8 The Surgical Departments Divine Physician (1/2)

”What's the situation with this patient?” Ling Ran asked as he fell in line with Nurse Wang's brisk and urgent footsteps.

At that very moment, it was impossible to say that he was not nervous. He may have obtained 'Master Level in Suturing' from the gift package, but the patient in the emergency room might need more than sutures.

Ling Ran wanted nothing more than to practice and complete his mission, but he also wanted to treat the patient with the appropriate amount of respect.

”The patient's hand was impaled by a tree branch when she fell from it.”

Nurse Wang was even younger than Ling Ran. She had made that statement coldly—a habit nurtured from her line of work. But she went a little red when he turned to meet her gaze, and her tone quickly softened.

”You're so tall...” she murmured.

Ling Ran had always been blessed with good looks since birth. At that moment, his lips habitually curled at the corners.

The young nurse quickly hid her rapidly reddening face from him and said, ”My name is Wang Jia. Jia as in 'family'.”

”What a good name.”

Ling Ran replied at the appropriate moment.

The young nurse was instantly filled with cheer. Her burdensome, mundane work life suddenly seemed a lot easier, a lot lighter. She made some additional, necessary comments about the patient only to give herself more opportunities to converse with this dashing doctor.

Upon arriving at the treatment room, Wang Jia pulled open Curtain 3. Ling Ran saw a middle-aged woman who lay on the light blue operating table with a hand extended out to her side. A doctor was already working on her hand. His back faced Ling Ran, but he could see him gently removing the dressings with a pair of forceps.

Ling Ran heaved a sigh that carried with it a mixture of relief and regret.

”Doctor Zhou, I have brought him,” Wang Jia announced crisply.

”Thank you very much.” Doctor Zhou's hands paused for a moment. When he turned around to greet Ling Ran, he was startled for a moment. He had never seen this person before, but he did not say a word about it.

Yun Hua Hospital was the biggest general hospital in the province. The hospital itself had almost a thousand doctors and every year, even more doctors came for training, observation, housemanship, and internship. It was not altogether uncommon to see an unfamiliar face.

It was also inappropriate to make self-introductions when a patient was lying on the table before them. He only said, ”Please assist me with the debridement. 0.9% sodium chloride mixed with iodine complex. Have you brought the anesthetic here?”

”2% lidocaine,” Wang Jia said as she drew the dosage required for local anesthesia into a syringe and passed it to Doctor Zhou. Doctor Zhou took it and scrutinized it before jabbing it into the edge of the patient's wound.

Ling Ran observed carefully, so earnestly that it looked as if he was repairing a Transformer.

It was only the act of injecting an anesthetic, but laymen would be at a loss if they were asked to attempt it themselves.

If the desired effect could not be achieved with the stipulated dosage, an additional shot could be sneaked in, but they would also have to pray that they would not bear witness to any complications that might follow.

The lectures in school were mostly theoretical in nature rather than practical. When it came to local anesthesia, only a couple of words were said about it accompanied by the same few standard examples.

However, there were too many variables and surprises in reality. The practicum of medical students served to mend the gaps in their knowledge in regards to these aspects.

”Wash it.”

Doctor Zhou tossed the syringe aside. Ling Ran immediately picked up the bottle of solution that Wang Jia had mixed and poured it onto the wound.

”More,” Doctor Zhou said as he fiddled the wound with the forceps.

His movements were gentle and straightforward. First, he removed the foreign object in the patient's wound. He then picked up a knife and ablated a small amount of skin at the edge of the wound. This step meant that they were already halfway done with the minor surgery in closing up the superficial wounds.