“What about medical insurance? We don’t have to pay for hospitalization in my country. The insurance company would provide the sum total after discharge,” Professor Rudolf Wagner said.
Zheng Ren came close to kicking him, but resisted the urge after some thought.
“I’ll report the fee issue to Chief Pan tomorrow, perhaps some of them can be waived,” Zheng Ren told the girl. “Take good care of him.”
The girl gave her thanks again before Zheng Ren and the professor returned to the office.
“Zheng, do you people really need to pay for medical treatment?” Professor Rudolf Wagner asked doubtfully.
Zheng Ren did not engage further with the professor and simply offered a smile.
Finally remembering to check his phone, he realized it was already past ten in the night.
There was a missed call from Department Chief Kong at around nine o’clock. After thinking about it, Zheng Ren decided to contact the man through WeChat.
Chief Kong was already in Shangri-La Hotel and preparing for a return flight in the morning.
Zheng Ren checked his schedule; he would probably need to apply for leave tomorrow to send Department Chief Kong off. The chief had come all the way here, and Zheng Ren had not even had the time to bring the man out to a meal before getting called back for surgery.
Not sending the chief off at the very least would leave him with a bad taste in his mouth.
As he spoke to Department Chief Kong, he received a call from the emergency department about a patient who had come in with acute appendicitis.
Zheng Ren felt troubled. His good night’s sleep yesterday did not mean he deserved to be deprived of it tonight.
Night Shift God, please be merciful.
Still, no matter how hard he complained, he had duties to fulfill.
He confirmed the diagnosis with the System’s monitor before performing a routine check on the patient and processing admission. He then inquired about the patient’s medical history and prepared for surgery.
Half an hour passed after he completed the procedure.
Another patient with acute appendicitis entered the ward.
Under normal circumstances, a chief resident would have a physician on duty to handle all miscellaneous procedures. However, emigration over the last two years had bled Sea City of its younger talent; any competent doctor above thirty had left for greener pastures.
Even the Sea City General Hospital inpatient department was short-staffed, let alone the emergency department.
Old Chief Physician Pan had been asking for more hands on deck, but resistance had been strong enough that no amount of authority could get him the doctors he wanted.
Chang Yue, Yang Lei and Su Yun were a few beautiful exceptions.
Zheng Ren busied himself comforting the patients and their family members and performing surgeries.
Tonight would probably be a sleepless night.
Professor Rudolf Wagner had demonstrated excellent basic skill in the first two surgeries.
He was not the main surgeon but adapted swiftly as the first assistant during the laparotomy for the appendectomy and endoscopic surgery.
Later that night, after those two surgeries, the emergency department was called upon once more.
Zheng Ren was numb and his heartbeat remained stable, having already mentally prepared for it.
This time, the patient had acute cholecystitis.
The entire procedure was familiar to Zheng Ren. There was so much to do that he set aside all the work that could be postponed to the next day for Chang Yue to follow up on. Once the patient completed their fasting, he brought Professor Rudolf Wagner along to the surgery.
What a long night. Some people refused to sleep, while others simply could not.
The entire night passed in what seemed like an instant.
It was a fruitful day.
A patient with fall injuries, a knife stab victim, five acute appendicitis cases, two acute cholecystitis cases and one gallbladder torsion.
Zheng Ren was exhausted after performing ten surgeries and going through the tedious details with their respective families.
Chang Yue arrived at work to a long queue of patients in front of her workstation; she jumped right into processing paperwork without any breakfast.
Su Yun was humming a tune on his way to work and was thrilled to see two dark circles under Professor Rudolf Wagner’s eyes.
The Night Shift God stuck to tradition and had no mercy for newcomers.
Someone new to night shifts normally faced extraordinary circumstances; either there were a lot of emergencies or unstable and deteriorating postoperative patients.
In short, they would be put in their place on their first day with not a blink of sleep.
“Zheng, I’ll head off and take a nap,” Professor Rudolf Wagner said, yawning and completely ignoring Su Yun’s condescending look.
“We need to do the handover,” Zheng Ren said coldly.
It was not spite; he simply had no energy left to smile. He did not want to take the energy elixir yet, but his body was wearing thin after staying up all night and performing so many surgeries.
“Oh, you guys do your handover at 8 a.m., in my country… yawn…” Professor Rudolf Wagner let out another huge yawn in the middle of his sentence.
“Chang Yue, you’ll be in charge of guiding the professor through the procedure,” Zheng Ren said.
Change Yue was too occupied with her tasks to be affected by the intrusion of a foreigner.
She checked patients’ conditions, changed wound dressings, recorded symptoms and requested signatures from patients’ families.
Zheng Ren’s words got through, but her mind automatically discarded everything unrelated to patients.
Yesterday night was…
Zheng Ren recalled the night he had attained the System. The entire general surgery department had been at work. It seemed surreal when he recalled it now.
Old Chief Physician Pan arrived at exactly at 8 a.m. with no idea why Professor Rudolf Wagner looked on the verge of collapsing.
He laughed and shook his head when he found out.
After the handover, Zheng Ren did his ward rounds before heading to the ICU to check on the suicide victim.
She was in a stable condition but still needed ventilator support. Orthopedics would take over later, but for the time being, Zheng Ren’s mission remained incomplete.
Treatment for adenomyosis was considered elective surgery. Zheng Ren did not want to disrupt the treatment plan for the sake of his mission.
After Zheng Ren handed over his duties, he requested a few hours of leave from Old Chief Physician Pan to send Department Chief Kong off.
Old Chief Physician Pan called Office Director Ding of the general office since he, too, wanted to be part of the farewell party and could take the same car.
Soon after, Zheng Ren received a call from Officer Director Ding, who was in his car waiting outside the emergency building.
Ding Zhongtai was the office director[1] in Sea City Hospital. He had a rather interesting name, which had since become an awkward subject after Zotye Auto[2] became popular.
When they were all in the car, Office Director Ding checked the time and started chatting with Zheng Ren happily.
“Little Zheng, you’re progressing so fast these days. You’ve exceeded all our expectations.”
Zheng Ren was so tired that he was fighting just to keep his eyes open. Nevertheless, he managed to squeeze out a reply: “Not really. I’m just performing basic surgery.”
“Unnecessary humility is essentially hypocrisy.” Office Director Ding shook his head as he drove to Shangri-La Hotel at 80 miles per hour, flirting with the speed limit.
Sea City was not a tier-one or even a tier-two city. It was more difficult to reach the speed limit in bigger provinces, but here, where the population and thus number of vehicles on the road were smaller, it was nothing. During the Chinese New Year holidays, one could easily reach 120 miles per hour in the city if they were unafraid of getting a ticket.
Zheng Ren smiled and remained quiet.
“I know the truth about that day,” Office Director Ding casually threw into their conversation.
[1] 院办主任 (office director) is also referred to as 院长办公室主任 (director of the dean’s / chief’s office) in 1.0291. It is believed that the author called him 办公室主任 in previous chapters, which translates to office manager / director. Even though the author addresses him as 丁主任 (Director Ding), it is hereafter written as Office Director Ding instead of Chief Ding to distinguish the position.
[2] The Chinese pronunciation of Zotye Auto, 众泰汽车 (Zhongtai Automobile), is similar to that of Office Director Ding’s name, 仲太.
