Chapter 302 - Preparations (1/2)

Many former rotation doctors had now been permanently assigned to various departments. Although it was Monday, a majority of hospital departments were preparing for departmental meals together afterwards in order to welcome their new coworkers. Maybe this wasn’t as common in other professions, but in the medical profession, especially in surgical departments, teamwork was highly valued. Doctors would really value their assistants or helpers. Otherwise, even a super skilled doctor would be angered to death if they were assigned three completely incapable surgical assistants.

Meanwhile, a skilled surgical assistant wouldn’t be much lower in skill level than a primary surgeon. A surgeon would need to maintain a good relationship with their surgical assistants. This was why resident doctors were one step above rotation doctors in the hospital’s hierarchy. Rotation doctors weren’t necessarily going to remain in the department. That was why a department’s doctors would always treat them as outsiders. The department’s doctors wouldn’t feel the need to maintain a good relationship with rotation doctors. That was why many rotation doctors would feel quite awkward during rotation, feeling that they were outsiders. That was absolutely correct: they were indeed outsiders!

Rotation doctors who became resident doctors after being permanently assigned to a department were different. Although resident doctors were still the older doctors’ competitors, the resident doctors would help the older doctors most of the time. The doctors could trade work shifts with each other, and they would also help each other in critical moments. This all required maintaining a good relationship with each other. If a doctor wasn’t good at getting along with others, then they wouldn’t be able to succeed no matter how highly skilled they were. It would be possible to become greatly successful in many other job fields even if you worked alone, but working alone in the field of surgery was something absolutely impossible.

It should be mentioned that of Qiu Fazu’s four major disciples, the members of Old Huang’s surgery medical team were now known as divine existences! Old Zhong, Old Hu, and the others also had super medical teams of their own. The leading doctors in these teams were all doctors who would be ranked top three in each of their provinces! These provinces would even be provinces which ranked at the top for medical skill!

So, as long as a doctor became a resident doctor, and as long as the department had an alright atmosphere where the director was able to keep things under control without anything going overboard, resident doctors would feel a tremendous difference in treatment compared to rotation doctors.

Director Gao had given Zhang Fan his own medical team. Although Director Zhao was nominally in Zhang Fan’s team as well as backup, he actually felt quite reassured leaving any orthopedic surgery to Zhang Fan. This was Director Gao’s way of letting Zhang Fan polish his skills through surgery. Zhang Fan would also slowly polish his character and way of leading a medical team here. Director Gao was truly planning things meticulously for Zhang Fan’s future. This wasn’t for the sake of any fame or benefits. It was all because of admiration for Zhang Fan’s talent. Zhang Fan truly was incredibly lucky. He had a teacher like Gao Shijun willing to help him with everything as much as possible in the critical early years. Director Gao would be able to help block off countless unnecessary troubles for Zhang Fan!

Director Gao went to go perform outpatient services. Orthopedic department #1 began its regular work for the day.

The three orthopedic departments constantly stole patients from each other. Even in the same department, the doctors would steal patients from each other. For example, if the doctor who first saw a patient that required knee replacement surgery was incapable of performing the surgery, or if the lead doctor of that medical team didn’t know how to perform knee replacement surgery, then the other doctors in the department would go to war. The battles of intelligence and emotional intelligence would never end. Still, there was an imaginary line that the doctors would never cross.

Wang Yanan’s only remaining special right in orthopedic department #1 was that she had a computer that counted as hers. No other doctor would use her computer. Thus, Wang Yanan would keep many of her personal items—such as books, water cups, and so on—on that desk.

Xue Fei was an attending physician, so he rarely wrote his own medical reports by now. Of course, according to China’s three-level hierarchical medical system, Xue Fei was ranking higher than resident doctors Zhang Fan and Wang Yanan. However, Xue Fei understood quite well that Director Gao had assigned him to Zhang Fan’s team as Zhang Fan’s assistant. There wasn’t any substance to his ranking higher than Zhang Fan! Xue Fei knew quite well what his own position was.

“Zhang Fan, go ahead and sit here. It’s not our turn to take patients today. There’s also no surgeries scheduled for us today. Let me tell you, I was so pitiful when you’re weren’t around, the patients…” Wang Yanan pulled Zhang Fan over to the desk next to hers and began chatting about how much bullying she had received over the past year. Of course, she didn’t mention a thing about when she bullied others.

Wang Yanan would steal simpler surgeries from other doctors, while others would steal her more difficult surgeries. It was basically an even trade.

Today was Zhou Chengfu’s medical team’s turn to accept new patients. Zhou Chengfu was feeling a severe amount of pressure. Two really amazing young doctors had recently joined orthopedic department #1. Zhou Chengfu could no longer see any future for himself.

