Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In normal hospitals, the Gynecology Department and the Emergency Department were renowned for working their doctors to death. This was especially true for the Gynecology Department because most childbirths occurred at night. Hence, the doctors of the Gynecology Department had to work frequent night shifts.
Besides, unlike departments like the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery where the doctors on night shift got to sleep through the night 90% of the time, the Gynecology Department was always flooded with patients at night. It was rare for doctors of the Gynecology Department to get a good night’s sleep while they were on the night shift.
When Ling Ran woke up at three or four in the morning to carry out surgeries, the doctors he encountered the most frequently were those from the Gynecology Department. Certain doctors of the Gynecology Department were capable of performing seven or eight Caesarean sections a night, and it was normal for them to do so from sunset to sunrise. They stay up through the night so much that their biological clock was the same as those who went clubbing at night all the time.
Of course, the Gynecology Department was not peaceful during the day either.
The moment Ling Ran arrived at the Gynecology Department, two pregnant women were being wheeled into the elevator at the same time.
There were so many patients’ family members standing in the corridor that they looked like weeds that had grown haphazardly. They were scattered all over the place and were a total hindrance to those who wanted to make their way through the corridor. All of them were holding gifts and fruit baskets in their hands, and they were so elated that they were not there to visit someone in the hospital at all.
“Doctor Ling, come over here,” an experienced department director of First Division of Obstetrics Department, Fang Pingzhu said. She was so plump that her adipose tissue had smoothed out the wrinkles on her face.
Just like other departments in the hospital, the Obstetrics Department underwent another division a few years after the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department were divided into the Gynecology Department and Obstetrics Department. At the end of the day, it was because a few assistant department directors had gained more experience, and they want to become department directors. A series of conflicts ensued. Yua Hua Hospital did not want any assistant department director to jump ship to another hospital, as this would make the hospital less competitive. Hence, they had no choice but to divide the Obstetrics Department into the first division, the second division, and the third division. When this happened, two of the assistant department directors who had their own treatment group were promoted to department directors.
As for the two assistant department directors who had their own treatment groups but were unable to rise in the rankings and become department directors, they had no choice but to leave in dejection and head to hospitals lacking manpower so that they could become department directors.
However, being a department director in Yun Hua Hospital was obviously not the same thing as being a department director in some random local tertiary Grade A hospital.
Fang Pingzhu was the department director of the original Obstetrics Department, and she was old friends with Department Director Hong. This, coupled with the fact that Department Director Hong’s eldest niece was the patient who was suffering from postpartum hemorrhage, gave Fang Zhuping no choice but to let Ling Ran treat the patient even though she was very reluctant to.
Aside from this, Fang Zhuping had to make things as easy as possible for Ling Ran so that he would not end up with proof that Fang Zhuping treated him badly.
Doctors were unlike other occupations. For those working most jobs, helping or bending the regulations for other people would only bring them monetary gains or help them forge relationships with those people. In nicer terms, it involved matters related to reputation, dignity, happiness, and other such matters. and happiness.
Things were different for doctors, as they often had to deal with matters related to life and death. Take what was happening right now as an example. If Fang Zhuping were to stop Ling Ran from helping out, and Department Director Hong’s eldest niece ended up dying because of this, Fang Zhuping would not know how to explain things to Department Director Hong. And the woman’s parents would definitely feel extremely bad.
Ling Ran was recognized in Yun Hua Hospital as an expert in bleeding control, and the fact that he was able to do what a specialist who came over from Beijing to perform a freelance surgery was incapable of doing was proof of that. Even though there were certain differences between postpartum hemorrhage and hemorrhage experienced by patients in the General Surgery Department as well as the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, difficulty-wise, it was much easier to deal with postpartum hemorrhage. Fang Zhuping did not have the intention to test out Ling Ran’s abilities when it came to bleeding control either.
What was the point of testing him, anyway?
Why was the freelance surgeon hired in the first place? The patient’s family members wanted him to treat their father, who was in a critical condition. And even though it was against the hospital’s regulation, the hospital and the doctors had no choice but to give way to freelance surgeons from other hospitals, or even other regions.
Fang Zhuping was not so shameless to the point that she would stop the hospital’s bleeding control expert from treating a patient.
Of course, she was not too happy about it.
Fortunately, the patient had not arrived yet, so she had not started treating the patient. Hence, she did not need to suffer a loss of reputation.
