Path of Medicine With a System

The one-month-long program to support rural hospitals ended without much ado. It was almost New Year’s, so it would be inappropriate to have the doctors continue to stay in such rural areas far away from their homes. Also, there was very little snowfall this year, so the mountain paths weren’t sealed off by snow like last year.

It was a weekend when Zhang Fan’s team returned to Chasu City. They were also given a day off from work at Chasu City Hospital. After he finished Li Xiao’s massage treatment for the day, he also returned the borrowed car’s keys to her assistant.

Right as Zhang Fan was walking out of the district Li Xiao lived in, her assistant caught up to him while panting heavily. “President Li scolded me so much! There’s no need to be in a rush to return the car. Feel free to keep driving it.” She then handed the key back to Zhang Fan.

Zhang Fan didn’t take the key. “I’m already back at work in Chasu City, so I don’t need a car anymore. Just take it back.”

Li Xiao’s assistant became quite anxious. “Please take the car! Otherwise, my boss will be so angry at me!” Li Xiao also phoned Zhang Fan right at this time. “Doctor Zhang, please don’t mind that my assistant doesn’t know what she’s doing. Feel free to continue driving that car. Otherwise, it’ll simply gather dust in the garage. No need to be so polite with me. Not only is one car no problem, if you completely cure my back, even ten cars will be no problem.” Since Li Xiao was saying so much, Zhang Fan would be slapping her face if he didn’t continue driving her car. After the phone call was finished, he said to the assistant, “Go back and thank Sister Li for me, then. I’m sorry that you had to run all this way to catch up to me.”

On Monday, Chasu City Hospital held a gigantic meeting involving every single staff member. This was because Superintendent Huang Yun had retired. With government officials and the director of the Chasu City Bureau of Public Health as the witnesses, Ouyang Hong was formally promoted to become the new superintendent. The government officials praised the now retired Huang Yun’s accomplishments and successes at the hospital while stating their expectations of Ouyang Hong. Once Huang Yun and the government officials left this meeting, Ouyang Hong told everyone about her first policy: changing medical specialties of unlicensed doctors to further their development. In other words, the new doctors had to rotate and experience work in all the different departments!

The newer doctors all cried when they heard this! Under Ouyang Hong’s new policy, doctors without a medical license weren’t allowed to choose their own departments, and any doctor who was unable to obtain a medical license within two years would be fired. Before, the low-ranked medical specialist doctors were new doctors who could choose their own medical field of study. A new doctor who was interested in internal medicine would be rotated throughout the various internal medicine departments. It would also be the same for a new doctor interested in surgery.

But now, the new doctors would be rotated not only according to their selected specialty, but rather through all the different departments and specialties regardless of what they were interested in, all for the sake of developing their general knowledge.

“We are a Class A hospital, yet many doctors here haven’t finished professional training before starting to work here. Some doctors here don’t even know how to treat a cold, so how can they possibly call themselves doctors? Hurriedly choosing one’s own field will make you nothing more than an incompetent doctor. The development of a hospital relies on having many young doctors that have abundant knowledge and skills. Just because you know how to perform a few appendectomies, it doesn’t make you a good doctor,” Ouyang Hong announced.

This was terrible news for the new doctors in surgery. Some of the new doctors who had just been recognized as official doctors paled. Forced reassignment to other departments for the sake of learning different skills would mean that they would no longer have any bonuses or other income apart from the low base salary. If they met with nice teachers, perhaps the teacher would share some money with you. But if the doctors performed poorly in different departments, or if the teacher was miserly, then the doctors wouldn’t receive anything at all.

“All doctors who don’t have medical licenses, report to the administrative department by this afternoon. You will be assigned to new departments to further your training.”

Zhang Fan also panicked after Ouyang Hong finished the meeting. He didn’t really care that his income would be decreased, as he could live on the base salary. The issue was that only the general surgery and orthopedic surgery categories were currently available for him to study in his System. If he was forced to transfer to internal medicine, he would be forced to waste so much time being unable to progress anything in his System!

Zhang Fan hurriedly gave Li Xiao a call. When she heard about this, she said that it would be quite easy for her to deal with. She was very familiar with Ouyang Hong, and could have this taken care of easily with a single phone call.

Since Li Xiao had mentioned Zhang Fan to Superintendent Ouyang Hong, Zhang Fan was transferred to general surgery. Ouyang Hong was younger than Huang Yun by about seven or eight years old. Since Huang Yun had been a surgeon, he didn’t value internal medicine very much, so the internal medicine department had only received average development. Now that Ouyang Hong, the director of internal medicine, had become superintendent, she started greatly supporting internal medicine development. This wasn’t because she wanted to go against Huang Yun’s policies or anything like that. They simply had differing beliefs.

Zhang Fan had originally wanted to go home for New Year’s, but now that he was transferred to general surgery, he decided to wait a few more months. After he finished his rotations in general surgery, he would ask for a vacation when he was put in the internal medicine department. After Li Xiao called Ouyang Hong, the latter had a private chat with Zhang Fan. Since Li Xiao’s brother-in-law was a high-ranking government official, Ouyang Hong had to take this seriously. “Rotating you through all the different departments is for your own good. I’ve already asked Director Gao about you. He has an excellent opinion of you. The rotations will last for one year; don’t waste this time. Only by gaining as much general knowledge as possible will your foundations be solid for further development. Feel free to directly talk to me about anything. After the rotations are over, let me know which department you want to be assigned to afterwards.”