Of course, if Zhou Chengfu was content with remaining as a regular doctor, it would be no problem for him at all to have other amazing doctors in the department. He would have even been happy to have really skilled doctors around.

However, Zhou Chengfu had the ambition of wanting to become a department director himself in the future. That meant Zhang Fan would become an insurmountable mountain when in the same department. Even without Zhang Fan around, the graduate student Xu Xian was also highly skilled. Not only was Xu Xian the steady and reliable type, his foundational knowledge was incredibly solid. He had practiced orthopedic surgery for three years at the provincial hospital. His orthopedic surgery skills were just about equal to Zhou Chengfu’s. That was why Zhou Chengfu decided to give up on orthopedic department #1 and think about transferring to orthopedic department #3 after Zhang Fan joined as well.

Although Zhang Fan was supposedly sitting down while listening to Wang Yanan complain about her hardships, he was actually in his System practicing surgeries. He had already finished enough orthopedic surgeries for his System’s level 1 courses. He was already more than half finished with the traumatic injury and microsurgery experience requirements for level 2. That was the benefit of Zhang Fan having his own hand and foot surgery hospital. He figured that he would finish the experience requirements within half a year or so. He needed the most experience for joints surgery and spine surgery under orthopedic surgery. He had less than one-third of the required experience.

He was far from even close to completing the experience requirement for general surgeries yet. The experience bars were mostly empty. Orthopedic surgery was quite simple, with only a few categories. Yet, there were countless categories under general surgery.

Zhang Fan sighed as he exited his System. Wang Yanan was still complaining about her hardships over the past year. She was really aggrieved with all her stress over the past year. She had worked her hardest to prove herself amongst a group of men. Now, she finally had someone she trusted by her side. Not only that, Zhang Fan was also her support. That was why Wang Yanan wasn’t as icy as usual, and gossiped far more than she normally would.

Zhang Fan was more worried about the surgery experience that he still needed to grind. Was he supposed to simply wait? Zhang Fan would never just wait. He used to have to worry about this and that, but now he was well-known and quite respected within the hospital. Things were different now that he was known well. There was no longer any need to hold back. Chasu City Hospital’s orthopedic surgery departments were just like the warring states period. Everyone was fighting over patients. Zhang Fan would never just sit back.

He would fight for himself as well!

“Xue Fei! Come over here! Let’s have a little team meeting.” Zhang Fan ignored Wang Yanan who was still chattering. He exited his System and summoned Xue Fei over.

“A meeting? Should we invite Director Gao as well? He’s still the team leader of this medical team in name!” Xue Fei was always a jokester. He could be quite shameless. Even though he and Zhou Chengfu had joined Chasu City Hospital at the same time, and the two even had the same teacher, Zhou Chengfu was far more skilled now. Zhou Chengfu was even ambitious enough to aim for the position of department director. Yet, Xue Fei was the type who didn’t care about such things. He only wanted to have fun. There was no right or wrong with either man’s preferred way of living. Everyone was different!

“Alright, let’s stop joking around now. Have you been losing badly at mahjong recently?” Zhang Fan inquired. There was no helping it. That was how medical teams at Chinese hospitals worked. There had to be an attending physician, second-highest level certification doctor, or a vice director/director leading the medical team.

Xue Fei joining this team had advantages and disadvantages for Zhang Fan. The advantage was that Xue Fei was easy to get along with. He would be fine with either working or not working on any surgery. He would do whatever he was told.

The disadvantage was that Xue Fei was too easygoing. If Director Gao and Zhang Fan weren’t around, Xue Fei would definitely let other doctors steal away all their patients. That was why Zhang Fan could only rely on himself. Gao Shijun was the director, so he had lots of other work to do. He also couldn’t be seen to be favoring Zhang Fan too much.

“Haha, why are you asking? Are you going to loan me money?”

“Be careful that I’m going to tell on you to your wife,” Wang Yanan remarked. She was definitely Zhang Fan’s staunch ally. Facing outsiders, the three members of Zhang Fan’s medical team would be united. When it was just the three of them, she was Zhang Fan’s disciple, so she would never allow Zhang Fan to suffer anything.

“You little brat, so ungrateful. I always help you out!” complained Xue Fei.

“You can barely even protect yourself!”

“Alright, alright! Let’s not fight amongst ourselves. I have something to say, okay?” Zhang Fan hurriedly stopped the other two from arguing. Otherwise, the arguing would be endless!

“It’s like this. I’m thinking that since I was just permanently assigned here, I want to get back into shape. I want to get some extra patients, as many patients as we possibly can get.” Zhang Fan then glanced at the other two.

