After waiting for about three minutes, the door opened.
Fang Qiu finally got his first patient.
“There are 25 patients. I need to diagnose and get the right medicine and boil the medicine for each patient.”
“It takes an hour to boil the medicine for each person. Although there are 25 pots available, the interval between the two pots is so long. It will take seven or eight hours even if I treat the patient and boil the medicine at the same time.”
“And I also need time for lunch.”
“Then I have to go back to school to change my clothes before going to the practice meeting at 7:00 p. m. There’s not enough time.”
Fang Qiu was thinking to himself.
The first patient had come to the diagnostic desk.
“There is no time. I have to feel the pulses with both hands to buy myself some time,” Fang Qiu thought.
With this in mind, he started to diagnose.
He started to ask the patient some questions while feeling the pulses with both hands.
People in the conference room were witnessing what he was doing.
A group of elders who were drinking tea were startled and spat out the tea immediately.
“What is he doing?” an old man asked, pointing at Fang Qiu.
“Does he know how to diagnose?” asked another old man.
“Don’t you think this kid is feeling the pulses with both hands?” asked the round-faced old man.
Hearing that, the rest was in a state of shock.
Ordinary people were not able to learn this method. Only a few of the famous doctors could do that.
At first, no one would believe that Fang Qiu knew this method.
But taking a closer look, they found that Fang Qiu was really feeling the patient’s pulses with both hands!
“This kid is not ordinary.”
“How did he know this method?”
“Maybe he’s just trying. No matter how awesome he is, it is impossible for him to learn to feel the pulses with both hands in such a short time.”
“Did he only study Chinese medicine for half a year?”
While the elders were in shock, Fang Qiu was diagnosing as fast as he could.
This was a female patient in her 50s.
After asking her some questions, Fang Qiu learned that she had suffered from chronic superficial gastritis for five years. About a year ago, she also had dysentery for five months. Since then, she would feel the abdominal pain while moving her bowels.
“Are there any other symptoms besides abdominal pain?” Fang Qiu felt the pulses and asked.
“I always feel out of strength and my heart races fast sometimes. I also suffer from poor sleep at night,” replied the patient.
“Any recent diarrhea or constipation?” he asked.
“No,” the patient shook her head.
“I see.” Fang Qiu nodded.
After observation, he found that she got a pale tongue and weak pulses. Judging from the patient’s symptoms, Fang Qiu believed that this woman could use a kind of medicine that could warm meridians.
Fang Qiu started to write a prescription.
“Evodia Rutaecarpa 10g, cinnamon 10g, pinellia ternata 10g, liriope 10g, cortex moutan 10g, codonopsis pilosula 20g, colla corii asini 10g, angelica sinensis 10g, white peony root 15g, glycyrrhiza 6g, ginger 3 pieces.”
After he finished writing the prescription, Fang Qiu went to the medicine cabinet to get the medicine.
There was an electronic scale on the medicine cabinet.
Fang Qiu was fast when he was picking the medicine. He barely made any deviation when he put the medicine on the electronic scale.
Actually, Fang Qiu was confident that he didn’t need an electronic scale.
But he was having an examination, and it would cause the dissatisfaction of the judges and patients if he didn’t use the scale, so he still weighed the medicine and took it down immediately.
When he was done, he immediately put all the medicine into the pot and added some mineral water to soak the medicine.
Fang Qiu didn’t specifically learn how to boil the medicine before. When he was in Puji Clinic in Qimen Town, he needed to help boil the medicine every day, so he had learned something about it. Feng Xuexin also had told him something about boiling. Fang Qiu also had done it when he saw patients by himself before. Therefore, it was not difficult for him to do this.
“All right, please wait outside. When the medicine is ready, I’ll call you,” Fang Qiu said to the patient as he came back to the desk.
The patient left while she heard that.
Then the second patient entered the room.
Fang Qiu looked at the door. This time, it was a plump woman with yellowish complexion.
“Good morning, ma’am. Please have a seat.”
When the patient sat down, Fang Qiu smiled and nodded. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked.
“I feel dizzy.”
The woman opened her mouth and said, “I always get dizzy, especially after work.”
“Apart from dizziness, are there any other symptoms, such as nausea, tinnitus or insomnia?” he asked.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “Just dizziness.”
“Well, please open your mouth and let me have a look.” As he watched the patient’s tongue, he began to feel her pulses with both hands.
When he finished, he immediately wrote out the prescription.
“Astragalus membranaceus 60g, cinnamon 10g, red peony root 30g, Ligusticum wallichii 15g, the root of kudzu vine 80g, and date 20g.”
