Chapter 25: Like a fish in water, Zhang Fan gets to go all out

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

On the second day after Zhang Fan and the others arrived in Bluebird City, the Bluebird City government organized a fancy welcoming party for them. The Vice Leader of Bluebird City also attended this party. He gave a long and boring speech on China’s policies, friendship between Bluebird City and the border province, and so on for half an hour.

Several head politicians of various cities in the border province arrived, led by a Vice Leader of the entire border province. The Vice Leader of Bluebird City then gave another speech with almost the exact same content for another half an hour.

Zhang Fan was absolutely astounded when the party finally began. He saw shrimp, large shrimp, along with lobsters that were even thicker than Zhang Fan’s arm, large crabs, and all sorts of seafood that he had never seen before. Ten people were sat at each table, and quite a few people from the border province wouldn’t eat shrimp or crabs. Well then, Zhang Fan ate their share for them.

After everyone ate their fill, they would be assigned to various departments in BCU Hospital. Zhang Fan had arrived on the slot for the surgery department, but no specific department under surgery had been specified for him. The hospital’s higher-ups asked Zhang Fan what type of surgery department he wanted to go to, so Zhang Fan said he wanted to go to traumatic injuries.

Bluebird City and its best hospital were much larger than Kuake City and the latter’s hospital, respectively. This meant that there were many more patients as well as surgeries. Zhang Fan was placed in the traumatic injury department as he wished. The head of the orthopedic surgery department (the traumatic injury department was under orthopedic surgery), Director Lin Cong, knew nothing about Zhang Fan, so he arranged some simple surgeries for removing metal plates from patients’ bodies for Zhang Fan to perform. This was to measure Zhang Fan’s skills. If he was unable to even do something as simple as removing metal plates, he would need to be slowly trained starting from the basics.

BCU Hospital’s superintendent had held many meetings stressing the importance of this political task of properly training the border province doctors, and that everyone had to take this seriously. Thus, Director Lin Cong arranged for a veteran attending physician to be Zhang Fan’s surgical assistant. This attending physician was Huo Qinghua, who had received the second-highest level certification in traumatic injury several years ago. However, BCU Hospital didn’t have enough higher-ranking job positions open, so he could only remain an attending physician.

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The superintendent kept emphasizing the importance of properly training the border province doctors, and all the department directors constantly held meetings stressing the same thing. BCU Hospital’s doctors were quite curious about Zhang Fan and the other border province doctors. Although the border province doctors were from the remote far west, the BCU Hospital doctors were quite friendly to Zhang Fan and the other border province doctors. This was because people in Bluebird City were generally quite friendly, and also because the border province doctors had no clash of benefits with the BCU Hospital doctors. That was why the BCU Hospital doctors were more than happy to cooperate fully in training the border province doctors.

The first simple surgery was regarding removing a metal plate from a patient’s collarbone.

“Doctor Huo, I’ll go wash my hands now. I need to disinfect.”

“Let’s go together.”

The most important basic of surgery was to have a sterile environment. Although Huo Qinghua was supposed to be Zhang Fan’s surgical assistant for this surgery, his real main task was to observe Zhang Fan’s movements to see if they were up to standard or not. If Zhang Fan wasn’t good enough at maintaining a sterile environment for the patient, Huo Qinghua would have to step in and do the surgery.

Huo Qinghua confirmed that Zhang Fan’s handwashing, disinfecting, and medical draping were all standard with no mistakes. Just as they were about to begin the surgery, Huo Qinghua’s cell phone rang. It was forbidden for surgeons here to take any phone calls in the middle of a surgery as that would obviously be impractical, but sometimes the attending physician would have to know if there was a problem with any patient.

A nurse held Huo Qinghua’s cell phone up to his ear. He waved at Zhang Fan, indicating to the latter that he should wait and not begin the surgery yet. However, Zhang Fan misinterpreted the hand gesture, thinking it meant that he should begin without Huo Qinghua!

Removing a metal plate from the collarbone was something incredibly simple and basic to Zhang Fan. However, this wouldn’t be considered simple or basic at all to any newcomer doctor who had barely performed any surgeries. The lungs and arteries were right around the area, and if the doctor used too much force, he would actually break the collarbone again without even removing the metal plate.

Huo Qinghua checked back in on Zhang Fan after he finished his phone call. “Whoa! Doctor Zhang is really fast. You’ve already removed the metal plate.” The phone call was about a patient whose joints really hurt after surgery. The patient’s family had been rather unhappy, and Huo Qinghua had spent more than ten minutes explaining things to the patient’s family.

“Doctor Huo, if you’re busy, feel free to attend to your matters. I can do everything else in this surgery by myself.”

Huo Qinghua had a task to observe Zhang Fan’s skills, so of course he couldn’t leave. Although he missed the part where Zhang Fan removed the metal plate, he had to watch the rest of the surgery.

“See, it’s all taken care of now.” Cleaning up the extravasated blood, dealing with the osteotylus, and using surgical sutures to sew up the muscles and skin were all actions that Zhang Fan was incredibly familiar with. Huo Qinghua was mystified after watching this, commenting, “It seems that you’ve performed plenty of surgeries before.” Zhang Fan had finished the entire surgery in under thirty minutes, even including the time for anesthesia on the patient.

