Chapter 300 - The doctors’ permanent assignments (1/2)
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Getting rest after work would be wise. Otherwise, the rotation doctor slaves would collapse sooner or later. Not only did the hospital generously treat all the former rotation doctors to a meal, the hospital even gave them all two days of vacation, which was really rare as this wasn’t a weekend or holiday. Neither was there some activity that the doctors would be forced to participate in. This counted as a small benefit for them before they would permanently join their departments.
Many of the former rotation doctors planned on using these two days of vacation to go shopping. They wanted to shop until they could no longer walk. That was because an endless amount of work would be waiting for them afterwards. Going out to a shopping mall then? That would be too much to even dream about. They wouldn’t even have enough time to sleep!
Zhang Fan was assigned to orthopedic department #1 in the end. The directors of orthopedic department #2, orthopedic department #3, general surgery, and neurosurgery had all personally asked Superintendent Ouyang to let Zhang Fan join their department. Superintendent Ouyang neither agreed nor rejected any of the directors at that time, because she hadn’t decided which department to assign Zhang Fan to yet.
She was having a hard time coming to a decision. As she was thinking over this matter, orthopedic department #1 Director Gao Shijun came to visit her.
From what Superintendent Ouyang knew of Zhang Fan’s current skill level, he seemed to be the best at orthopedic surgery. In fact, his orthopedic surgery skill level seemed to be even better than the orthopedic surgery directors’ skill level. Superintendent Ouyang felt that Zhang Fan was slightly weaker at neurosurgery. As for general surgery? The general surgery department was already the largest department in all of Chasu City Hospital. This department would be perfectly fine even if Zhang Fan didn’t go there. At most he would get to lead his own medical team in the general surgery department. However, the general surgeons would likely have objections to this. Superintendent Ouyang was the greatest beneficiary of the hospital’s regulations, so she wasn’t willing to just break the regulations easily!
Although office politics were much simpler in the neurosurgery department, Chasu City Hospital’s neurosurgery department was relatively weak in skill level. This wasn’t only a problem for Chasu City Hospital. Neurosurgery was quite weak in the entirety of northwestern China! Superintendent Ouyang thus felt that there would be too many unknown variables if she let Zhang Fan go to the neurosurgery department. Maybe he would be able to really establish himself in the neurosurgery department due to less office politics there, but it might also drag him down and leave him as a nobody in a few years due to the lower overall skill level of the department.
In the end, Superintendent Ouyang felt that only the orthopedic surgery department was most suitable for Zhang Fan. Of course, there were plenty of other surgical departments as well, but at any hospital, especially smaller hospitals, it would be far too difficult to become really accomplished in a smaller hospital department. Only doctors in the large hospital departments could become well known. Surgical department medical equipment usually revolved around the two main surgical departments of general surgery and orthopedic surgery. The department of otorhinolaryngology was so pitiful that it didn’t even have its own special surgeries. This department would also have to fight with the ophthalmology department over surgeries! That was why Superintendent Ouyang made up her mind to have Zhang Fan join an orthopedic department.
Chasu City Hospital had three orthopedic departments. Superintendent Ouyang really didn’t understand why surgeons fought over patients so much. If an internal medicine department such as her former cardiology department dared to fight over patients, then Director Jumabieke from the respiratory department would immediately go over to put a stop to it.
Although Superintendent Ouyang had previously drawn up different categories of orthopedic surgery for the three orthopedic surgery departments to specialize in, the three orthopedic departments still fought each other severely. There were always doctors who wouldn’t obey the rules once some time had passed. They would secretly take patients who weren’t part of the orthopedic surgery category of their department but were still orthopedic surgery patients. Almost every orthopedic surgeon who performed outpatient services would break the rules like this.
The secretive patient stealing then turned to open stealing. The three orthopedic departments’ outpatient services sections were all right next to each other. However, any patient who required orthopedic surgery services would never be sent to another orthopedic surgery department once they entered one orthopedic surgery department’s outpatient services section.
The infighting did have its benefits. Such competition served to improve the doctors’ overall attitude towards the patients and motivated the doctors. However, there were also significant downsides. Not only did the three orthopedic departments get along really poorly, all three orthopedic departments often went over the budget. They used so much medical equipment that the Health Insurance Bureau often fined the three departments.
Why bother with having three separate orthopedic surgery departments if they didn’t specialize in different categories? Although the doctors were fighting over patients all the time, none of the three orthopedic directors ever reported any of their doctors for doing so. It was as if they were all tightly wound up, waiting for their opponents to collapse first.
Superintendent Ouyang didn’t understand why this was the case. Actually, this was due to a difference in gender. Surgery was dominated by men. These men were willing to be defeated, but they would never be willing to admit defeat. Whoever reported things to the superintendent first would be the first to admit defeat. The three orthopedic directors were all fellow disciples under the same previous orthopedic director who had been their teacher. These former classmates were now having severe infighting!
