Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Doctor Zhou, do take a look. These are the conferences that our company have been sponsoring lately.” Gao Meng retrieved a box filled with pamphlets and laid the pamphlets out in front of Doctor Zhou. He then introduced them one by one. “The next conference in Yun Hua City will be held next month. But it’s a cardiology conference, so it might not be suitable.”
“A conference selling stents isn’t suitable indeed.” Like many other doctors, Doctor Zhou had always felt that those specializing in interventional cardiology get to earn a lot even though they did not actually do much work. And stents were very often used in a manner where the surgeons did not adhere to standards when they gave them to patients.
Gao Meng did not refute what Doctor Zhou said. He chuckled a few times and said, “There will be a medical conference focusing on the field of surgery two months later. It’s a conference that promotes the use of laparoscopy in general surgery.”
“Will they be promoting laparoscopes?”
“They’ll mainly be promoting titanium clips and stuff like that,” Gao Meng said in a humble tone. “We don’t earn much from selling laparoscopes alone. We need to make a living too, you know.
Doctor Zhou hummed in acknowledgement. He thought about it and said, “Ling Ran carries out laparoscopy too, but the only laparoscopy he performs is cholecystectomy. It wouldn’t make an interesting demonstration.”
“Oh, if he wants to carry out a demonstration, this laparoscopy conference wouldn’t be suitable,” Gao Meng quickly said. “The slots are already taken up.”
“Did you give them to the doctors from the General Surgery Department?” Doctor Zhou snorted. “Why? Do you think that doctors from the Emergency Department are inferior to those from the General Surgery Department?”
Gao Meng immediately flashed an apologetic smile. ‘If you want to operate at the level of the doctors from the General Surgery Department, you would even have to adjust the concentration of the heparin saline you use.’
“Hepatectomy, then. We’ll stick with a hepatectomy conference. Is any coming up soon?”
Gao Meng flashed a wan smile. “You have already mentioned that you want a hepatectomy conference. If there were to be one, we would have notified you and tried our best to reserve one of the best seats for Ling Ran. There really isn’t any.”
Doctor Zhou hummed in acknowledgement.
He knew that there was not any hepatectomy conference. Gao Meng’s company was not the only one not doing any, but other companies did not organize one as well.
This was mainly because hepatectomy was an extremely major surgery. Even though some drugs and medical consumables were used during the process of the surgery, because hepatectomy was not carried out as often as many other surgeries, they would not be able to profit much from it. It was unlike angioplasty, where each case brought them a profit of around 10,000 RMB. And associate chief physicians in the Cardiology Department who did well got to perform more than twenty angioplasties a day.
This was why nowadays, in the field of medicine, cardiology and interventional cardiology conferences were held all the time.
And only medical companies related to liver cancer were interested in holding hepatectomy conferences. It had nothing to do with hepatectomy itself.
“Try finding one,” Doctor Zhou said to Gao Meng with a smile, “Department Director Huo specifically asked for one, so your company should put in more effort.”
Gao Meng opened his mouth a few times and said carefully, “We are putting in a lot of effort, but we really have no way of finding one.”
“Why don’t you go back and come out with something?” Doctor Zhou flashed a smile and said, “From what I can see, you guys have the ability to do so.”
Gao Meng had goosebumps all over his body from the compliment.
He understood what Doctor Zhou meant. The latter was talking about none other than asking their company to hold a hepatectomy-related conference specifically for Ling Ran. Their company definitely had the capacity to do so, and often organized conferences for the Cardiology Department.
However, the Cardiology Department brought in a lot of money. It was one of the most profitable departments to work with, and the cardiology field was one of the most competitive ones. Compared to working with the Cardiology Department, working with the Emergency Department was a lot less profitable.
Gao Meng was very worried that by making such a proposal to his company, he would receive all kinds of criticism.
Gao Meng sprinted out of the hospital as soon as the meeting ended. Only when he arrived at the parking lot outside the building of Yun Hua Hospital did he stretch comfortably while basking under the sunlight.
He found the conversation just now even harder than drinking alcohol.
“Old Gao?”
A head craned out from behind a Honda Accord which was parked at the corner of the parking lot.
“Old Tang, didn’t you go and walk around?”
“There’s nothing around the hospital.” Old Tang was a few years older than Gao Meng. He was not like Gao Meng, who would vomit immediately after drinking fake alcohol. But because his alcohol tolerance was super low, these few years, he was slowly relegated to running errands together with Gao Meng even though both of them held high positions.
Gao Meng hummed in acknowledgement. “Indeed, the hospital is a very complicated place.”
