Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Zucheng People’s Hospital.
Liukai County Hospital.
First People’s Hospital of Wuxin City.
Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City.
Third People’s Hospital of Yun Hua City.
…..
Ling Ran headed to a nearby hospital for freelance surgery once every two or three days. He mainly performed hepatectomy, Achilles tendon repairs, knee arthroscopic meniscoplasty, and arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery.
As Ling Ran’s fame spread through the area, the number of patients in different hospitals also increased. Every time he went, the minimum number of surgeries he could perform was three. After all, while there were a lot of hospitals that Ling Ran could go to, the number of specialists in those hospitals was low.
Within the range of Changxi Province, doctors who could be freelance surgeons must be at least chief physician in a tertiary Grade A hospital. Perhaps they even had to be the chief physicians from Yun Hua Hospital, the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital or the provincial hospital before they were qualified. It was hard for assistant lecturers to perform freelance surgeries. Their workload in their hospitals was so heavy that they could not finish their tasks, especially when the chief physicians went away for freelance surgeries. The responsibility of the assistant lecturers was to replace the temporary vacancies left behind by their chief physicians after they left.
This was also the operation mode in big modern hospitals.
The expert department directors in the tertiary Grade A hospitals spent most of their time working for freelance surgeries in other hospitals. Each freelance surgery which ranged from 10,000 RMB to a few ten thousand RMB made the department directors in the high-end tertiary Grade A hospitals earn more than their foreign colleagues.
Correspondingly, the assistant lecturers in the tertiary Grade A hospitals undertook the surgical missions that were getting more burdensome, as well as the mission of scientific research.
However, the assistant lecturers could not help but keep working hard for the chance to get promoted to proper lecturers one day.
While after becoming proper lecturers, a doctor was considered to have earned temporary freedom. The department director was usually a lecturer, but the lecturer did not necessarily refer to a department director.
Therefore, those lecturers who could not become the department director had to suffer through hardship while hoping for the director to resign, or worked aggressively until they could build their own department, or they could only lead their own treatment group and think about how to earn money.
Naturally, for patients, the doctor whom they spent a lot to hire must be at least a chief physician. After all, for normal people, a chief physician would just be a professional title that cost 17 RMB when they sought them for consultation, and their demands for them were not too high.
Meanwhile, Ling Ran chose another path. He performed Achilles tendon repair on Liu Weichen and a hepatectomy on Elder Mei, thus making him a typical “famous” doctor. Because of that, he was the one who got the most freelance surgeon requests from patients and the number of patients requested for hepatectomy was not any lesser.
Because of Ling Ran’s requirement and the high demand in Changxi Province, the frequency of Ling Ran performing freelance surgeries and the number of surgeries arranged by Zuo Cidian for him was increased.
For the current situation in China or even the world, it was usual for there to be more patients than doctors. However, the main concern would always be that the number of good doctors was too low.
Surgeons who could perform surgeries like hepatectomy up to He Yuanzheng’s standards in Changxi Province could be counted in one hand. That was why he became the Department Director for the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery in Yun Hua Hospital.
But there were already four doctors who focused on hepatectomy working under He Yuanzheng in Yun Hua Hospital.
For hospitals other than Yun Hua Hospital that invited Ling Ran as the freelance surgeon, they had either began performing hepatectomies on their own, or they were about to start this program… Their surgical skills could not be expected to be too high.
Practice was the only way to improve surgical skills. This was just like some people who could study at Peking University after their three years of high school while some other people could only study at regular universities even after receiving tuition for their subjects for three years. The more difficult the surgical skill was, the more talent was needed, other than hard work.
An orthopedist who spent twenty years in the field would rarely have any surgical skills that he could not perform, while a doctor from the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery who had spent twenty years in the field might not have mastered many surgical techniques either.
If an athlete was unable to be the national champion when he was twenty years old, he could never be in his lifetime. The doctor profession was not that cruel, it was only cruel to the patient.
The standard of Ling Ran’s skills started circulating to wider circles as he performed the surgeries one after another.
The social circle of surgeons was also a social circle for gossip.
If two surgeons stood at the operating table for four hours, what they had chatted about could be more than what they had spoken with their relatives during the new year.
Previously, there were just doctors from the First People’s Hospital and Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City who boasted about Ling Ran’s hepatectomy, and as Ling Ran expanded his field of operations for his freelance surgeries, more doctors boasted about him.
Ling Ran was handsome, had good skills, and a good personality, which was why he was truly admired by the doctors. For surgeons, those who had a glib tongue or were quiet were considered to be good qualities. Those who were somewhere in between were the annoying ones.
One month passed in the blink of an eye.
After Zhang Anmin essentially joined Ling Ran’s group, their work seemed to be gradually expanding as well.
Ling Ran worked for seventy to eighty hours at Yun Hua Hospital per week before he went away for freelance surgery. This was how he managed to keep the group under operation even under the circumstances where the hospital beds were limited.
Lu Wenbin performed the M-Tang technique and Ma Yanlin performed the Achilles tendon repair technique among the work they did. If they were lucky, they could be the chief surgeon for one to two cases each week.
