When the Doctor Uses A Hack

Li Baoshan led Chen Cang to the operating room, saying as they walked, “Today’s competition involves performing three surgeries, two of which are appendectomy, and one is tendon suture surgery.”

“The experts invited this time are not from our hospital, but experts from outside specifically brought in for this purpose. However, they are all from our province. If you perform as well as you did yesterday, that should be enough. The three of you will operate at the same time, and the competition will be recorded by cameras inside the operating rooms.”

“You shouldn’t worry about fairness since the video recording will be there, and the scoring is also done openly with real names.”

Li Baoshan walked Chen Cang to the door of the operating room and offered words of encouragement. At that moment, a portly man followed by an equally tall and robust young man, wearing a pair of Levis round-framed glasses, looking quite imposing, approached from a distance.

Chen Cang recognized them. It was Comrade Zhang Youfu, the director of general surgery, and Zhou Xiaodong, who was competing with him this time.

Upon seeing Li Baoshan, Zhang Youfu smiled, “Director Li, you’re quite early.”

Li Baoshan, without a smile, merely nodded his head, not engaging further in conversation. Li Baoshan didn’t have much fondness for Zhang Youfu, considering him too mercenary, much like a businessman or boss, and prone to resorting to various schemes to get things done, unbecoming of a surgeon.

Even this competition among the students couldn’t go without him stirring up some drama, which only reinforced Li Baoshan’s preexisting disapproval of Zhang Youfu.

Zhang Youfu was quite chubby, and his height of just over 1.7 meters hardly accommodated his several hundred pounds of cunning, resulting in a protruding belly and quivering jowls.

Yet, this very man was the first in Dongyang Province to be able to lead and complete a liver transplant surgery.

He was also the vice-chairman of the Dongyang Province Hepatobiliary Surgery Association.

Provincial Hospital No. 2 was not a large hospital and didn’t have a specialized hepatobiliary surgery department; instead, it was all under general surgery.

Zhang Youfu did not deign to give Chen Cang a serious look from start to finish, walking directly toward the operating room with Zhou Xiaodong.

Actually, this wasn’t much of a grand competition and had few rules, simply involving experts comparing the three candidates and the hospital making a selection based on merit.

After that, Shi Qi also arrived, followed by Li Shijian.

Compared to Zhang Youfu, Shi Qi was known for being able to talk his way through the entire hospital.

Five years ago, Provincial Hospital No. 2 didn’t even have a thoracic surgery department, and Shi Qi was a breast surgery doctor.

But our Dr. Shi managed to talk his way up, carving out a fiefdom for himself, miraculously transforming from a simple doctor to Director Shi.

At the age of thirty-six, he became the youngest director at Provincial Hospital No. 2.

In fact, a bootlicker, if they know how to flatter and whom to flatter, can indeed lick their way to a glorious life, reaching the pinnacle of their career.

With the strong support from Tan Liguo, Shi Qi established the thoracic surgery department, seizing 15 beds from the pulmonary disease department, along with 8 nurses and a cleaning lady.

The entire hospital knew Director Shi had a persuasive mouth and tongue, which caused junior doctors to look down on him and senior doctors to dismiss him with a laugh.

Ever since becoming a director, Shi Qi started to put on airs. When former colleagues greeted him by name, he would show displeasure, after all, he was now a director, a rank above them, deserving of the title Director Shi!

However, even though the thoracic surgery department was established, Director Shi used to handle thymus surgery and other minor procedures; suddenly having to perform lung resections was completely new to him!

Not knowing how to do it was not a problem, as he could always find experts and recruit underlings!

Thus, a ragtag team was forcefully assembled.

Li Shijian was one of the underlings recruited to do the grunt work, a pitifully overworked man.

As for the experts, they were big shots from the capital who came just to perform surgeries and left immediately afterward.

The fifteen-bed thoracic surgery department was practically turned into a second breast surgery department. Some had brought this issue to the attention of the hospital director, but Director Shi had a reasonable counterargument:

Isn’t the breast outside of the chest wall?

No problem!

The breast is on the outside of the chest.

But, if you put it that way,

are fingernails on the outside of the hand?

Can our hand surgery department start offering nail trimming and manicure services? Commonly known as the excision surgery of the epidermal keratinocyte community? Or human body keratinocyte hyperplasia cosmetic surgery?

Hair is even more so outside of the brain, isn’t it?

Then should our neurosurgery department also undertake the removal of the scalp’s connective tissue group (haircut)?

This statement just stunned all the department heads present at the hospital meeting at that time.

Is this something a surgeon would say?

It’s just a fart.

However, sometimes, that’s how helpless it is; obviously a fart, yet some people still praise it as being fragrantly sweet.

Hospital life is full of all sorts of things, not just patients, but also doctors.

As they say, a big forest houses many kinds of birds.

A few people arrived in the operating room. The patient’s comprehensive information, including medical records, was already prepared in detail. After reviewing it, they waited for the surgery to begin.

Meanwhile, in the operating room, four or five people in their fifties had already settled down in the office outside the OR, chatting and laughing as they waited for the surgery to start.

They were all well-acquainted from Dongyang Province.

The large screen was split into three so that each procedure could be seen very clearly.

The group started chatting and laughing:

“Director Liu, the People’s Hospital of the province is getting better and better this year. At the hepatobiliary surgery conference last month, I remember you even invited the father of hepatobiliary surgery, Elder Wu!”

“Haha, Elder Wu is really nice. Actually, at more than ninety years old, we didn’t want to trouble him, but as soon as Elder Wu heard about it, he made up his mind in a heartbeat, which I didn’t expect…” Liu Siqi said with a smile, “By the way, Director Qian, I see you’re going to supervise a doctoral student this year?”

Qian Liang nodded: “Hmm, we are getting old, how many more years can we do surgeries? Better pass on the skills while we still have some strength left.”

Everyone somewhat agreed with Qian Liang’s statement. In fact, for a surgeon, there are three milestones: a rapid rise at the age of 35, a peak at the age of 45, and a decline starting at 55.

Qian Liang’s statement made these older folks reflect on the fleeting nature of time.

Hao Xuliang, the vice-director in charge, was responsible for this competition.

In fact, the hospitals often collaborate and interact with each other. A large operation requires several veteran generals to take charge, and they are quite familiar with each other from private relations. Most importantly, each hospital has research projects that require the approval of an expert panel when starting and finishing, and these are experts from Dongyang Province’s surgical field. Hence, they see each other often.

Hao Xuliang smiled: “The surgery is about to begin; I hope the experts can give their comments later.”

“These young doctors are all quite good, but having the opportunity to receive comments from you experts today is also good fortune for them. I hope each expert will not hesitate to impart their knowledge.”

The crowd nodded and laughed together: “Of course, of course!”