself as well.
It was quite unlikely that Zhang Fan would be allowed to be the primary surgeon for a C-section surgery. There would be far too much responsibility and risk. Not being careful enough could easily cause both the mother and unborn child to die. So, as long as Zhang Fan hadn’t been permanently assigned to gynecology and obstetrics, it would only be a dream for him to be able to work as a primary surgeon on obstetrics surgeries.
Lu Shuyan was currently in gynecology. Since she had a master’s degree, the other doctors in the department felt too awkward about teaching her. The gynecology director Cheng Hong was the only exception. Actually, there wasn’t much to teach. In Lu Shuyan’s three years as a graduate student, she mainly learned about gynecologic oncology. Although she hadn’t been able to perform many obstetrics surgeries at the provincial hospital, she had a solid foundation.
Since Lu Shuyan just joined Chasu City Hospital recently, others here didn’t know much about her yet. Although she was now permanently assigned to gynecology and obstetrics, there would still be a period of learning more about each other. Director Cheng Hong’s intention was to lead Lu Shuyan for half a year before having her independently work by herself.
Gynecology’s operating rooms were connected to the operating rooms for obstetrics. Lu Shuyan would also come over sometimes to visit Zhang Fan. She figured that Zhang Fan probably wouldn’t be so outstanding in gynecology and obstetrics! This was the main reason why she would always come to the obstetrics operating rooms to watch him when she had some free time. But every time she saw him, Zhang Fan was the surgical assistant! Lu Shuyan was thus unable to determine his skill level!
On Thursday morning, Zhang Fan was on day shift duty without a surgery to work on. Shao Hong had worked the previous night shift, so she had gone home to rest already. Zhang Fan was called over to the operating room to help out, but then it turned out that his help was no longer necessary. But since Zhang Fan had already arrived at the operating room and was in his surgeon’s garb, he intended on joining at least one surgery. Otherwise, he felt like he would be losing out!
Lu Shuyan was also hanging around the operating room with nothing to do. “Teacher Lu, why are you so free today? Don’t you have any surgeries?” Zhang Fan joked around with her.
“Damn you! Today, Director Cheng went out to give a checkup to a government leader’s daughter-in-law. This means that I don’t have any work to do! How about you, why don’t have any surgeries?”
“I don’t have any surgeries I can work on. All the other medical teams have enough people and don’t lack for surgical assistants!” Zhang Fan told Lu Shuyan.
The two of them observed a C-section surgery together. At this moment, the phone in the operating rooms rang. The nurse on duty took the call. “Alright, let me ask,” she said. “There’s a patient who just arrived with major bleeding due to ectopic pregnancy.
“Hurry and call Shao Hong! All of us are currently busy with our own surgeries. There’s nobody free!” Vice Director Rouziguli replied to the nurse. The vice director directly ignored both Zhang Fan and Lu Shuyan, since the latter two had just both recently joined the department. Surgery for major bleeding due to ectopic pregnancy was highly likely to result in the death of the patient, which was why the vice director didn’t dare to have one of them take the surgery.
“There’s not enough time to wait for Shao Hong to get here! The patient is already in shock.”
“Director Rouziguli, allow me to take the surgery. I’ve performed surgery for major bleeding due to ectopic pregnancy at the provincial hospital before,” Lu Shuyan offered.
“Are you certain?”
“I’m certain!”
“Who will be your surgical assistant?”
“I will!” Zhang Fan declared.
There were many doctors in the gynecology and obstetrics department. Vice Director Rouziguli didn’t know Zhang Fan very well. But right now, there was nothing else she could do, because she and all the other doctors were currently busy with their own surgeries. “You guys start on the surgery then. I’ll be right over to assist you after I’m done with my C-section surgery.”
There was no other way! It wasn’t like the vice director could simply abandon the pregnant woman on her own operating table just to take this ectopic pregnancy surgery!
The ectopic pregnancy patient with major bleeding was a sixteen-year-old girl. She had fallen in love with a classmate and had sex with him without understanding what the consequences would be, as China lacked sex education. The end result was that she had an ectopic pregnancy. And as time passed and the ectopic pregnancy developed, this caused major internal bleeding.