They had been learning from Ling Ran for more than a year. From what Ling Ran observed, they were already at advanced Novice Level. If they were put in Yun Hua Hospital, they would have the operating level of junior attending physicians. Together with Ling Ran’s guidance, Lu Wenbin had performed seven surgeries using the M-Tang technique, and he started to become high-spirited.
“Doctor Ling, let’s go to the gym tonight.” Lu Wenbin had helped Ling Ran finish the last arthroscopic surgery. As it was still early, he was excited to invite Ling Ran to the gym.
Ling Ran looked at the clock at the operating theater. It was almost nine o’clock, and he asked, “Don’t you sleep at night?”
“Doctor Ling, you’re the one who sleeps even less, right?” Lu Wenbin flexed his biceps and said, “I’ll go and do a few sets before I go back to sleep at the on-call room.”
“Then, you can only sleep for three to four hours,” Ling Ran said.
Lu Wenbin felt that something was off when he heard Ling Ran said that. He could not help but ask, “You can’t even get three to four hours of sleep each day, right?”
“Not necessarily.” Ling Ran shook his head and said in his heart, ‘I have Energy Serums, but you don’t.’
After finishing the last part of the surgery, Ling Ran thought about this and asked, “Are you going to the hospital gym or the ones outside?”
“Hospital gym. There aren’t usually many people there.” Lu Wenbin began to ramble about the hospital gym as an introduction.
Similar to many tertiary Grade A hospitals, there was a gym specifically built for the staff in the basement that was newly built at Yun Hua Hospital. The equipment was also brand new…
Compared to the other equipment in tertiary Grade A hospitals, the money a gym for their equipment was considered too little.
However, the gym at Yun Hua Hospital was not like the hospital gym at overseas. Only tens of people would usually go to the gym, and it was even rarer for these people to go together at a time.
Since Lu Wenbin joined Ling Ran’s group, he had less time to work out. So, he would do push-ups or other forms of exercises in the on-call room as his daily workout.
Yet, if he got a chance, he would quickly go to the gym.
Ling Ran was too lazy to go back home and come back again.
Starting from tomorrow at four in the morning, he had four cases of cholecystectomies. He thought of making preparations earlier.
“I’ll go and get a few sets of clothes to change. See you later at the gym?” Ling Ran told Lu Wenbin after he finished the surgery before he went to make preparations.
“I’ll wait for you outside the gym.” Lu Wenbin chuckled and said, “I can’t help you in other things, but I shouldn’t have a problem for spotting you when it comes to the barbell.”
Ling Ran agreed and nodded. He personally did not like sports that required teamwork. In his impression, regardless of whether it was at the basketball court, soccer field, or volleyball court, there were too many girls around those places, and it will always affect him when he exercised.
In comparison, he preferred sports like jogging.
A few minutes later, Lu Wenbin went out right after Ling Ran. The nurses and anesthetists in the area stared at each other and sent out messages in frenzy.
[Doctor Ling is going to the gym.]
[A sweaty doctor Ling… Those who want to know his location, send me red envelopes.]
[Doctor Ling is going to change his attire for the gym.]
..…
When he was outside the gym, Lu Wenbin waited for a few minutes before he saw Ling Ran come over in a T-shirt.
“There are more people today. Let’s make the best use of our time.” Lu Wenbin urged him a little to hurry up and asked, “Did you bring your work pass?”
“Yes. It’s in the bag.” Ling Ran patted his backpack. When he performed freelance surgeries, he would just put some stuff in his bag and left.
Lu Wenbin nodded.
“Usually, they won’t check, but it’s for just incases. If they want to check your work pass, you won’t have to waste too much time looking for it,” Lu Wenbin said as he followed Ling Ran to enter the gym.
The two receptionists at the entrance of the hospital gym were busy checking the identity of their guests.
There were too many people today compared to the usual number of people they received, so much so that both of them could not handle the flow of people.
“Both of us.” Lu Wenbin walked forward. He pointed at Ling Ran and himself.
“Huh, Doctor Ling?” The eyes of the young lady at the receptionist counter went over Lu Wenbin and fell on Ling Ran. “You’re here to work out as well?”
Ling Ran smiled faintly, nodded, and asked, “Do I need to show my working pass?”
“No need, I’ll perform the scan on the door for you.” The young lady immediately walked forward and used her card to open the door for Ling Ran.
Lu Wenbin followed him and wanted to enter as well, but he was blocked.
“Are you a doctor in Yun Hua Hospital?” As the young lady asked, she looked at Ling Ran.
Lu Wenbin flexed his biceps brachii and said, “I come here every week.”
“You still have to scan your card even if you come every day.” The young lady waved her hands, and she did not intend to make an exception for him at all.
Lu Wenbin was stunned. He quietly lowered his head, opened his bag, took out his work pass, and scanned it to enter the gym. He felt peace in his heart as if he were the water in an ancient well that had no ripples. His mind had been trained greatly, and his knowledge toward the society had reached new heights.
