499 Professor Feng (1/2)

”Professor Feng, the plane has already entered the stratosphere.” The flight attendant who was in charge of both the first class cabin and the business class cabin swiftly walked over to Professor Feng. She squatted down beside him to attend to him, showing him why the tickets for first class seats were twice the price of the tickets for business class seats.

Professor Feng Zhixiang who had been a platinum member of the airline for a long time opened his eyes and nodded. He was obviously very familiar with the services provided as he said, ”Give me a glass of plain water and a cup of tea.”

”All right. Do you want warm or cold water?”

”Warm water, please. Thanks.” Feng Zhixiang took the warm towel the flight attendant gave him and wiped his face hard. He then turned and said to his student, Guo Mingcheng. ”Have you taken a look at all the CT scans? How's the situation?”

Guo Mingcheng, who had just became an associate chief physician, was not even forty years old yet, and he felt no discomfort at all from the flight. He was energetic as he took out a folder and passed it to Feng Zhixiang. ”Based on the CT scans, the patient's condition is quite serious. He suffers from portal hypertension, cirrhosis, and nodular hyperplasia…”

He had just finished operating on a patient, and only read his next patient's scans on his journey to the airport. However, he had taken a look at the patient's medical records earlier, and it was why he accepted the job.

He accepted the job because he was writing a research paper on performing hepatectomy in patients with portal hypertension. Besides, the other party also offered quite a large sum of money.

Meanwhile, Feng Zhixiang was rather tired. It had been quite some time since he operated on a patient. He was the associate director of the hospital and the department director of the General Surgery Department right now. Besides, he held all kinds of positions in various national committees. At the same time, he was also writing a book. It was impossible for a seventy-year-old man to find time to carry out surgeries under these circumstances.

However, Feng Zhixiang would guide two or three surgeries every now and then.

This was because if he did not carry out surgeries, he would no longer be in the zone and cease being a surgeon. Feng Zhixiang could not accept this. Besides, all his students were already very experienced. For example, even though Guo Mingcheng was only an associate chief physician in their hospital, he was totally qualified to become the department director of a local hospital once he graduated from under Feng Zhixiang.

Truth be told, a doctor like Guo Mingcheng did not need to worry about his future at all.

He had trained under Feng Zhixiang for years. A doctor like Guo Mingcheng could totally get the yearly surgery count of a hospital up by two thousand.

He could carry out three surgeries as well as guide and monitor another three surgeries within a day without much effort.

And in China, doctors of Guo Mingcheng's caliber in most hospitals were few and rare in between. Hence, most hospital would definitely take Guo Mingcheng in, even if it meant that they had to create an additional department for him. All they needed to do was to assign some hospital beds, nurses, and doctors to him.

As for patients, large cities could always provide an endless supply of them.

However, no matter how excellent a doctor was, they also had to exercise a lot of caution when working on complicated cases.

The human body is extremely complicated. In this time and age where there were still patients dying during appendectomy, hepatectomy was obviously a very dangerous procedure.

Guo Mingcheng had lost four patients in the past half a year because he chose to operate on patients with portal hypertension, which was a high-risk surgery. Fortunately, everyone in the hospital was very supportive of him. Feng Zhixiang even promised that he would incorporate Guo Mingcheng's research into the new edition of the teaching material he took part in editing after it was done.

Even though the teaching materials would not be used in all the universities of China, Guo Mingcheng was still extremely excited about this prospect.

”The electrocardiogram even shows that he's suffering from minor heart failure.” Guo Mingcheng shook his head. ”Considering his age and the condition of the body, this operation is very risky indeed.”

Feng Zhixiang took out the CT scans from the file and took a look at them. He then said, ”The patient is experiencing a lot of pain and has a low quality of life. This is why he is quite inclined to receive surgery. After you arrive at Yun Hua Hospital, you must explain things properly to the patient and the doctors there.”

”Actually, we should have requested for him to be transferred to our hospital. I don't know how the quality of Yun Hua Hospita's postoperative care is like. With the patient's condition, if any mishap happens after the surgery, there might be major bleeding that would lead to death.”

”He can only make an insurance claim if he's staying in Yun Hua Hospital.” Feng Zhixiang enunciated each word forcefully before he continued. ”Most senior citizens at this age wouldn't be willing to let their children spend this much money on them. And most patients who need to fund their own surgeries would rather opt out of it.”

Guo Mingcheng hummed in acknowledgement.

Chinese-styled freelance surgeries was, in a way, another form of society trying to manage its members by itself.

Most health insurances in China imposed restrictions on the patients' mobility.

Patients were only able to use their health insurances in the provinces they bought them in. There were even some health insurance providers who imposed a restriction where patients must seek treatment in certain hospitals in their areas first before being transferred to other hospitals.

This meant that patients with certain ailments such as appendicitis, cholecystitis, and ruptured Achilles tendons that were not serious enough to warrant a transfer could only use their health insurances in tertiary Grade A, secondary Grade A, or even secondary Grade B county hospitals.

Doctors and health insurance providers hoped that patients with minor ailments would seek treatment at smaller hospitals and leave the larger hospitals for patients with more serious illnesses.

But why would any patient be willing to be left at the mercy of doctors in smaller hospitals, who only scored four hundred and fifty marks in their college entrance examination, combined Western and Chinese Medicine, were not qualified for a PhD, were forced by their parents to work in local hospitals so that they can earn an income while waiting for their demise, were unwilling to learn new things and merely wanted to profit a little out of medical consumables, and were only able to become chief physicians because they had been working for many years?

All patients suffering from hepatolithiasis wanted to stay alive.

Even when it came to the most basic prenatal care checkup, the probability of doctors from larger hospitals spotting a congenital disease was a few thousand times higher than doctors from smaller hospitals.

Freelance surgery was a solution to this problem.

The best doctors were able to carry out both highly difficult surgeries or ordinary surgeries in county hospitals as long as the facilities were not too shabby. They could even do it during their free time for a large sum of money, which contributed greatly to their finances and dignity.