The teenaged girl was already in a state of medical shock. Her pulse was already absent by the time she arrived in the operating room. All the other people in the operating room looked at Lu Shuyan, waiting for her to give the commands.
Lu Shuyan had indeed performed ectopic pregnancy surgery before at the provincial hospital. However, at that time, her teaching doctor had been watching her, ready to step in if anything went wrong. This time, she would be performing the surgery by herself. Not only that, the patient’s condition was incredibly urgent, and everyone was waiting on her. Lu Shuyan became so nervous that her mind went blank.
Lu Shuyan was too nervous to react despite how urgent the situation was. The nurse assigned to the ectopic pregnancy surgery was a veteran nurse. When she saw how Lu Shuyan was, she loudly shouted, “Hurry and go summon the vice director!”
The more urgent the situation became, the more Lu Shuyan’s mind went blank! And right now, there wasn’t even enough time to summon the vice director over, and this would also likely interfere with the vice director’s ongoing surgery. Zhang Fan immediately took over. “Listen to me, start blood transfusion. Administer dexamethasone via IV. Open up both passages and prepare for the surgery to begin. I’ll be the primary surgeon!” As long as there was a doctor giving commands, the nurses wouldn’t become anxious. No matter how urgent the situation, the nurses would be able to follow orders, because they had gone through countless amounts of training for this.
Although Zhang Fan hadn’t practiced any gynecology courses in his System, he was already a master of general surgery. He would even be capable of writing an anatomy textbook with his knowledge. He wasn’t worried at all.
Zhang Fan had a medical license, and he was currently in gynecology, so the nurse had to listen to his commands. “It’s fine, just follow after me. Skill comes from practice and experience. Be my surgical assistant today.” Zhang Fan pulled on Lu Shuyan, whose face was now ashen pale.
Lu Shuyan had been a graduate student for three years, and an undergraduate student for five years. Yet, she made such a mistake at this type of critical moment. Lu Shuyan couldn’t forgive herself.
Actually, this really wasn’t her fault. Lu Shuyan had been a student for eight years, so during all this time, she always had a teaching doctor. No matter what happened, the teaching doctor would be there as her support. But now that she was suddenly independent unexpectedly, she was just like a young bird who was thrown out of the nest. It was only natural that she would panic.
The surgery began. Lu Shuyan did her best to not cry as she assisted Zhang Fan.
“What’s the patient’s blood pressure?”
“80/50 mmHg!”
“Epinephrine combined with dopamine! Open both passages to expand colloid capacity!”
Zhang Fan made an incision and began to drain the blood. He swiftly located the fallopian tubes. He used oval forceps to pinch the point of bleeding in order to control the bleeding. The moment that Zhang Fan located and stopped the point of bleeding, Lu Shuyan heaved a sigh of relief. If the point of bleeding hadn’t been swiftly located, it would have been highly likely for this teenaged girl to die on the operating table today.
Major bleeding due to ectopic pregnancy was far too dangerous. Even a single minute extra might result in death.
“It will be impossible to preserve the patient’s fallopian tube on this side! Sigh, she’s still so young. Sigh~” Zhang Fan was unable to say anything more.
“Doctor Zhang, the blood pressure is now stable. The surgery can be continued.”
Zhang Fan was just about to continue when Vice Director Rouziguli arrived. She was also incredibly anxious. She immediately came over as quickly as possible, running at top speed without even taking off her gloves the moment that she finished her C-section surgery in the operating room next door.
“I’ve already used oval forceps to pinch the point of bleeding,” Zhang Fan replied. Vice Director Rouziguli was rather stunned in disbelief. She was quite astonished when she took a look at the patient and saw that this was indeed the case. “Not bad at all!” Vice Director Rouziguli then went to go disinfect herself and change her surgical garb in preparation to join the surgery herself.
Vice Director Rouziguli hadn’t expected Zhang Fan to be so quick for the surgery. According to her calculations, for average newbie gynecology and obstetrics doctors, they should have just made an incision to look for the point of bleeding. But when she arrived, there were already forceps pinching the point of bleeding!
