Chapter 50: Three Years
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
News that expert doctors from the bigger city hospital had come to support the smaller Kuake City Hospital soon spread from the government to everyone else. This caused a great increase in the number of patients Kuake City Hospital received, along with a corresponding increase in the number of surgeries. Director Yang of general surgery was now busy accepting as many patients as he possibly could.
“Expert doctors from Chasu City are here at our hospital now. You require a microscopic surgery. This can be done only by opening up three small holes in your stomach.
“Yes, that’s right, the expert doctors will personally perform your surgery, rest assured.”
On this morning, Director Yang successfully convinced four patients to have three gall bladder surgeries and one appendectomy at Kuake City Hospital. After scheduling these surgeries, he immediately told the doctors in his department to hurry with the checkups for these patients, and then he immediately went to surgery department #2 to talk to Zhang Fan. “Doctor Zhang, there are several gall bladder surgeries and an appendectomy scheduled for tomorrow. Do you have time?”
“Sure, I have some time. Feel free to arrange the surgeries for me, Director Yang.” Zhang Fan had been performing many orthopedic surgeries, such as surgeries for removing metal plates or osteoarthritis, over the past few days. He was quite busy.
Kuake City Hospital had directly set up a visiting expert doctor’s consultation center for Li Hongtu. Since it was too much for him to handle by himself, Li Hongtu had taken Wang Yanan with him for the patient consultations—Wang Yanan would write everything down for him. She was quite hardworking. This morning, there was a scheduled surgery for removing a metal plate from a humerus bone. Chen Qifa took charge of this surgery as the primary surgeon, with Li Liang as his surgical assistant. Zhang Fan didn’t perform this surgery, because he wanted to go out somewhere.
Zhang Fan drove his newly borrowed car to Batu’s home. Batu’s arrest case still hadn’t been resolved yet. This time, the door to Batu’s home was finally open. Zhang Fan parked his car, walked inside, and found that Batu’s nephew, Bayin, was also present.
“I’m here to visit you, Ma’am. Is there any news about Superintendent Batu?” Batu’s wife had originally been quite pretty, but now—half a year after Batu’s arrest—she appeared much older.
“Ah, Zhang Fan! Please come in and sit down! There’s finally resolution regarding Batu’s incident. Thank you for worrying so much about him.”
“It’s good that there’s finally news.” After Zhang Fan sat down, Bayin hurriedly made some tea and handed some smokes to him.
“Brother Zhang, ever since my uncle was arrested, you were the only one from the hospital who came to visit us. Sigh!”
“It doesn’t really matter if anyone else came to visit us or not. Bring Doctor Zhang some cheese.”
“Ma’am, what’s the current situation with Superintendent Batu?”
Bayin addressed Zhang Fan as brother, but Batu was Bayin’s uncle. Zhang Fan really wanted to exclaim over the messy way that everyone addressed each other!
“He was forced to pay compensation on top of a large fine. We found a distant relative who managed to help us out a little with the judge in the provincial city. In the end, Batu was sentenced to three years in jail.” Tears started dripping out of Batu’s wife’s eyes by the end of her words.
“Aunt, please don’t cry anymore. I won’t be able to see your eyes if you keep crying. Three years is quite short. It’ll be over in a flash. Please, you must take care of yourself,” Bayin tried to assuage his aunt’s emotions. He then said, “Brother Zhang, have some food here. We really spent a lot of money trying to help Uncle Batu, but even so, he’s still going to be jailed for three years! Sigh!”
Zhang Fan stayed with them for some minutes, consoling them and chatting a little with Bayin before leaving. Three years wasn’t particularly long, so this could be considered good news.
When Zhang Fan returned to Kuake City Hospital, he coincidentally ran into Wang Yanan, who had just returned from providing outpatient services. “I’m so exhausted, and you’re skipping out on work again. Tomorrow, you’re going to accompany Vice Director Li and me in treating patients outside.” Actually, it wasn’t that exhausting, since Kuake City had far less patients than Chasu City. However, people in Kuake City were poorer and had access to fewer medical resources. She had been busy all morning, while it seemed like Zhang Fan was slacking off. Wang Yanan was quite angry about this.
Zhang Fan simply responded, “Do you still want to be the primary surgeon for a surgery? If so, immediately bring me something to drink. I still need to go back to Chasu City.”
“Here, I hope you choke on it.” Wang Yanan tossed over a drink she already had from somewhere and turned around, leaving in anger.
The next day, Zhang Fan arrived in the operating room early in the morning. Li Hongtu was going outside to treat patients again, but when Wang Yanan saw Zhang Fan going to the operating room, she forced one of Kuake City Hospital’s fresh college graduates to go assist Li Hongtu so that she could also go to the operating room. She was under the mistaken impression that Zhang Fan was about to perform an orthopedic surgery.
There were only three operating rooms in a tiny hospital like Kuake City Hospital. One for general surgery, one for orthopedic surgery, and one for gynecology and obstetrics. Only after she followed Zhang Fan inside did she discover that this was the general surgery operating room.