Old Tang saw the look on Gao Meng’s face and asked, “Things didn’t go well?”
“Yeah. An attending physician from the Emergency Medical Center, Doctor Zhou, wants us to organize a hepatectomy-related conference.” Gao Meng pouted.
Old Tang laughed out loud. “This is no small feat. He was kidding, wasn’t he?”
“Apparently, it’s what Old Huo wanted.”
“Oh.” Old Tang immediately went silent. He did not dare to continue speaking.
A specialized conference took at least a few hundred RMB to organize. And if you wanted it to look good, you would have to spend more than 1,000,000 RMB to organize one.
Besides, if you were to organize this kind of conference, you would have to invite plenty of renowned and not-so-renowned doctors who were involved in the specialization. It was a lot of work, and if the conference was not in line with the marketing plan of the company, the administrative cost involved would be pretty high.
Gao Meng furrowed his eyebrows. He had no choice but to take another deep breath before tapping the car door and saying, “Let’s talk about it when we get back. I’m getting chills just by staying in Yun Hua Hospital.”
“The icy cold rain…”
Before Gao Meng could enter the car, his phone started ringing.
“Manager Gao, someone from Yun Hua Hospital called us just now to inform us that they no longer need us to supply hormones to them.” The person on the other end yelled anxiously.
Old Tang trembled violently and straightened up. The fact that a hospital told them to stop supplying one of their drugs was no small matter.
“Who did it?”
“Associate Hospital Director Zhou from Yun Hua Hospital.”
“Is he even in a position to do so?” Gao Meng was rather angry and anxious.
When a hospital stopped buying one of the drugs supplied by their medical company, loss of revenue was not the only problem. It also meant that the pharmaceutical sales representative involved failed to carry out his task well. Most importantly, since the hospital was no longer getting that drug from their medical company, they would naturally need to get the drug from another company. Because of this, it would be very hard for the pharmaceutical sales representative to maintain a good relationship with the hospital.
Old Tang looked at Gao Meng with sympathy.
“Give me some time. I’ll find out what’s going on.” Gao Meng came back to his senses. After he hung up, he said to Old Tang, “Right after my meeting with Doctor Zhou ended, I received news that Associate Hospital Director Zhou no longer wants the hospital to get their supply of hormones from us. What’s the relationship between these two incidents?”
“I have no idea, but it’s better if you do as Doctor Zhou said.” Old Tang gave Gao Meng a meaningful look and continued, “You know, Doctor Zhou was speaking on behalf of Department Director Huo.”
Gao Meng could not help but tremble violently. “Now that I think about it, even though organizing a conference is quite expensive, the funds have to be channeled somewhere anyway.”
“Yup.”
“It’s relatively hard to organize a hepatectomy conference. But I think it should be manageable if we organize a general surgery conference or hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery conference, and then include hepatectomy as one of the main topics,” Gao Meng said after thinking long and hard.
“Yup.”
“I know what to do. Let’s collaborate with another company. We can check if there are any upcoming general surgery conference or hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery conference. We’ll probably be allowed to sponsor one of those conferences. Can you think of any medical company within Changxi Province who’s doing this?” Since Gao Meng had already made a decision, he started putting his plan into execution.
Old Tang arched an eyebrow when he heard that. “This makes sense. They just want to be in the spotlight, right? And it doesn’t even have to be the center spot. The remaining spots are also pretty valuable, aren’t they?”
“We’ll try to spend as little money as possible. At the end of the day, we might not even suffer any losses. We have a plan, then. Why don’t you let me report things to our boss first. Old Tang, do you mind giving me some space?”
Old Tang froze for a moment. He then nodded and got out of the car.
Gao Meng locked the car and made a call.
Old Tang got bored after walking around the car a few times. He then started wandering around the open-air parking lot in front of the building of Yun Hua Hospital.
“It’s the Volkswagen Jetta in front of us, right?”
“Yup.”
“Now that I’m taking a good look at it, the car’s pretty cute.”
Old Tang glanced at the three young women who were beautiful and adorable, and then at the old Volkswagen Jetta in front of them. He suddenly felt that the world was not so bad, and that it did not just revolve around people like Huo Congjun and Ling Ran. There were some beautiful people who did not prioritize money and power, after all.
Old Tang felt that he was at least three times “cuter” than the tiny Volkswagen Jetta which cost less than a few hundred thousand RMB.
“Hello.” Old Tang could not help but walk forward and greet those young women.
“Hey, Doctor Ling is walking over. Quick, put the letters on his car.” The three beautiful young women put a colorful envelope respectively on the windshield of the car before hopping away like little bunnies.