Lu Shuyan was about to break out into tears. But, this was in the middle of a surgery. Zhang Fan had no time to comfort or console her right now. Lu Shuyan would have to overcome her mental block by herself.
‘I really hope that this incident doesn’t become a mental roadblock for her!’ Zhang Fan thought to himself.
Vice Director Rouziguli didn’t take the position of primary surgeon after she joined the surgery. She simply joined in as the secondary surgical assistant. “Nice! Good job! Truly a good job! I never thought that the two of you could do so well! I ran here as quickly as I could the moment that I finished the C-section next door. I was worried that I wouldn’t get here in time!” Vice Director Rouziguli had been really afraid that a medical incident would occur under the hands of two newbie doctors.
After the surgery was finished, Zhang Fan wanted to go console Lu Shuyan after he changed out of his surgical garb. However, he was unable to find her! When he called her cell phone, nobody picked up!
Lu Shuyan was currently hiding in a corner of the women’s locker room, crying soundlessly. She was clearly capable of performing this surgery. Why had her mind gone completely blank at such a critical moment!? Why couldn’t she have swiftly issued commands like Zhang Fan could? Why!? Why!?
She was regretful, angry, and sad! She wasn’t regretful or angry because she felt that she couldn’t compare to Zhang Fan, but rather because she felt like she wasn’t doing right by her eight years of hard work and studying, with so many long nights spent on learning gynecology and obstetrics!
The main thing was that she was still mentally comparing herself to Zhang Fan. For normal master’s degree graduate students who lacked practical experience, they would still need to have a teaching doctor for another half a year after they started working for real. This was the difference between school and work. During school, no matter what you did or were like, you would always have a teacher!
Vice Director Rouziguli changed her clothes and was about to leave the women’s locker room when she suddenly noticed Lu Shuyan crying in the corner. The pudgy Rouziguli looked over Lu Shuyan whose eyes were red and swollen. Rouziguli walked over and sat down next to Lu Shuyan on the ground. She held Lu Shuyan’s shoulder and told her, “You’re pretty good. It’s already quite impressive that you were brave enough to volunteer and take responsibility for the surgery. Back when I was studying in Raptor City, there were many doctorate degree students who couldn’t even recognize all the medical equipment correctly.”
“But, I feel like I was so useless today! And there was almost a major medical incident because of me!”
“Haha! Everyone’s had a first time before! It will get better in the future. Go wash your face and clean yourself up. Once you stand up again, you’ll still be a powerful woman! Although that Zhang Fan is quick with his hands, his foundations aren’t anything compared to yours at all. Don’t be depressed! Trust me, in half a year, you’ll definitely be far above him in skill!”
Rouziguli patted Lu Shuyan on the shoulder and brought her out of the women’s locker room. Every veteran doctor had previously been a newbie doctor before. Rouziguli understood Lu Shuyan’s troubles quite well!
Outside the operating room, the teenaged patient’s parents were angry, worried, and humiliated! What were they supposed to do with their daughter who had gotten pregnant at such a young age!? In China, a young and unwed pregnancy could easily cause a family to drown in a torrential wave of malicious gossip.
“Just how did you watch her! She’s already become like this at her young age, so what are we going to do in the future! All you know how to do is play mahjong, mahjong, and more mahjong every day! It’s your fault for her not learning anything proper!” The angry father was currently blaming the girl’s mother.
“How I watched her! You dare to say such a thing? You always go on business trips for several months at a time! What am I supposed to do! You think you’re in the right? I was there to take care of your parents when they were ill! Where were you!? And where were you when our daughter was sick!? Have you ever even cared for her!? You blame me for playing mahjong? If you’re so skilled, then don’t marry me! We can get a divorce right away!”
“Stop arguing! If you want to argue with each other, go outside! These are the operating rooms! Have some dignity and respect!” A nurse who passed by scolded both parents, causing them to quiet down.
The father was grabbing at his hair while kneeling in a corner. It was unknown what he was now thinking. The mother kept wiping away her tears!
There would be many factors involved in ectopic pregnancies. However, there would be a much higher chance of ectopic pregnancy for girls who hadn’t reached adult age yet. Girls, please learn how to protect yourself, and treat yourselves well!