From treating the patient to picking the medicine, Fang Qiu was quite smooth.
In the conference room, several elders couldn’t help but nod while looking at his performance.
“I don’t know if he’s a good doctor or not, but from what I’ve seen so far, this guy is at least very experienced.”
“Yeah, he looks good.”
“It’s really impressive if he could get to that level after only six months of study.”
Then they turned to look at another room.
“He’s not bad, either.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s because he had been learning medicine since he was a kid. He was quite careful. He didn’t rush or slow down.”
“Yeah, nice and steady.”
“Traditional Chinese medicine is all about stability.”
Several elders nodded in agreement.
After seeing the second patient quickly, Fang Qiu immediately got up to take the medicine and then soaked it.
Soon the second patient left. The third came in.
Fang Qiu continued to diagnose.
After diagnosis, he still did the whole process smoothly.
After he soaked the third patient’s medicine in the water, Fang Qiu immediately went to the first pot and added some water to it. He didn’t boil it until the water had covered all the medicine. And he kept it on medium heat.
After he finished, he returned to the desk.
He didn’t get the medicine in the second and third pot and just left them soaked in the water.
The fourth patient came in.
The staff member also came in and took away three prescriptions that Fang Qiu wrote out.
Fang Qiu knew it was a routine check.
After all, this was a one-on-one test. And they took the real patients as the test, so the Chinese Medicine Association needed to take it seriously.
It didn’t matter whether people who took the exam could cure or save patients. They must take the prescriptions out for inspection.
Firstly, they needed to avoid wrong diagnoses and prescriptions.
Secondly, they were afraid that it may cause damage to the patient’s physical and mental health if they used too many drugs.
Fang Qiu continued to see his patients.
After the staff member got the prescriptions, they immediately sent them to the conference room.
The elders didn’t directly check the prescriptions until they were familiar with the three patients’ conditions.
When they looked at the prescriptions carefully, they couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Impressive.”
“He’s amazing!”
“With such strength, no wonder that he could win the Feeling Pulse Challenge at such a young age.”
“He is quite fast and accurate while writing his prescriptions. Nothing more or less. He is really talented. I think he’s very experienced.”
“Now I’m curious. If it only took him six months, how did this kid get to this point? Even a genius can’t do that.”
As the discussion carried on, these old men grew more and more surprised and curious.
“He can reach this level by learning for six months. Even if he really is a genius, he couldn’t have taught himself how to do it without a teacher. Who could he be to teach such a great student?”
“I’m afraid the boy’s master must be someone who is really powerful.”
“Who will be his master?”
“In my opinion, even with the help of a master, an ordinary student can’t reach this level.”
“That’s right.”
“Yes, with feeling the pulses on both hands and the perfect prescriptions, this boy’s strength is far beyond our expectation.”
While the elders were impressed by Fang Qiu’s capacity, he had seen his sixth patient.
After picking the medicine of the sixth patient and soaking it in a pot, Fang Qiu immediately went to the second pot, filled it with water, covered the medicine in the pot, and boiled it on fire.
Then he immediately moved to the first pot of medicine.
He poured the juice of the pot into a bowl to about 150 to 200 ml. After pouring, he added some warm water and cook it for a second time.
Then he returned to the desk, sat down again, and continued to see his patient.
In the meantime.
“Pitter-patter…” There was the sound of footsteps outside the conference room.
One of the staff walked into the conference room with three prescriptions.
“Whose prescriptions are these?” an old man asked as soon as he entered the room.
“They’re from Fang Qiu,” the staff member replied.
“So soon?” Although they had been watching Fang Qiu’s performance through the monitor, they didn’t expect that he could be so fast.
Besides, Yu Ziyuan, the disciple of the famous doctor Lu Chen, hadn’t finished his first round of prescriptions.
But Fang Qiu had already written out six prescriptions.
There was no doubt that Fang Qiu had already beaten Yu Ziyuan in terms of speed.
However, this was an examination that contained 25 patients in it. He just saw six patients. Although Fang Qiu was fast and made perfect prescriptions in the first round, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t make a mistake later.
As for the elders, if you did it quickly, you might make a mistake. But if you did it slowly, you could play it safe.
No matter how talented and fast Fang Qiu was, he would end his exam if he made any mistake, which meant he would fail.
Different from Fang Qiu, Yu Ziyuan was quite steady.
Therefore, even if he was slower than Fang Qiu, those elders didn’t think that he was worse than him, because they believed he wouldn’t make a mistake.
Just as the old men were receiving their prescriptions, there was another sound of footsteps.
There came the first round of Yu Ziyuan’s prescriptions.
