Chapter 295 - : Vacations are just a lie! (2/2)

The third day of vacation was the only real day of vacation for the slave doctors! The doctors who had a boyfriend/girlfriend would spend the day with their significant other, while the doctors who were single went out to have fun in the city.

“Oh! A new restaurant opened here! Oh! A new supermarket opened there! Heavens, a beautiful woman!” The single male doctors were just like people who had just been released from prison. They drooled at every beautiful woman that they saw! The male doctors were really pitiful!

Zhang Fan and Shao Hua had originally planned on furniture shopping for their new apartment, but Jia Suyue and Wang Yanan contacted them and arranged to go view peach blossoms together instead. Chasu City’s peach blossoms were really amazing. Since everybody just happened to have free time now, the others definitely wanted to drag Zhang Fan along with them because he had a car.

Zhang Fan and Shao Hua could only give up on furniture shopping and instead go peach blossom viewing. The peaches of the border province were rather unique. They were different from other peaches. Back when Zhang Fan had first arrived in Raptor City, the capital of the border province, on his way to Kuake City, he had wanted to buy a peach because he was really thirsty.

Zhang Fan knew that fruits would be more expensive in northwestern China, so he picked a flat-looking peach and asked the fruit stall owner, “How much for one of these peaches?”

“16 yuan!”

“How much?”

“16 yuan!”

“It’s already so flat, yet you’re asking for 16 [1]yuan!?

The fruit stall owner almost wanted to beat Zhang Fan up for saying this.

These border province peaches were known as Saturn peaches, or flat peaches. They really were flat, just as if they had been crushed. They also did taste quite good. Since days lasted longer here, and there was a great difference in temperature between day and night, all fruits from the border province were really sweet. Even locally grown tomatoes would be sweet.

Spring in Chasu City was the season for peach blossoms. When spring truly covered the land, a patch of wild peach trees in the nearby Chark City would start to bloom. This was really beautiful! The peach trees extended for 10 kilometers. They would seem just like a pink wave of fire that was burning in the mountain valley. Any slight breeze would bring an aromatic fragrance. A sea of flowers would gently wave in the spring breeze!

The mountain filled with peach blossoms was truly breathtaking to behold. The three women strolled unhurriedly through the peach tree forest. This was probably the largest wild peach forest in the entirety of northwestern China. The flowers were pretty, yet the women were even more beautiful. The flowers and Shao Hua accentuated each other’s beauty in the forest!

On the way back, the three women all squished themselves together in the backseat as they chatted. Zhang Fan was only half listening as he drove. He felt like he heard something about the hematology department, but Zhang Fan didn’t ask anything. Wang Yanan was there anyways, so he didn’t need to say anything.

Thus ended the three days of vacation. Although it was nominally three days, only one day had been a real vacation. But, the hospital leadership would describe any day not working at the hospital as a day of vacation. Tree planting was a vacation, as was learning at the Communist Party school. No objections were allowed!

Zhang Fan brought his paperwork from the hospital administration department to the final ever department that he would be rotated to—the hematology department. After he finished his rotation here, Zhang Fan would truly be a real doctor.

Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department wasn’t very large. This department had only recently started developing in the past few years. Before that, there had always only been only two or three people working in the hematology department. They would only do blood smears and so on, without providing actual treatment.

This was because the hematology department would depend far too much on a hospital’s high-tech medical equipment. It was common that only a few patients per year would require certain specific hematology tests. Yet, the medical equipment required for performing such hematology tests was really expensive. Additionally, special training was needed in order to properly learn how to operate such medical equipment. That was why Chasu City Hospital hadn’t placed much importance previously on developing the hematology department.

Due to the Chinese government recently giving great support to hospitals as well as Chinese production of medical equipment, Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department finally started developing as well. Although public hospitals technically weren’t for-profit businesses, the amount of money that a hospital received from the government would only be a fixed amount each year. If an expensive piece of medical equipment didn’t provide sufficient benefits for the hospital, then the hospital leadership wouldn’t be willing to purchase that type of medical equipment! That was a downside of modern Chinese public hospitals.

No matter how difficult a high-level treatment was, once it started being commonly used in clinical medicine, as long as it was quite influential or profitable, then it wouldn’t take long before it became popular all over China.

The easiest example would be percutaneous coronary intervention. Nowadays, not only were all larger city hospitals capable of performing this procedure, even most smaller city hospitals had developed this procedure, including hospitals which didn’t even have a cardiothoracic surgery department. Yet, they would still dare to perform percutaneous coronary interventions. What could really be said about this?

The basic departments which truly required research and development were left behind in the dust, such as the hematology department.

In Chasu City Hospital, the hematology department was located adjacent to the dialysis department on the very top floor of the internal medicine building. The hematology department director was Li Qing, a woman in her mid-40s. She was really skinny, just like a twig. Her hands seemed just like withered branches due to how often she had to wash them with soap and disinfectant. There was no glow to her skin at all.

Li Qing had originally been a nephrologist. She then obtained a master’s degree in hematology from Dee University in Raptor City when she was 32 years old. After this, since her husband and child both lived in Chasu City, she came back here rather than stay in Raptor City.

Former Superintendent Huang directly chose her to become the hematology department director. She was allowed to somewhat develop the hematology department as she liked, helping to finally grow the hematology department.

However, the hematology department required far too much support from basic academical research. If a hospital’s hematology department didn’t have a high-level research field’s support, then it would only be able to treat some basic diseases. Performing research on those would be too much to ask for.

Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department had six doctors, a majority of whom were female. The doctors in this department weren’t very busy, as Chasu City had a low population (for a Chinese City). Chasu City also hadn’t been polluted by major industries yet, so the environment here was excellent, meaning that blood-related diseases were quite rare.

Director Li Qing looked over Zhang Fan’s rotation paperwork, and smiled while saying, “I heard from the superintendent that you especially requested to rotate to the hematology department? Still, I think that you’ll regret your request. We don’t have many patients in this department, so we haven’t managed to develop very many treatments.”

“Of course not, Director. Our hematology department is at the top of Chasu City. I’ll be able to learn so much while being here,” Zhang Fan said as he smiled in return. Although the director could say that her own department was insufficient, he wouldn’t be able to say the same.

The director saying her own department was insufficient would be considered humble, but Zhang Fan would be brainless if he said the same thing!

“Haha, Doctor Zhang is really smart. Not only are you skilled at surgery, you’re also so skilled with words. Alright, I won’t say anything else for now. Today’s morning meeting has already adjourned. You can first get accustomed to how things are in our department for today. I’ll introduce everyone to you tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, Director!”

Director Li Qing then went to go perform outpatient services. The other doctors and nurses in the department all smiled and nodded at him. Zhang Fan was no simple rotation doctor anymore. There were thousands of people working at Chasu City Hospital, and almost all of them knew who he was by now.

The hematology department and dialysis department each took up half of the top floor of the internal medicine building. The hematology department had two patient rooms for special patients, but they were currently unused. There were also few patients in the regular patient rooms. Zhang Fan took a quick tour of the department, and then began to read the department’s medical reports, which was his standard way of learning the work in a new department.

Director Li hadn’t arranged for him to work under anyone. The other doctors wouldn’t ask Zhang Fan to do any work for them. The other doctors all knew that Zhang Fan was a special exception, so they were really polite to him.

Zhang Fan began his rotation in the hematology department. This would be his final rotation ever!

[1] TL/N: average price for regular peaches is about six yuan for an entire kilogram of peaches, so 16 yuan for a single peach would be considered exorbitant.