The buffet restaurant in Shangri-la Hotel in Yun Hua City was full and many banners had been hung on the walls.
Just like how Ling Ran who was from Yun Hua City itself brought Yu Yuan and Zuo Cidian along to the academic conference, most doctors who attended the conference brought along a subordinate or two. And all of them needed food. This was why the originally spacious buffet restaurant of the hotel was so crowded right now.
To those subordinates, the opportunity to stay in a five-star hotel and eat expensive hotel food was one of the very few perks of being a doctor. It did not matter if the room was comfortable, and it did not matter if their presence was required. At least, they got to milk it for what it was worth.
As for renowned senior doctors, they had been well-taken care of throughout the years in their respective departments and by pharmaceutical sales representatives. Hence, they slowly became gigantic babies who needed other people to attend to them.
There were many young doctors who were taking food and drinks for senior doctors, peeling the shells of prawns for senior doctors, giving senior doctors a leg massage, and mixing senior doctors’ salads…
Yu Yuan was a little dumbfounded. She was only a master’s graduate, and she had not even gotten her PhD yet. She was not treated well when she first started working in the hospital either. Hence, she rarely attended this kind of event, and she never had the chance to tend to her bosses either.
Zuo Cidian was also slightly dumbfounded. However, he had given a back massage to one of the leaders of the town hospital he used to work in. Hence, it did not take long for him to recover his senses and tend to Ling Ran just like what the other junior doctors in the restaurant were doing.
“Doctor Ling, you’re here.” Huang Maoshi walked around the restaurant after he arrived, and he could not help but breathe a sigh of relief when he saw Ling Ran. He said, “I should have arrived yesterday, but something came up and I couldn’t leave. I’m really sorry…”
“You should have arrived yesterday. But why are you apologizing to me?” Ling Ran gave Huang Maoshi a baffled look.
“Because I’m here to specifically tend to you,” Huang Maoshi said with a soft voice.
“So you’re apologizing to me because you’re late?” Ling Ran went along with the flow and came up with a logical conclusion.
Huang Maoshi nodded dumbfoundedly. He then regained his senses and chuckled dryly. “You didn’t notice that I wasn’t here?”
Ling Ran nodded.
Huang Maoshi tapped his forehead in exasperation. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so much.’
“Is Changxi Medical Company working together with Duco Medical Company nowadays?” Yu Yuan asked out of curiosity.
“Who’s there?” Huang Maoshi was shocked. He looked around carefully and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, it’s you, Doctor Yu.”
Yu Yuan said in exasperation, “My head is so large, and it’s above the table. How did you not see me?”
Huang Maoshi looked carefully and saw that Yu Yuan’s chin was almost parallel to the top of the table. When he looked at it like this, it looked like Yu Yuan’s head was placed on top of the table, and the more he looked at this, the more frightening the sight became.
“Did Changxi Medical Company or the organizer assign you to Doctor Ling?” Yu Yuan felt that it was better to get a clearer idea of this.
This was when Huang Maoshi regained his senses. He said obediently, “You can say that I’m assigned to Doctor Ling by the organizer of this academic conference. And yes, we are working more closely with Duco Medical Company nowadays. We are helping them out with quite a few of their projects in Changxi Province.”
Large drug manufacturers like Duco Medical Company were typical manufacturers. They mainly sold drugs and equipment, and their products were catered to a global market. Hence, they proactively organized all kinds of academic conferences, conducted market surveys overseas, and studied the relationship between their company and the consumers as well as their suppliers.
However, Duco Medical Company was not good at dealing with their end consumers: doctors. Hence, they often worked with suppliers for local hospitals. They would promise those suppliers a slice of their profit and ask those suppliers to deal with doctors and hospitals for them. This made things easier for them, and it was also more efficient.
However, Changxi Medical Company was both a manufacturer and a supplier. Even though they also produced certain medical consumables and drugs, they were also the direct supplier of many hospitals.
Of course, this was normal. Nowadays, there would be three or four hundred suppliers trying to sell their items to each tertiary Grade A hospital. So, it was not inappropriate for Changxi Medical Company to try to do something different.
“Doctor Ling, you will be giving a speech this afternoon, and you will be doing the demonstration before dinner. Do you think that this timeline suits you?” Huang Maoshi sat opposite Yu Yuan and read out Ling Ran’s schedule in a soft voice.
“No problem.” Ling Ran nodded.
Huang Maoshi breathed a sigh of relief. He should have arrived yesterday to confirm Ling Ran’s schedule for the day, but he accidentally crashed into a car while he was parking. The other party was not an amiable person, and he took quite some time to settle the matter. Of course, this was a normal occurrence in his dramatic life since he was a careless person. However, if he were to cause inconvenience to Ling Ran because of his mistake, Huang Maoshi was afraid that he would have ruined his whole life, and he would not have the chance to be careless again even if he wanted to.
