489 Exchange (1/2)

It was six o'clock in the morning.

Zhang Anmin, the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery's junior attending physician, was exhausted. He would rather die than wake up, but he was forced to rise early. He had also arrived at the ward.

Previously, Zhang Anmin was just like any other weak attending physician. On the days his department director did not perform a ward round, he would also wake up and go to work at around eight o'clock or half-past eight in the morning. He would perform his ward round at nine o'clock, then spend half the day performing surgeries.

In that situation, Zhang Anmin had sufficient time to change his child's diaper during the two hours before he went to work. He could also clean himself, make a rich breakfast for his wife and mother-in-law, then leave the house when his mother-in-law rolled her eyes at him.

After he reached home, Zhang Anmin would also have enough energy to make dinner, feed his child, change his diapers, and receive an ”I had a tough life” lecture from his mother-in-law. Once he pampered his wife, he would still have time to wash the plates, take a bath, and do the house chores.

Since Ling Ran stayed in the operating area, days like those went further and further away from Zhang Anmin.

First of all, Ling Ran asked a lot during surgery. Even though the total number of questions he asked was not many when Zhang Anmin compared it with the absolute value, if a chief surgeon could not answer more than five questions, it would be very awkward for him in the operating theater.

In order to prevent such awkwardness, Zhang Anmin could only arrive at the operating theater earlier for ward rounds. Then, he was able to modify the plan according to the patients' conditions and make preparations beforehand.

For Zhang Anmin, surgery each day was now like performing ward rounds with his department director.

Nevertheless, Zhang Anmin persisted.

Every doctor went through nine years of compulsory education, five years of undergraduate studies, three years of masters' degree, a year of internship, three years of housemanship, and three years of being a resident doctor. If he were humiliated, the embarrassment he suffered had to be of a higher standard.

Besides, Zhang Anmin was willing to be the one bullied by Doctor Ling and perform more surgeries as if he was wronged. That was because he was conducting surgeries under the instruction of a high-ranking doctor.

As an adult in his thirties, working and learning hard every day may have sounded very good, but he could be mocked or be the topic of discussion among others if he really did that.

Without a strong mental fortitude and a clear goal, it would be very unpleasant. It was really easy for people to give up.

When Zhang Anmin stayed in boarding school in the past, why did he sleep during class and secretly hide in the toilet at three o'clock in the morning? It was all because he was afraid of being the subject of ridicule.

Now, Zhang Anmin found it fitting that he could learn surgeries at ease while he received sympathy from everyone else at the same time.

As long as he could finish his house chores and breakfast that usually took him an hour and a half in an hour, console his wife, and be slightly shameless in front of his mother-in-law, he could get through life.

”Hello, we're doing ward rounds.” Zhang Anmin walked into a room, and he spoke in the language he learned from Ling Ran—the Things We Need to Pay Attention to During Ward Rounds™.

The patient turned around.

Zhang Anmin smiled and raised his chin. The resident doctor who followed him was like a puppet soldier. He tapped the side of the patient's bed and shouted, ”Hello, ward round.”

Next, the houseman and interns also stood in front of the patient and shouted, ”Hello, ward round!”

It was a method Zhang Anmin had developed on his own, and it was one that did not pay particular attention to the way he performed the ward round. This increased the efficiency of the ward round performed early in the mornings, but the drawback was, the patients who were woken up had worse attitudes.

”Got it, geez.” The patient who was first woken up did not always feel happy.

Zhang Anmin shrugged. That was the main problem with having ward rounds too early in the morning. If the ward round was at nine o'clock, the patients and their families would have a much better attitude. Most of the patients would try their best to make the attending physician happy.

The number of thoughtful patients would be a lot lower at six o'clock in the morning.

”Let's start,” Zhang Anmin whispered.

”Okay,” the resident doctor immediately replied. He said, ”The patient is fifty-five years old. He mainly complains about his upper right abdomen. He says that he has been suffering from chronic pain for a year, and it has become more serious now. Before his admission, the patient suffered pain for two hours. The CT scan shows that his gallbladder is getting bigger, while his intrahepatic bile duct is swollen and expanded…”

The resident doctor had arrived much earlier than the attending physician.

Generally, the resident doctor was required to arrive at least half an hour earlier and memorize the details for the ward round.

When resident doctors faced chief surgeons who were strict and harsh, they may need an hour to memorize the details before they repeated whatever they had memorized from one bed to another bed.

For resident doctors, this could be one of the most difficult parts during the early stages of their career, especially when they met attending physicians who performed ward rounds at six o'clock in the morning. The resident doctor would need to wake up at four o'clock in the morning and reach the hospital before five o'clock. Then, they needed to memorize the information…

The procedure may look quite routine, but in the hospital, this was just the beginning of a doctor's suffering.

Zhang Anmin, who had become a junior attending physician, was already busy enough taking care of himself. He could not take care of the resident doctor as well. The only thing he could do to comfort the resident doctor was to ask a question, ”What disease do you think it is?”

”Based on the comprehensive CT scan, it should be cholecystitis,” the resident doctor said.

”So?”

”So… is it possible that he has a liver cyst?”

”So?” Zhang Anmin had been questioned too frequently recently. He personally felt that he needed to be the questioner to vent his frustrations.

The resident doctor felt a little lost by the questions. It was just six o'clock in the morning. A normal person would either still be sleeping comfortably, waking up with a blurry head while wanting to sleep again, waking up for a round of s*x in the morning before they wanting to sleep again, or getting back home after having breakfast. But what about him? He still needed to wake the patient up during his ward round.

The resident doctor was confused, but he gave an answer that could be used in all situations. ”Perhaps we should consider a tumor?”

The patient who had been annoyed on the bed was suddenly very much awake. ”Tumor? Cancer? I have cancer?”

”You don't have the symptoms of cancer!” Zhang Anmin was so mad that he glared at the resident doctor.