Inside the general surgery operating room, Director Yang handed a gall bladder patient’s medical information to Zhang Fan. “Doctor Zhang, please take a look. All the checkups for this patient indicate that everything is alright for surgery to begin.” Zhang Fan glanced over the medical information, and then said, “Okay, let’s begin.”
Hand-washing, disinfecting, boring holes, inflation, and then inserting the laparoscope into the abdominal cavity. Zhang Fan performed every movement precisely. Wang Yanan was astounded as she stood in the room watching him. ‘He even knows how to perform laparoscopic surgeries for general surgery? Is he even human!?’ She was now feeling rather aggrieved. She had worked incredibly hard for the past half a year, feeling that as long as she kept up her hard work, she would catch up to Zhang Fan in skill sooner or later. But now, she had discovered that in the middle of this footrace in her mind, the shameless Zhang Fan suddenly got onto a car and started driving on the highway. She really wanted to shout loudly, ‘You demon!’
All four general surgeries were scheduled for the morning. Zhang Fan finished the three gall bladder surgeries; the last scheduled surgery was the appendectomy. Director Yang had an awkward expression, which Zhang Fan noticed. “What’s the matter, Director Yang?”
“Doctor Zhang, could you please let m-me perform this appendectomy? I’m not as confident f-for gall bladder surgery, but I do b-believe in myself when it comes to appendectomies. Would it be alright to ask you to watch and advise me?” Director Yang was even beginning to stutter. Since Zhang Fan was about his son’s age, it truly made him feel awkward.
“Sure. I’ll help you hold the laparoscope.” Watching would never help one learn as much as doing could. Zhang Fan held the laparoscope and explained the important procedures to Director Yang while watching him carefully. Surgery was no joke. It had to be taken seriously because the patient’s life would be at stake. Although Director Yang was quite experienced with appendectomies, this was his first time to use a laparoscope. Although he wasn’t too nervous with his experience, his hands still moved much slower than usual due to not being used to the laparoscope.
Zhang Fan wasn’t impatient at all. He knew that others didn’t have a System like he did. Finally, Director Yang finished the surgery and heaved a long sigh of relief. “I’ve already been performing general surgeries for more than 20 years. I never thought that a simple appendectomy would make me sweat so much. Thank you, Doctor Zhang. Without you helping me, who knows when I would ever get a chance to perform a laparoscopic surgery.”
“You’re welcome, Director Yang.” Zhang Fan smiled.
“I truly am grateful. Doctor Zhang, I’m sure that you’ll pass your medical license exam when the results come out, right?”
Zhang Fan was rather confused. Why was Director Yang suddenly asking about his exam grades? “I think it should be no problem for me to pass. Why?”
“It’s like this. There’s no more hope of expanding Kuake City Hospital under the new superintendent. To put it quite bluntly, he doesn’t care about the hospital at all. All he wants is to maintain the status quo and protect himself. However, we’re still young. If I try and quit my job here to go work at another hospital one day, what hospital would even want me if I don’t know how to perform a laparoscopic gall bladder surgery? I believe that laparotomy surgeries (or open surgeries) will slowly become a thing of the past. After you receive your medical license, I’d like to perhaps once a week or maybe twice a month gather some patients for you to operate on for you to teach us in general surgery. Superintendent Zou definitely won’t support any study programs, so we won’t be able to pay you much. I know I’m being really shameless, making this request of you.” Actually, Director Yang had tried contacting several general surgery doctors from bigger and better city hospitals. However, all those doctors had instantly refused to come when they heard how low the payment would be for coming here to teach. Thus, Director Yang could only ask Zhang Fan if he would be willing to do it.
Zhang Fan didn’t care too much about how much money he would receive. Although, of course, he would be happy with more money, just having some money was also fine. He happily said, “Sure. The money doesn’t matter, just pay me what you can afford. I did start out at this hospital, after all.”
“I’m truly grateful to you, thank you so much!” Director Yang really didn’t want to stay at Kuake City Hospital anymore due to the new superintendent’s way of managing the hospital. Director Yang’s son was attending university in southern China, and he didn’t want to come back to the border province after graduation. Thus, Director Yang and his wife were thinking about moving south to be together with their son. However, when Director Yang tried calling several hospitals near his son’s university to ask about possible job openings, when he mentioned that he was a general surgeon, all the hospitals first asked him if he knew how to perform laparoscopic surgeries.
After the laparoscopic appendectomy was completed, Zhang Fan returned to surgical department #2. Wang Yanan immediately confronted Zhang Fan. “You actually know how to perform general surgeries!?” She then took out a mirror, pointed it at Zhang Fan, and shouted, “Show your true form, demon!”
“Are you too exhausted from all the work over the past few days? You have such a hyperactive imagination.”
Wang Yanan had received far too much of an impact from learning about Zhang Fan’s prowess in other surgical fields as well.