After Superintendent Ouyang had made up her mind to have Zhang Fan join the orthopedic surgery department, she had a headache about which of the three orthopedic surgery departments to assign him to. Orthopedic departments #1 and #2 were relatively well-established already, and had the most official positions. Orthopedic department #3 had just been established recently, and still lacked personnel. Additionally, orthopedic department #3’s Director Chen Qi was the most obedient of the three orthopedic directors. Thus, Superintendent Ouyang had wanted to assign Zhang Fan to orthopedic department #3, but Director Gao of orthopedic department #1 also knew that the rotation doctors were being permanently assigned soon, so he came over to her office and wouldn’t leave.
Director Gao kept saying only one thing. He insisted that Zhang Fan go to orthopedic department #1.
“So, what you mean is that Zhang Fan’s talent will be wasted in any other orthopedic department?” Superintendent Ouyang became slightly angry.
“Superintendent, I was the one who taught Zhang Fan. I understand him the best. Just look at me, I’m not that young anymore. It’s not very likely that my skill level will rise any further. However, Zhang Fan still has development potential. He’s the extension of my own career. I’ll definitely polish him excellently,” Director Gao exclaimed emotionally.
“Can’t orthopedic department #2 or #3 polish him?” Superintendent Ouyang’s tone was no longer that angry. She could understand Director Gao’s feelings as they were both doctors.
“Superintendent, please, the other two departments definitely won’t be as good for him as orthopedic department #1. You should understand better than anyone.” Director Gao even began to use Chinese honorifics.
Superintendent Ouyang raised her head to look at Director Gao. This was his way of lowering his head to her. Only the surgical directors dared to go against Superintendent Ouyang’s words in the hospital. Director Gao was among the disobedient directors, yet he actually lowered his head to her today. Superintendent Ouyang mulled things over while continuously popping her pen cap off and on, making a clicking sound.
Finally, Superintendent Ouyang made up her mind. She put down her pen, and told Director Gao, “Zhang Fan can go to orthopedic department #1, but I reserve the right to reassign him at any time. He’s not an ordinary resident doctor, after all. Just look at the surgeries he’s accomplished in the past year. I don’t need to mention his orthopedic surgeries. He’s also shown significant skill for urology, proctology, general surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery. That’s why I also want to see just how far he can go. If he doesn’t improve much in orthopedic department #1, I will definitely reassign him. You also understand that talented individuals are really rare!”
“Alright, it will be as you say!” Director Gao stood up.
Even if Zhang Fan became an academician in the future, would that benefit Director Gao and Superintendent Ouyang? They wouldn’t benefit much at all. They were simply trying to give him the best development possible for the sake of the profession or perhaps their inheritance. A good teacher might not always meet a good disciple. An old doctor like Gao Shijun who really liked to research medicine had now met a talented disciple like Zhang Fan. It would be impossible for Gao Shijun to want to let go of Zhang Fan!
And so, it was decided. Zhang Fan was permanently assigned to orthopedic department #1!
Zhang Fan had two days of vacation. Since it wasn’t a weekend, and the weekend was coming up soon, this counted as Zhang Fan’s longest ever vacation which he hadn’t requested. Shao Hua still needed to go to work at her bank, so she was unable to accompany Zhang Fan during this time.
Zhang Fan could only go out by himself. He was really unused to suddenly having several days off when it wasn’t a holiday. Where should he even go? Zhang Fan didn’t know. He really didn’t have anywhere else to go apart from the hospital. Shao Hua had always prepared clothes and everything else for him, so Zhang Fan never had to worry about a thing.
Zhang Fan’s hand and foot surgery hospital wasn’t very busy right now, since it was the off-season for such injuries. Batu was more skilled than he was at management anyways, so Zhang Fan didn’t want to go there only to make things harder. As for watching things to make sure nothing improper was going on? Zhang Fan didn’t need to do that, either, because Chen Qifa was just like a loyal butler who would investigate even an extra piece of paper at Zhang Fan’s hospital. Besides, several of the doctors were shareholders, so there wasn’t much to worry about.
Zhang Fan kept driving in the streets. Without his even realizing it, he kept driving around Chasu City Hospital as if he was an abandoned puppy who could only circle around a familiar territory. This was the plight of rotation doctor slaves and resident doctor slaves. They would really become detached from society unless they often interacted with their own families!
“Brother Zhang, where are you right now? Are you busy at the moment? Several of us happened to coincidentally meet with each other at W Mall. We figured that we might as well all eat lunch together, so I called to ask if you were busy for lunch today or not. If you’re not busy, how about eating lunch together with us? All of us are former rotation doctors out on these few days of vacation.” Wang Zipeng suddenly called Zhang Fan right when the latter was feeling so bored that he was about to go home and study medical textbooks.