Chapter 20: Chapter 20 - Surgical Judgment

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Done.” Ling Ran skillfully maneuvered the needle and pulled the thread out. He recited the Standard Precaution for Patients while he bandaged the wound. He then said, “The next patient, please come in.”

“There are no more patients,” Wang Jia said. “The wounds of all six patients have already been treated.”

“So soon?” Ling Ran was a little surprised.

“You’re the one who’s too fast. Doctor Zhou is still treating the second patient.” Wang Jia stared at Ling Ran with admiration. She then quickly lowered her head as though she was afraid that Ling Ran would notice her gaze.

‘Handsome and gentle, talented with a bright future, equipped with both ability and looks, elegant… If this sort of man isn’t considered Prince Charming, there wouldn’t be any Prince Charmings left in this world.’

In the face of this Prince Charming, Wang Jia the young nurse could not help but feel rather lost as to what to do.

Ling Ran only then noticed—upon getting reminded—that his daily mission completion status had become [3/10]. It was the amount of suturing he had performed that day.

It was undeniable that there were indeed plenty of opportunities for him to practice his skills in the Emergency Department. If he were in a place like the Neurosurgery Department, peeling down the scalp and cutting open someone’s skull would take an entire hour. It was quite normal for everything, including the preoperative preparation and the postoperative care, to take up an entire day. An ordinary resident would probably have to wait for a long time to even become the second assistant for these kinds of surgeries.

“Then, I’ll go and suture the others!” Ling Ran stood up in a flash.

“Wait.” Doctor Zhou drew back the curtains of the isolated area. “Don’t go and look for patients by yourself. Ask the nurse to call them in.”

“Why?” Ling Ran found it unnecessary.

“If you directly pick patients from the crowd to perform surgical sutures, do you think that you’ll be able to avoid being surrounded?”

Ling Ran thought about it carefully and nodded. “Makes sense.”

The wounded who came in the last few ambulances had already been taken by all the doctors in the Emergency Department.

Yun Hua Hospital was not the only hospital in this condition; it was the same for all the tertiary grade A hospitals in Yun Hua City. A factory explosion was a major public incident, and Emergency Medical Care would always send the patients to large hospitals.

However, the factory explosion did not mean that there would be any reduction in the frequency of accidents in the large Yun Hua City.

Even though the number of ambulances had reduced, there were still patients being sent to the hospital. The patients who got there on their own were also anxious.

On normal days, they may be able to get treatment without having to wait very long, but it was not going to be the case for this day.

At the moment, there were at least twenty patients waiting outside. The number of family members was also several times more than the number of patients. Everyone was fidgeting with anxiety.

If a doctor wearing a large white robe went among them choosing patients to treat, the situation would be similar to a fat lamb entering a wolf’s lair to cure its anorexia.

“Then, should I just stay here?” Ling Ran asked Doctor Zhou again.

“That’s right. Sit down and don’t go anywhere. Wang Jia, go and call the patients over.”

When Doctor Zhou said this, he had raised his head up in pride but was entirely unaware of it. He was extremely emotional about how he could finally show his worth as an experienced doctor.

When he saw Ling Ran’s skills in suturing earlier, even though it was just for a moment, he still felt quite pressured.

“I’ll go and call the patients.” Nurse Wang Jia was very happy that she could do something for Prince Charming. She asked, “Do you have any requests?”

“Preferably patients who only need suturing such as those who hurt themselves in an accident, resulting in torn tissues. Other than that…” Ling Ran thought for a while and said, “Try your best to choose patients who can be treated quickly.

“This is a good point of reference. You cannot be eager for quick successes and instant benefits,” Doctor Zhou nodded and said approvingly when he heard this.

Earlier, he was worried that Ling Ran would want to choose cases that he had not seen before or cases that were unique. That would have been troublesome. After all, even though Ling Ran had proven his talent in suturing, he was only a medical student who had just graduated. If a patient with a stomach ache came in, how would he have enough experience to judge if the other party had appendicitis or just a very bad case of constipation?

Compared to that, it was much more assuring to let Ling Ran treat patients with mild injuries.

In truth, this was also how the training of resident doctors was like. They worked from simple cases to complicated ones while they slowly accumulated experience.

“Tell the doctor-in-charge my name,” Doctor Zhou reminded Wang Jia.

Wang Jia nodded and went outside to call the patients.

Most of the patients who lingered around in the treatment room only suffered from mild diseases or injuries. Of course, this was judged based on the hospital and doctors’ standards. For them, only cases such as strokes and broken legs from car accidents were considered serious.