Wang Yanan had stars in her eyes. She truly loved surgery!

Meanwhile, Xue Fei was more hesitant. He was much lazier. He would always run fastest when it was his turn to receive money, but would also hide faster than anyone when it was time to work!

“Brother Xue, you probably can’t even afford mahjong that gambles 10 yuan each round anymore. You still don’t want to work? Once you increase your number of surgeries, you can go play 20 yuan mahjong rounds instead!” Zhang Fan could only try and coax Xue Fei as if the latter was a young child.

“Alright, I’ll listen to you. However, I’m not going to write any medical reports. I’m already an attending physician. You two look around. What attending physician in our department will write their own medical reports?”

“Zhang Fan’s already a primary surgeon, while you—” Wang Yanan also didn’t like writing medical reports. It was rare for any surgeon to enjoy writing medical reports.

“We’ll split the earnings from each surgery 70/30. Whoever works on the surgery will receive 70%, while the person who writes the medical report will receive 30%. This rule will continue even if a rotation doctor joins our medical team.” Zhang Fan decided to immediately start making rules. Otherwise, it would be bad if people in his medical team constantly fought over small amounts of money.

“Isn’t that a bit too much money for the person writing the medical report? What about Director Gao’s portion?” Xue Fei asked while secretly looking all around him.

“Director Gao probably won’t want anything. Have you ever seen him lead a medical team before? It’s not too much money for the person writing the medical report at all. If you’re willing to write every single medical report for our whole team, I’m even willing to give you 50% instead.” Zhang Fan understood Director Gao’s intentions. Zhang Fan had become smarter and matured. He was no longer just a mere rotation doctor. If he wanted to go far down his path, although skills were important, knowing how to interact with others was even more important. Writing medical reports for Zhang Fan’s team would definitely be a boring and difficult job with the high number of surgeries that Zhang Fan planned to do.

“Forget it! I won’t write any medical reports. What are we going to do about Director Gao, then?” Xue Fei asked so many useless things.

“Then should we give half to Director Gao?” Zhang Fan asked intentionally.

“Let’s forget about that. You can decide. However, let me remind you not to anger him if you really don’t give him anything. Three regular doctors like us won’t be able to handle a director’s anger.” Although Xue Fei really liked money, he was a nice person as well. Normally, people wouldn’t give such reminders.

“It’s fine. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, I agree with Zhang Fan.” Wang Yanan raised her hand.

“I’m going to hit you!” Xue Fei made a funny face at Wang Yanan, which meant ‘Your agreement means nothing!’ This made Wang Yanan unhappy.

“Alright! Okay already!” Zhang Fan was really feeling a headache from this. His coworkers in orthopedic department #1 were different from his coworkers at his hand and foot surgery hospital. Zhang Fan was the undisputed ruler of his own hospital. Nobody there would dare to go against him. However, things were quite different here. Zhang Fan had to console the others and slowly train them!

“Stop arguing, you two. Especially you, Yanan. Study more medical textbooks and don’t mind him. I’m going to look around the department and see if I can get some surgeries.”

“I definitely won’t argue with him.”

“Who would care about what you say!”

Zhang Fan shook his head as he left. He first went to visit orthopedic department #2. He would need to greet the other orthopedic directors. Although orthopedic department #2’s Director Wang Dehua was rather strict, he treated Zhang Fan quite well. Besides, Zhang Fan was going to start stealing patients, so he needed to pay a visit here and stop Director Wang from saying anything.

“Director, how come you’re not performing surgery right now?” Zhang Fan joked after he entered Director Wang’s office.

“You little brat. I have a meeting in a bit. What are you here for?” Director Wang was feeling rather displeased that Zhang Fan didn’t get assigned to his orthopedic department #2, so his attitude towards Zhang Fan was a bit strange.

“I’m here to see you since I’ve been permanently assigned to a department.” Zhang Fan smiled, and then immediately poured some tea for Director Wang without even being asked to. Zhang Fan then poured some tea for himself. Director Wang’s mouth arched upwards as he watched this. He was happy that Zhang Fan was still acting casually with him. Director Wang definitely would have been far more unpleasant to Zhang Fan if the latter acted formal with him. This was how relationships worked. This was how to get along with others.

“It’s as if you’ve come home. Say it, what business do you have with me?”

“It’s honestly nothing at all. I’m just here to visit you. Director, I’ve recently gained some understanding about the spine. Perhaps you could give me some guidance one day?” Without counting Zhang Fan, Director Gao was the #1 joints specialist in Chasu City Hospital, while Director Wang was the #1 spine specialist.