Chapter 268 - Depressing department (1/2)

Chapter 268: Depressing department

The warm sun of spring was slowly increasing the temperature of the world. All sorts of construction projects started up again. The originally quiet Chasu City Hospital became really noisy due to construction of its new emergency center and pediatrics center, which also really annoyed the patients.

In any hospital, pain would forever be the main topic. Only the obstetrics department would be relatively happier, with the more muscular doctors here having more chances at being happy than in other departments. That was because the obstetrics department would see the birth of human future and hope. Apart from the obstetrics department, the majority of departments would always have a heavy atmosphere.

In the morning, Zhang Fan brought his rotation paperwork over to the rheumatology department. “Doctor Zhang, welcome! Have a seat! I heard that you’re originally from orthopedic surgery?” Director Wu Wanghong spoke in a really polite way to Zhang Fan.

“When I was recruited to the hospital, I was recruited as an orthopedic surgeon.” Zhang Fan felt rather awkward. He was still only a mere resident doctor. It wasn’t like he was originally from any department yet! Still, this was also evidence that Zhang Fan was becoming famous in Chasu City Hospital. Even Director Wu, who paid very little attention to gossip, knew about Zhang Fan and was treating him as an equal.

“Oh, then we’re sister professions. During your rotation here, try and familiarize yourself with our department. We’ll have many opportunities to work together in the future. Doctor Zhang, take three days to get used to things here, and then you can independently be in charge of your own patients. How about it?”

“Alright, Director,” Zhang Fan agreed.

What had Director Wu meant when he said that rheumatology and orthopedic surgery were sister professions? This was actually quite a heavy topic.

The majority of rheumatic diseases would cause all sorts of damage to the limbs and joints. Once internal medicine was no longer able to use medicine to prevent the spread of rheumatic disease, only surgery would be available in order to improve the patient’s condition.

Patients would still have hope when receiving surgery for a traumatic injury. As long as the patient was careful, they would recover after the surgery. It would simply be like a small trial in life since the traumatic injury wasn’t an illness that would repeat itself. However, that wouldn’t be the same for rheumatic diseases. Even a surgery wouldn’t solve the problem! To give an analogy, surgery for a rheumatic disease was merely the equivalent of pouring a cup of cold water into a pot of boiling water.

“For the first three days, just follow Doctor Hu Jun and familiarize yourself with our department’s work and personnel. Let’s go now, it’s time for the daily morning meeting.”

Thus began Zhang Fan’s work in the rheumatology department. When looking at medical reports in this department, they really would seem quite grand. The medical reports contained all sorts of numbers, English words—even though the report was written in Chinese, all sorts of factors, and so on. However, after looking through dozens of medical reports, Zhang Fan found that all the results were quite similar. No matter how detailed the medical report or how wonderful the analysis of the patient’s condition, almost all of the treatments were the same: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to treat pain, hormones for anti-inflammation, and immunosuppressive medication! Patients who were in more severe condition would also have an orthopedic surgeon invited for diagnosis!

“This is Doctor Zhang. I believe that everyone should be familiar with him already. He’s a surgeon. I won’t be introducing everyone to him, as you can all slowly get acquainted with each other during work! Let’s go to work,” Director Wu said simply as he left to perform outpatient services.

“Doctor Zhang, let’s go check on the patients together.” Hu Jun and Zhang Fan began checking up on the patients. “My patient #3 has ankylosing spondylitis, while patient #8 has rheumatoid arthritis,” Hu Jun told Zhang Fan.

After the patient checkups were over, next would be giving medical advice for the day, modifying medical reports, dealing with laboratory examination paperwork, discharge paperwork, hospitalization paperwork, and so on. This was the daily work in an internal medicine department. Zhang Fan finished his first day in the rheumatology department, encountering nothing but the patients’ moans of pain and the family members’ expressions of sadness.

Zhang Fan felt rather awkward in this department. How could he describe it? In surgical departments, even though the patient was sometimes in grave danger, at least the patient’s family members still usually had a sliver of hope that as long as the surgery was successful, the patient could recover. The other internal medicine departments were also different from the rheumatology department. Even if other departments weren’t able to cure a patient of their problem, at least they would be able to improve the patient’s quality of life.

Even in the oncology department, although the air was also filled with sadness there, that type of sadness was one where people could vent.

As for the rheumatology department? It seemed mostly like the atmosphere was filled with smog. It was as if the patients could only forever bear with the depressing pain. The patients’ family members also had blank expressions of not knowing what the future would hold. This was basically torture, constant pain and torture!

Three days went by in a flash. Zhang Fan began to independently take patients for rheumatology. As always, he was grinding as much as he possibly could in these three days. Every time that he entered a new department, if it was in a category that his System had yet to open up to him, Zhang Fan would definitely work his hardest to learn every single disease in the department.

A tremendous amount of work would be required to learn all the diseases in any department. He would have to start from histology and embryology! This was how difficult the medical field was. In order to truly understand things, one would have to start from the cells or the binding of sperm and egg!

When it came to basics, surgery was more difficult than internal medicine! This was a definite. It was useless even if you studied every medical textbook out there. At most, you would only be a scholar. The foundations were really important in surgery, but clinical experience was even more important. A surgeon would need a large number of patients to practice on in order to improve. If you didn’t work at a good hospital that could provide a platform for you, then a surgeon would be nothing more than an appendicitis surgeon despite working in surgery for their whole life!

Zhang Fan had chosen surgery because he could practice surgeries endlessly in his System. His System didn’t really require much from him apart that he perform a tremendously high number of surgeries in real life in order to grind experience. That was because there would be no end to ever grinding surgical experience. There would be a tremendous difference between a surgeon with 1,000 surgeries’ worth of experience and a surgeon with only 100 surgeries’ worth of experience.

That was why Zhang Fan never had any free time at all. He used every single bit of free time he had to endlessly practice surgeries in his System. Was this boring? It was really boring and repetitive. However, Zhang Fan didn’t find it boring at all. The fact that he loved surgery was his greatest motivator!