Chapter 183: Human body is difficult!
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Ren Lina’s special patient was in his mid-40s. He had small eyes and a brandy nose, and was just slightly over 1.7 meters tall, but he weighed almost 100 kg. He would often need to hold his stomach while standing to pee. Although his position wasn’t that high, he really did hold quite a lot of authority. It was said that even the city leader of a smaller city often came to visit him. Normally, he went to work early in the morning, and would then come to the hospital after 10 a.m. to begin his treatment.
There was an incredible number of people coming to see him. Without even mentioning anything else, just the nurse’s station was already filled with gift boxes. Normal people would buy some boxes of milk or cans of porridge as gifts, but when visiting such a leader, it would be important to bring flowers as well as all sorts of supplements. There were gold, silver, and partner brands, all sorts of the most expensive supplements in the market, along with plenty of scam supplements, side by side.
The section chief was from Shanxi Province, and he really loved to eat noodles. However, noodles had high starch content and would make it difficult to control the blood sugar. Doctor Ren Lina advised him to eat less noodles. He heard from someone else that the flour from the border province had higher sugar and starch content than normal due to having more sunlight, which was why he wouldn’t eat flour from the border province. He specially went to the trouble of paying for flour to be shipped to him from inland China.
Although this patient had quite a bit of authority, he was really polite to the doctors and nurses, and his pudgy face seemed to be naturally suited for smiling. It wasn’t easy to tell that he was actually a leader. However, he had a personal driver serving him, and his patient room seemed almost like his office. There were so many people literally waiting in line to see him to report to him or meet him.
When Zhang Fan and Ren Lina checked on this patient, he was currently in the middle of a phone call. When he saw the doctors arriving, he immediately told the other person on the phone, “Let’s stop talking for now. My leaders are coming.” He then immediately hung up the call and smiled while standing up to greet them.
This would easily leave others with a very good first impression. “Leader Ren, oh my, I can’t take this anymore, my arm is so swollen from receiving IV drips every day. Is this a new doctor? He looks so energetic.” The section chief could also tell that Zhang Fan was just a rotation doctor. However, he still smiled and nodded in greeting at Zhang Fan.
“You’re the one who’s actually the leader. You always joke around with us doctors. However, I still need to lecture you.” Ren Lina chuckled while talking to the section chief.
“Oh my, just look at what you’re saying. Feel free to scold me. I’ll definitely work harder on what I haven’t been able to do.” The section chief had the two doctors sit down. His patient room was a VIP room which came with a second office room that included a sofa, office desk, and so on.
“I saw you sneaking out yesterday to smoke again. Your circulation and nervous system are already having some problems due to your high blood sugar. You’re already feeling numb in your hands and feet, yet you’re still smoking. I also heard from the nurses that many of the people visiting you are also smoking in your patient room. This truly won’t be good for your recovery. You only have one body. No matter how busy you are with work, you have to pay attention to your body.”
“Right, right, right. We’re all just rough men who don’t have any culture or knowledge. We don’t understand such things. I’ll definitely pay attention, I’ll pay attention. I’ve been having so many blood sugar tests every day that it feels like my fingers are falling off. Dear leader, can you think of anything to help me?”
“Then properly cooperate with our treatment. Eat less carbohydrates in the future and eat more vegetables and high-protein foods. With one meal of buns or noodles, you’ll be wasting several days’ worth of my medical treatment,” Ren Lina complained.
“Haha! You’re truly a divine doctor. You can even tell what I’ve been eating! Amazing, amazing!” The section chief was using rather exaggerated words, but his face didn’t at all indicate that he was just saying flattery.
Zhang Fan almost laughed out loud at seeing the section chief’s sight. The section chief was all smiles and so polite while sitting surrounded by flower baskets, making him seem like a buddha in a flower garden.