Back in 2009, the Jeep Grand Cherokee was still considered a high-class car in China. Since Zhang Fan didn’t have a parking spot at Kang Hua’s apartment, he could only park it at the hospital. One time, Xue Fei saw Zhang Fan parking the car, and became incredibly angry. “You bastard, no wonder you seemed so unworried about losing so much income! So you were rich already! In the future, give me rides whenever I want! You need to make it up to my injured heart!”

Zhang Fan smiled without explaining anything. “Sure, I’ll make sure to do that. You’re not going to play mahjong today?”

Xue Fei was rather depressed at the mention of mahjong. “I lost so much money yesterday to three women. They were secretly working as a team against me. I only found out after talking to many people. I’m not going to play mahjong anymore. Or if I do, I’m only going to play mahjong for no money against old men and women.” Actually, he still really wanted to play mahjong. He was only thinking this way because he had lost so much money the previous day.

There were three departments under general surgery: gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary (liver and gall bladder), and the thyroid and mammary gland department. Zhang Fan’s first rotation would have him working for one month in the hepatobiliary department. The hepatobiliary department’s director was named Zhao Jun—he was a doctor who had the second-highest level certification. Since all the doctors here often performed surgeries, they all knew Zhang Fan already without needing introductions. As it was known that Zhang Fan had already been acting as a team leader in orthopedic department #1, the ordinary attending physicians felt too awkward to lead Zhang Fan in a team.

They were all working in the same hospital already, and now they would be working in the same department for one month. It was known that Zhang Fan was ridiculously skilled at orthopedic surgery, and that he already had high status within orthopedic department #1. He was no longer just an ordinary low-ranking resident doctor. The ordinary attending physicians felt it would be inappropriate for them to order Zhang Fan around, which was why none of them was willing to lead him. Director Zhao Jun asked around for volunteers for quite a while, but nobody responded. Previously, everyone would fight over any new medical specialist doctors joining the department, because the new doctors could help with the menial work, write medical reports, change the medicine, run errands, and so on. It was very convenient to have the new doctors acting as gofers for the veteran doctors, but when it came to Zhang Fan, everyone felt too awkward to treat him that way.

Zhao Jun understood how it was, so he said, “Haha, Zhang Fan is too talented. I’ll personally lead you. Come, we’re going to start with outpatient services today.” In the hepatobiliary department, Director Zhao Jun rarely personally led a team. There were three second-highest level certification doctors under him, and they each led a team of their own. Zhao Jun would join one of those teams for any major or highly difficult surgeries. It was the director’s authority to arrange all the surgeries, after all.

Gao Shijun was quite unhappy that Zhang Fan had been transferred to general surgery. However, he didn’t dare to say anything about it, because this was the new superintendent’s first policy.

Meanwhile, Wang Yanan was transferred to the pulmonary department of internal medicine, and was no longer able to stay in surgery like she wanted. However, the previous superintendent, Huang Yun, had already registered her as an official member of orthopedic department #1 before he left. As long as Wang Yanan passed her medical license exam and was still willing after the rotations, she would be able to transfer back to orthopedic department #1 without any problems.

Apart from Zhang Fan, all of the new doctors in the surgical departments were transferred to various internal medicine departments. Chasu City Hospital’s hepatobiliary department was well developed, with many patients and surgeries. This was Zhang Fan’s first time assisting with outpatient services. On this day, he saw more than 60 patients, checking patients’ medical records, writing prescriptions, issuing hospital bills, and so on. There were so many people surrounding him this morning that he didn’t even have the time to go to the bathroom.

Zhao Jun only performed outpatient services in the morning. After lunch, Zhao Jun rested in his director’s office, and he told Zhang Fan to rest as well if he wanted. Otherwise, Zhang Fan was welcome to study medical textbooks or help with any surgeries that he wanted to. Zhao Jun would need to go attend a meeting. Every Monday, all the department directors and head nurses would need to go to the superintendent’s office for a meeting, and since Ouyang Hong had just become the superintendent recently, she held more meetings than normal.

Several gall bladder surgeries had been scheduled for today in the hepatobiliary department. However, Zhang Fan didn’t even get a chance to hold the surgical retractors, because the doctors for these surgeries had all been arranged beforehand. Although these ordinary gall bladder surgeries were extremely easy for Zhang Fan at his current level, he couldn’t exactly go up to the other doctors and say “Get out, let me do it because I’m much better than you”, could he now? Thus, he could only wait his chance to perform surgery. Since he was going to be rotated through all the various departments, he decided to explore the hospital, checking out all the internal medicine, gynecology, and pediatrics departments. He didn’t want to have to ask for directions in case he was lost, as that would be too embarrassing.

At this moment, Wang Yanan was busy writing medical reports in the pulmonary department. She would also often have to go check on the color of various patients’ phlegm, along with dealing with all the elderly patients who dropped by to ask questions.

At the same time, Li Hui had been transferred from internal secretions to pediatrics. He was now having severe tinnitus for the entire day. Obviously, there were many children visiting the pediatrics department. They would cry quite loudly, with almost zero stops in the crying. Even after Li Hui finished his work shift, he heard nothing but the sounds of children crying for quite a long while afterwards.