“The ambulance ETA in two or three minutes,” a junior doctor reported.
Fang Zhuping hummed in acknowledgment. She glanced at Ling Ran and said, “Doctor Ling, do you want the patient to be sent over here or to be sent straight to the operating theater?”
She was referring to the operating theaters on the surgical floor.
“There’re two operating theaters in the Obstetrics Department, right? If any of them is vacant right now, just send the patient over here.” If the patient were to be sent to the surgical floor, what was the point of Ling Ran coming over here? He could have just treated her in the Emergency Department.
However, there were still certain differences between working in the Obstetrics Department and working in the Gynecology Department. The biggest difference was that they were dealing with two lives at once. No matter what surgical method was being used, not only did the doctor has to ensure that the mother stayed alive, but they also had to make sure that the baby was safe.
Facility-wise, especially when it came to the quality of the nurses and other assisting medical staff, the Obstetrics Department was more suitable than the Emergency Department.
Fang Zhuping hummed in acknowledgment and said, “Nowadays, all Caesarean sections are carried out in the operating theaters on the surgical floor. Hence, there’s an empty operating theater.”
The operating theaters in the Obstetrics Department of Yun Hua Hospital were constructed when Caesarean section was all the rage. Unlike the Orthopedics Department where doctors got to make plenty of money through the use of medical consumables, and the Neurology Department where doctors profited greatly from the medication prescribed, the doctors of Gynecology and Obstetrics Department neither got to prescribe a large amount of medication nor use a lot of medical consumables. Hence, Caesarean sections were basically the main source of income for doctors working in the Obstetrics Department.
Before the health system limited the number of Caesarean sections doctors that were allowed to be performed in proportion to the total number of pregnant women, hospitals like Yun Hua Hospital could perform an unlimited number of Caesarean sections.
At that time, the new ward building had not been completed yet. As the Obstetrics Department was dissatisfied with the number of operating theaters on the surgical floor available to them at one time, they built their own operating theaters so that they could operate on more patients. Aside from the Caesarean section, they also carried out surgeries on patients with ectopic pregnancy, hysterectomy, and other related surgeries. Aside from this, it was true that certain surgeries carried out by the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department could not be delayed. Fang Zhuping was able to make a name for herself because she completed a Caesarean section in twenty seconds and saved the life of a hypoxic baby.
After strict regulations on Caesarean section were imposed, the operating theaters in the Obstetrics Department were only used for surgeries such as hysteroscopy. Even though the operating theaters were much less frequently used, they were well-equipped. It was just that the facilities and equipment were a little dated.
“Prepare more bags of blood,” Ling Ran said and turned to look at Fang Zhuping. “Chief Physician Fang, can you check on the patient later? If the patient’s pain tolerance is low, administer general anesthetics before carrying out exploratory laparotomy. Zuo Cidian, talk to the patient’s family members and let them sign the notice of critical illness and informed consent forms. Aside from this, you must tell the patient’s family members that the patient is in a critical condition, and we’ll have to carry out a hysterectomy if there’s a need for it.”
“Roger!” Zuo Cidian answered loudly. Even though he was forty-three years old, his expression was so determined that he looked like a student undergoing military training. The doctors and nurses of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department turned to look at him when they heard his voice.
Zuo Cidian tilted up his chin proudly. He had been waiting for a chance to butter up to Ling Ran for almost a month.
He found it a lot more useful to make Ling Ran look good in front of the doctors and nurses of other departments compared to saying flattering words to Ling Ran.
Suffering a slight loss of dignity in front of other people was the least of Zuo Cidian’s concern.
He was a forty-three-year-old resident doctor, and even though he had almost completely gone bald, he still had to carry out the same tasks as junior doctors who were only a little over twenty years old. Why would he care about his dignity?
The young doctors whispered to one another, and Fang Zhuping was not surprised at all as she looked at Ling Ran.
Fang Zhuping was an experienced department director of the Obstetrics Department’s First Division, and she was once the only department director in the Obstetrics Department. Even before the associate chief physicians working under her started their rebellion, no one had ever flattered her like that.
“Department Director Fang, I’ll have to ask for your help if there’s a need for hysterectomy.” Even though Ling Ran was very familiar with the structures in the human abdomen, he had never carried out hysterectomy before.
Fang Zhuping hummed noncommittally. She was more or less affected by what Zuo Cidian had just done.