Such a sight was only possible in an internal medicine department. In the surgical departments, especially general surgery, flower baskets were strictly forbidden. This was because there had previously been a patient with an allergy to flower pollen. Someone came to visit the patient and brought him a flower basket. The patient who had just finished surgery a few days ago sneezed so much that his sutures were broken! Previous superintendent Huang Yun then set a rule that flower baskets were forbidden in all the surgical departments.
Ren Lina gave the section chief a physical checkup and chatted with him for a while longer before leaving.
“Doctor Zhang, this patient is a government leader. Don’t watch just how friendly and nice he appears to be. You really must pay attention to your own behavior as well,” Ren Lina told Zhang Fan. It would be his matter whether he listened to her advice or not. It was already quite nice of her that she was advising him of this.
There were two main groups of people who had diabetes in the endocrinology department. The first group were the government leaders from when China’s economy first started rapidly developing. Now, these leaders were getting older and had higher positions, but were receiving payback for eating and drinking as they pleased. They were forced to take an injection with every meal! The private patient rooms were mostly filled with this type of patient.
The second main group of patients with diabetes were those who had recently left poverty to become somewhat well-to-do. They would start eating a lot of food with much higher fat and sugar content, causing them to get diabetes in just a few years.
As for the regular middle class, there actually weren’t that many patients with diabetes. This might have to do with their normal eating habits.
There were five rotation doctors currently in the endocrinology department. Three of the female rotation doctors wanted to be permanently assigned here because this department was also known as the hospital’s “Mistress Department”. There were more female doctors than male doctors here. This department also received a high number of patients with special status or lots of money, so there really was quite a good chance for the young female doctors to get noticed and hook up with someone rich or powerful. Moreover, in comparison to the respiratory department, gastrointestinal department, and so on, the endocrinology department was far cleaner. In the respiratory department, you would need to work with patients’ phlegm every day, while the gastrointestinal department would see you working with vomit or feces on a daily basis! The endocrinology department was also less tiring and less stressful to work in. These factors combined to make many young female doctors want to join this department.
How were they to join this department? They would have to study hard. Director Dilibaer’s position in Chasu City Hospital was rather special. Both the former and current superintendent were really respectful to her. This meant that as long as you had the director’s approval, you would be able to join the endocrinology department. Otherwise, it would be difficult to join this department even if you had the superintendent’s help.
With many women in this department, there was also a lot of drama. Since many of the female doctors were also married to those with status or money, they couldn’t help but compare themselves to one another. Even though the conditions in the endocrinology department were quite nice, the atmosphere wasn’t very friendly.
In other departments, the doctors would scheme against each other for the sake of receiving more patients, all for the sake of money. Yet, things were a bit more special in this department. Doctors here wouldn’t really care about money. They were actually quite generous. They would even issue some bonus money to the rotation doctors, although not very much. Still, for the rotation doctors, it was quite nice already that they were receiving anything.
Where did the conflicts in this department arise from? Because of trying to keep up with the Joneses. Basically, the female doctors were competing in comparing their husbands or lovers. If one female doctor took a vacation in Thailand, then another female doctor would have to take a vacation to Malaysia the next day.
If one female doctor spent 500 yuan on a haircut, then another female doctor would be doing a full beauty and health care routine in a few days. In a way, the endocrinology department was the department that was most up-to-date with currently popular trends. For instance, if there was a newest version of an Apple iphone out, it would take only a few days for all the female doctors in the endocrinology department to possess one. Thus, ordinary doctors wouldn’t be able to stay in this department in the end.
Although the female doctors weren’t intentionally trying to look down on ordinary doctors, the female doctors’ conversations, clothing, and so on would be too much for doctors from ordinary families to handle. “Oh my! Today’s purse is quite nice. My husband’s relative visited America and went to the trouble of bringing a purse back for me. It’s just a little too large.” The female doctors would then show off Louis Vuitton or other ridiculously expensive brand name purses.
There were also some who had cleverer ways of showing off. “Help take a look at my finger. Why is it so red?” The end result was that the other party would notice that there was actually a large diamond ring on her finger.