Huo Qinghua hadn’t watched all of it the first time, but he definitely paid close attention to the next surgery scheduled for Zhang Fan. The second simple surgery was for removing a radial bone (upper forearm) metal plate. After Zhang Fan finished this surgery, Huo Qinghua asked, “Doctor Zhang, what year did you acquire your attending physician license in? You must have plenty of orthopedic surgery patients at your hospital.”

“I just graduated from undergraduate medical school last year.” Zhang Fan chuckled.

‘The hell! Could it be that he does nothing but remove metal plates every day at his hospital? Even if he does nothing but remove metal plates, how could he be so well-practiced in his movements?’ Huo Qinghua was now looking at Zhang Fan strangely.

Later, in orthopedic surgery department Director Lin Cong’s office.

“How is he? Are Doctor Zhang’s movements standard?” Lin Cong inquired.

“There’s no problem with his handwashing or disinfecting, and if I only judged by his metal plate removal surgeries today, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do them as skillfully or quickly as he did,” Huo Qinghua answered truthfully.

“No way!” Lin Cong almost spat out the water that he was drinking. He knew quite well that Huo Qinghua was a skilled veteran doctor who had a master’s degree from the Bluebird City University. Huo Qinghua was considered one of the best talents among the younger doctors of orthopedic surgery at BCU Hospital.

Huo Qinghua laughed as he added, “What’s even more astonishing is that this youngster just finished undergraduate medical school last year!”

“Oh! That’s even more interesting. Okay, let him perform tomorrow’s traumatic injury surgery. Be his surgical assistant tomorrow and continue observing him.” Since surgery for removing metal plates was far too simple, Lin Cong didn’t take today’s results too seriously.

Zhang Fan was able to level up his traumatic injury surgery experience on the very next day. Back at Kuake City Hospital, it was common that there would be a traumatic bone injury requiring surgery only once a week or even less often, and sometimes a patient would only come in order to request a doctor’s note for a referral to a different hospital. Those patients absolutely refused to have their surgeries done at the smaller Kuake City Hospital.

However, things were different at BCU Hospital. It was common that the emergency treatment patients from night couldn’t all be seen to in a single night. Thigh bone, tibiofibular, ulna and radius, and other such fractures were all far too common. Zhang Fan had previously reached 70% experience completion rate in traumatic injury surgery back at Kuake City Hospital, so he was fairly well practiced in this.

Zhang Fan’s System had also been constantly strengthening his body. This wasn’t only to help him increase stamina in exchange for a much bigger appetite. Zhang Fan’s dexterity had also greatly improved.

‘Zhang Fan is steady, swift, and gentle in his movements. He’s already at such a level, yet he came here to study? Could it be that he’s here just to show off?’ Huo Qinghua was more and more astonished as he watched Zhang Fan.

There were some patients who had severely shattered bones. Even a veteran doctor like Huo Qinghua would have to ponder for a while before starting the surgery. However, it seemed that Zhang Fan didn’t even need to think. He unhesitatingly started every surgery right away, and did a great job every time.

“Doctor Zhang is quite skilled. His movements and positioning are always perfectly standard.” Since Zhang Fan could receive praise from a master’s degree doctor at the best hospital in Bluebird City, this meant that his System was indeed truly incredible.

“How was he today?” Once again in Director Lin Cong’s office, the director asked Huo Qinghua how Zhang Fan’s skills were.

“Amazing, really amazing. With Zhang Fan’s skill level, I think that you’re the only one in our department who can teach him anything. None of us have anything to teach him. We’d be slapping our own faces if we tried!”

“Aren’t you exaggerating too much? Could it be that he sucks so much that you don’t want to train him anymore? Stop slacking off on me.” Lin Cong didn’t believe this anymore. He felt like Huo Qinghua was exaggerating so much that Zhang Fan was seeming like the main character of some novel.

“I’m not exaggerating at all! How about you personally witness his skills tomorrow?”

“How many elective surgeries do we have scheduled for tomorrow?”

“I have two different patients, both with femur fractures, scheduled for tomorrow. One of them shattered the femur severely. Our department was going to hold a meeting to discuss whether to treat that patient with internal or external fixation.”

“Bring me the CT scan. I’ll take a look.”

Huo Qinghua soon returned with the CT scan.

“Let’s do internal fixation. This patient is of a somewhat advanced age, so he probably won’t be able to handle external fixation. It’s fine as long as we can return everything back to the proper position through internal fixation,” Lin Cong decided. “Tomorrow, I will be handling this surgery together with Zhang Fan. I’ll beat you up if you dared to exaggerate his skills to me.” Lin Cong was a local Bluebird City man, a northerner. Although he was exaggerating slightly, he did have a bit of a temper.

“Just don’t be too astonished tomorrow. Prepare your blood pressure medication. Don’t be so shocked that your blood pressure rises.” Lin Cong had slightly high blood pressure.

Director Lin Cong picked up his cup and pretended to chuck it at Huo Qinghua, who instantly scampered off. Actually, Director Lin Cong had personally taught Huo Qinghua. The two of them were close as teacher and disciple.