But to the patients, even a scratch from a cat was a major incident and needed to be posted on at least three social media websites.

Wang Jia was very attentive towards her Prince Charming’s request. She first found a strong, muscular man who had a wound on his shoulder, and sent him behind the blue curtain.

The wound was around three quarters of an inch in length, and had basically stopped bleeding. Since it was located on the shoulder, it was considered an extremely simple injury to treat.

Ling Ran skilfully debrided and sutured the wound.

It was said that the meaning of a book would become clear if you read it hundreds of times. It was the same for doctors. Before putting their skills to use, no matter how the textbooks described human muscles, they would not be able to accurately describe the hardness of the human muscle tissue, and tenacity of human skin tissue…

A surgeon could only estimate the strength exerted by his hand on a patient’s skin after touching many different types of skin and muscles. When it was necessary, they could make accurate estimations of the strength needed.

Judgment was the life of a surgeon. From minor surgeries with only one or two stitches to major surgeries where the length of amputation had to be determined, every surgery was the combination of countless experiences and theoretical judgment.

No one could solve difficult questions from the start. Every surgeon slowly accumulated the ability to solve difficult questions by completing countless simple questions.

Difficult questions were just the culmination of simple questions. That was how it was for heart surgeries, and it was also probably the same for Goldbach and the Transformers.

What Ling Ran obtained were skills. Good skills reduced the difficulty for him when he had to make judgments, but they could not take his place to make these judgments. He still needed to practice nonstop and accumulate experience from real-life cases to strengthen his judgment as a surgeon.

The suturing of a wound on the shoulder was not complicated and was far from difficult. But only after suturing hundreds of similar cases, noting their similarities and differences, would he then not end up making the patient’s stomach too small, or the intestines too large…

If you were to ask Ling Ran to perform the suturing for a patient with a lacerated brow, he would have definitely tried his best to choose a suture with higher tensile strength to reduce the possibility of the wound tearing. After all, the Master Level Appositional Suturing Technique only helped him stitch up wounds, it would not tell what kind of facial expression the patient would make on a daily basis, or what sort of thread was best for that type of person…

“By the way, the position of the wound on your shoulder is a little strange. How did you get it?” Of course, Doctor Zhou was not the type to look for more work after he finished dealing with the patients allocated to himself. He only had to supervise Ling Ran, and that alone was already considered part of his workload.

However, there was nothing to supervise when it came to Ling Ran’s suturing. Doctor Zhou was extremely bored, and naturally became interested in chatting with the patient.

The shoulder of the muscular man trembled beneath the doctor’s needle. He had no choice but to obediently chat with Doctor Zhou, “I scratched it on a nail on the wall.”

“Renovation?” Doctor Zhou had seen similar cases.

The muscular man hesitated for a moment and said, “I was helping my wife air the laundry on the roof. The wind was too strong, and there were too many clothes. That was how I was pushed against the wall. Do I need a tetanus shot?”

“Hmm, I’ve never seen this kind of case before, certainly.” Doctor Zhou marveled softly.

“What?” The muscular man did not hear him clearly.

“Hmm…” Doctor Zhou spoke with a drawl as he pondered. He touched his chin and said, “The wound isn’t very deep. Usually, there won’t be a need for a tetanus shot.”

“I had better get a shot. By the way, Doctor, can you add a few more stitches to make it look more serious?” the burly man requested sincerely. He then said, “If the injury doesn’t look serious enough when I go back, I’ll still have to do chores; I’ll still have to air the laundry… Maybe I’ll get hurt again.”

“Ling Ran, use the cross mattress suture technique on him,” Doctor Zhou ordered, something rarely heard from him, but that was because he really sympathized with the muscular man.

They finally sent away another patient.

About an hour later, Ling Ran had dealt with seven more patients. During that time, he had also prescribed a few hundred RMB worth of medicine under Doctor Zhou’s guidance.

The moment his mission completion status became [10/10], a white box appeared.

When he opened it, another test tube-like item slowly rose. It was surrounded by a halo.

[Energy Serum: Recovers your energy]

Ling Ran originally wanted to ignore it, but after thinking for a while, he felt uneasy and said, “Doctor Zhou, I’m going out for a moment.”

He put the surgical instruments roughly in order and went back to the office. He put his hand in his pocket and took out an Energy Serum that shone with green light.

It was so delicate and beautiful that if others could see it, they would not forget it.

Ling Ran could not help but think, ‘I’ve gotten an Energy Serum two consecutive times. If I only look at the level of difficulty, it seems to be very easy, but I don’t know if this is a special privilege for newbies…’