The two male doctors in the department almost never said anything. Even though the female doctors competed with each other on a daily basis, if one of the two male doctors dared to start an argument with a female doctor, the female doctors would definitely band together and absolutely dominate the male doctor. That was why it was much better for them to remain silent.
Later this afternoon, Zhang Fan and the other rotation doctors began to write medical reports. Although this work was rather boring, it really would test a doctor’s way of thinking on treating a disease. However, China had far too many patients, so writing medical reports had instead become a burden upon the doctors! If you went to look for a doctor, they would always be busy writing a medical report instead of researching or thinking about how to treat a difficult illness!
“Doctor Zhang, I heard that you’re quite skilled in surgery? Last time, when Vice Director Wang from our hospital had an accident, the two orthopedic directors were arguing over who could be the primary surgeon, but they both lost to you! Isn’t that what happened?” This question came from a female second-highest level certification doctor in the department, surnamed Chen. She was slightly older and had thin lips and high cheekbones. This was the difficult part of being an internal medicine doctor. As long as you weren’t the director, no matter how high-ranking you were, you would still have to write medical reports.
“Haha, not at all.” Zhang Fan had no interest in making conversation with her. He was trying to think about how to properly write this medical report.
“Do you think that Doctor Ren is sexy and beautiful?” Maybe it was something innate to older women to tease younger men.
“What? Doctor Chen, could it be that you’re interested in our Doctor Zhang? However, I bet he prefers the younger type.” Doctor Ren Lina was really beautiful and spoke nicely, but she actually wasn’t that easy to handle. Otherwise, how could she have dominated her relationship with a playboy son of a government leader despite being just an ordinary doctor? It would be difficult to even get married into a government leader’s family without some actual abilities and relying only on a pretty face.
Since Doctor Chen wasn’t respecting her by making such a joke, Doctor Ren instantly retorted by calling Doctor Chen old. For these female doctors who all had husbands with status or money, unless their husbands happened to be good friends, it would be rare for the female doctors to be friends with each other. The female doctors couldn’t even keep up a normal friendly coworker relationship with each other.
“Okay, yeah!” Zhang Fan was stuck in the middle of all this. No matter what they said to each other, he simply responded with that one sentence. Zhang Fan was different from Li Hui. Why had Li Hui felt such pain from being in this department? It was because Li Hui had wanted to show off to all the women. Yet, it turned out that the women in this department were all far more experienced and managed to learn everything about him instead in just a few days. It wouldn’t feel good at all for Li Hui, as he would feel like he had been stripped naked!
These female doctors were far too mature, just as if they were fully ripe peaches. This sensation would easily lure a young man’s hormones into becoming overactive, producing even more hormones. No wonder Li Hui had been so easy to tease. He hadn’t been able to control himself, especially since he was no longer a virgin. He was constantly hard down there around so many attractive female doctors!
However, things were different from Zhang Fan. It wasn’t that Zhang Fan didn’t understand such things, but rather that he had a lot more pressure. Ever since he had received his System, he had finally been able to regain all the face that he had lost ever since college! He no longer needed to knock on everyone’s doors, smiling while offering to sell them food. He was someone who had to kneel for so many years already, yet was finally able to stand up straight.
To use a pretentious phrase, it wasn’t that he couldn’t, it was that he didn’t want to. Director Dilibaer had already given him an English textbook to test his abilities. He would stand up and challenge this even if he hadn’t opened up internal medicine courses in his System yet! Only with loss would one know what was most precious. Zhang Fan really valued his face now that he had finally regained it. He had already lost so much face before! He no longer wanted to lose it anymore.
Since Zhang Fan was so boring, the female doctors were unable to tease him in any way. This didn’t mean that they would actually try to bully or prank him. They would simply suppress a male doctor in experience and wisdom gained with age so that the male doctor would say something wrong that would then become a joke constantly used by the female doctors. Even now, Li Hui would always give any female endocrinologist a wide berth. It was unknown why he had lost so much face with the endocrinologists.