Fortunately, Ling Ran had no problem with the schedule. Huang Maoshi then said with a smile, “Doctor Ling, you’ll be doing a PowerPoint presentation, right? I’ll give you the WeChat ID of one of the technicians of the conference later…”
He had been talking for half an hour when Yu Yuan cut him off. “Just talk to me about the details. There’s no need to trouble Doctor Ling with them.”
“You’re right. But I’ll be attending to all of you today, so I’ll handle all the miscellaneous stuff. I’ll go and get some food. Doctor Ling, is there anything you want?” Now that Huang Maoshi had said everything that he should, he quickly rose.
“Prawns,” Ling Ran replied. He then lowered his head and continued peeling off the shell of a large prawn with a fork and a pair of chopsticks.
Huang Maoshi glanced at it in curiosity and quickly went to get food.
His mission today was to follow Ling Ran around. This would not necessarily be useful, but it was very important for a renowned doctor to have someone attending to him on an occasion like this. It could even be considered a status symbol.
For example, those who were here alone were most probably associate chief physicians who were not that powerful. Associate chief physicians and chief physicians who had a treatment group would usually attend the conference with a subordinate whose task was to carry bags. Those subordinates were usually resident doctors who had just started working. They were obedient and strong, unlike junior attending physicians who were older, lazier, and more disobedient.
The status of doctors who came along with two subordinates was a lot higher. This was because the organizer merely had to provide those with a subordinate with a double room, but they had to provide those with two subordinates two rooms.
Doctors who had a pharmaceutical sales representative attending to him throughout the event were extremely rare. Huang Maoshi knew that he might not actually be able to help Ling Ran with everything, but he came anyway so that Ling Ran could showcase his status.
Huang Maoshi was actually quite happy about this.
After breakfast, the conference was held in the conference hall downstairs, and the renowned doctors in Changxi Province took turns giving speeches. They were from Yun Hua Hospital, Yun Hua Provincial Hospital, and People’s Liberation Army General Hospital. There were also several doctors from other cities and other provinces.
Before lunch, a few of the renowned doctors took the stage together. They praised each other and announced the launch of a “Choice of Instruments and Medical Consumables for Surgery” handbook that offered expert opinions [1], and it was the highlight of the conference.
There were many medical academic conferences nowadays. It was easy to organize a large-scale conference, but it was hard to organize one that would become the talk of the town.
A handbook with expert opinions did not carry as much weight as a handbook with an expert consensus [2], and its influence was nowhere near that of a manual’s. However, this was considered not bad given that they were only having an academic conference.
The doctors participating in the conference were glad to hear the speeches of the experts and the conversation between them. The attendees were starting to feel like their day did not go to waste.
Even though expert opinions were merely the personal opinions of one or more experts, only experts with years of experience who were renowned for what they did could pull it off. If this were not the case, it would be a total joke.
Of course, unlike expert consensus, there were no formal or informal procedures where the experts had to come to a consensus together when it came to expert opinions. However, this was the first step to forming a consensus.
In a way, the difference between expert opinions and the expert consensus was mainly the status of the experts involved instead of the content.
Extremely renowned experts in Beijing can choose to come up with either expert opinions or expert consensus. However, since experts in Yun Hua City were not qualified enough, they had no choice but to console themselves by coming up with expert opinions.
But no matter what, in this kind of occasion where expert opinions were announced, the experts involved would take their time to explain their thoughts and opinions as well as provide proof. It was a good learning opportunity for junior, intermediate, and senior doctors alike.
This was also when an academic conference became truly meaningful.
Ling Ran listened earnestly to them too. At some point, he expressed his personal opinion, “Their choice for the usage area of the titanium clip is too big. It’s not suitable.”
Yu Yuan was shocked, and she said subconsciously, “Doctor Ling, don’t raise that up now. You’ll offend other people.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Ling Ran nodded.
Yu Yuan’s sudden anxiety did not reduce because of Ling Ran’s reassuring reply, and alarm bells started ringing in her mind. “You really won’t?”
“Yes.”
“Then… when do you plan to talk about it?” Yu Yuan knew that Ling Ran would not be able to keep his opinion to himself forever.
She was obviously right. Ling Ran said calmly, “The speech I will be giving this afternoon will touch on some of the topics these experts are talking about. I’ll raise all my objections when I give my speech.”
Translator’s notes:
[1] Expert opinion: The opinions of one or more experts that have not gone through formal procedures where consensus has to be reached. (Source: Zhihu)
[2] Expert consensus: A consensus reached based on the experience of experts, and will be used in the production of a manual. It is usually a consensus formed by a team of medical experts from various fields regarding how to tackle a clinical problem. (Source: Zhihu)