The other two rotation doctors weren’t interested in this department. Although Zhang Fan was also uninterested in this department, he wanted to learn more knowledge while he was still here. He felt that Director Dilibaer was correct. In order to fly, one would have to cultivate internal energy.
The feeling of success was just as addictive as the most powerful drug in the world. Right now, ordinary general surgeries and simple bone fixations no longer gave Zhang Fan any sense of accomplishment, yet he still needed to perform a tremendous number of surgeries due to his System’s forceful requirements even without this sense of accomplishment.
Over the past few days, Zhang Fan filled his mind with English vocabulary regarding all sorts of factors and so on. Although Zhang Fan’s English skills were poor, he had still graduated from a proper medical college. He did at least have some foundation in English already. He would also lose too much face if he told others that his English skills were poor.
Zhang Fan got truly absorbed in studying English. He would even practice vocabulary while walking. Even when he was peeing in the bathroom, he would think about the process of water converting to urine in English.
The current Zhang Fan had somewhat returned to the state from when he’d first obtained his System. He was focused on using every last bit of his free time to grind and study. In such a condition, Zhang Fan seemed to be quite like a wooden block. Over the past few days, all the female doctors in the department lost interest in Zhang Fan because there were plenty of other young men trying to show off in front of them.
The other male rotation doctor was unable to handle the female doctors. He even foolishly told them how his first kiss went and about his first visit to an hourly hotel to have sex with another woman. These middle-aged women were far too scary. There was nothing that they didn’t dare to talk about.
Women were quite special. They would be shy while still unripe. They would be alluring when mature. However, they would be quite scary after blossoming and bearing fruit. If such scary women all gathered together, that would become terrifying! It was only due to their status as doctors that they held back slightly! Otherwise, it would be even more terrifying.
Five days had now passed since Director Dilibaer had given Zhang Fan the English textbook. He was unable to even fully understand the first thesis so far. This was far too difficult. He needed to search through many other textbooks, but in a small city like Chasu City, it would be impossible to find many medical texts. For the first time ever, Zhang Fan felt that a small city was inconvenient!
Zhang Fan spent all his free time in his apartment, grinding English skills. If one time wouldn’t work, he would try twice more. Regardless, he did his very best to understand and learn the fundamental workings of endocrinology. As long as he understood the fundamentals, then everything else would solve itself. However, the fundamentals were the most difficult. There were far too many academic theories and viewpoints on this subject. There were many hormones whose uses hadn’t been completely confirmed yet. This was yet another reason for the high difficulty of endocrinology.
The other rotation doctors in the department were also secretly competing with each other. Such competition wasn’t necessary in surgical departments, because it would be easy to determine a rotation doctor’s skills within three days. However, things were different in internal medicine. Any doctor who studied properly could learn about all the proper medication to use for patients within just a few days. How were they supposed to determine who was more skilled, since rotation doctors wouldn’t be put in charge of their own patients yet? They would use the Monday weekly major patient checkup as Director Dilibaer would always ask difficult questions. This was the true venue of competition for the young internal medicine doctors who had skills.
It would be useless to claim that one had a good understanding of all of internal medicine! Truly skilled internal medicine doctors would be competing in the basics. For example, when treating a cold or fever, there would only be a few types of medications to treat pain, fever, act as antihistamines, and so on. In fact, it would be possible to even train a middle schooler for a week to the point where the middle schooler could skillfully treat sneezes, colds, and fevers.
How could a truly excellent doctor express themselves? A truly excellent doctor was someone who needed to truly understand the reasons for the disease. That would be a properly good doctor. As long as the doctor was highly familiar with the disease’s system and workings, then no matter what changed about the disease within various individual patients, the doctor would always be able to tell due to experience.
This was the truly difficult part. It would be harder than hard to truly understand the systems of such diseases. Five years of hard work during college wouldn’t even be enough to get started. After getting started, it would be even harder to grow one’s foundation. You would have to treat several thousand patients before growing your own foundation!
Life was difficult, but the human body was more difficult!