The Surgeon's Studio

It was late night and Zheng Ren was about to drift away into dreamland. However, soft whispers could be heard from the bed in front of him.

“How in the world did you practice your surgeries, Chief Zheng? From the way you look, you don’t seem to be blessed with talent at all, but somehow your surgical skills are in fact impeccably impressive. Could I possibly have been wrong?”

“…” Zheng Ren cursed internally.

He had decided to ignore Su Yun by pretending to be asleep.

“So not attending a university meant you had absolutely no experience speaking to anyone all night?” Su Yun was still talking to himself.

“I say, you were completely blackout drunk last night after an entire night of binge drinking. Don’t you want to at least get some sleep?” Zheng Ren could no longer hold back as he brutally ripped at Su Yun’s emotional wounds.

“What’s a little booze gonna do, anyway? I was unprepared then, so next time I’ll show that little nuisance what a truly strong alpha male is capable of.”

As expected, Su Yun was not the slightest bit bothered by Zheng Ren’s verbal assault and continued to brag as usual.

However, Zheng Ren was content as he knew a person like Su Yun was shameless beyond imagination.

“Chief Zheng, how exactly did you hone your surgical skills?”

“I’d be able to master it after watching it done once. I never had the chance to practice back then,” Zheng Ren replied, brushing him off.

“Who would’ve known you and I are literally the same, the only difference being the way you look. You look way too bland. If you had made the effort to actually focus entirely on your studies, I’d be forced to endure endless annoyance,” Su Yun teased.

Zheng Ren was once again speechless. Su Yun was known for his silver tongue, but it seemed that every single statement escaping his mouth would end the conversation with a huge, tight slap across his face.

After a brief moment of silence, Su Yun spoke again: “I really envy you. Every man wishes nothing more than to be free, free to fly across the sky with nothing holding them back. Unfortunately for me, though, I am fated to sink under an ocean.”

“An ocean?” Zheng Ren was puzzled by his statement.

“An ocean of women. If it wasn’t for my unbreakable will resisting their temptations, I would’ve been long dead in that vast, bottomless sea.”

Zheng Ren was no longer interested in speaking to such a pretentious man. He proceeded to cover his entire head with his blanket with both his ears tightly muzzled, allowing him to clear his mind and fall asleep quicker.

A full night of absolute silence went by.

The snow had stopped and the next day was greeted with clear skies. It was another lovely day full of life.

Since the roads were unusually slippery, everyone was similarly late to work due to heavy traffic.

However, since people were now more aware, no fatal or serious road accidents occurred, barring some minor scrapes and bumps.

During the start of the morning shift, Old Chief Physician Pan grew impatient and decided not to wait for anyone else as there were only a few people present. Hence, he brought along only Zheng Ren and Su Yun to routine room inspection.

The patients were stable post-surgery and judging from their current condition, if they followed through with treatment, they could be discharged and allowed to return home.

The patients under intensive care were all fine, so Old Chief Physician Pan led the duo to the gynecology department to check on the patient who had placental abruption.

They had assessed that patient before and had been told that she had stopped bleeding yesterday. If she were to start bleeding again after a day or two, she would have had to undergo medically induced labor.

The surgery had been a success, though, and she was now taking a nap.

The patient’s family was extremely grateful, as they had been completely terrified by the pre-operations briefing given by Chief Surgeon Su. They were all ecstatic to learn that the patient was safe and their hopes for another child were also preserved.

Old Chief Physician Pan had a brief conversation with Chief Surgeon Su at the hallway before bringing Zheng Ren and Su Yun to the ICU to check on the status of a patient’s extubation.

After surgery of a pelvic fracture with bladder rupture that had also been extubated, a patient would be transferred over to the orthopedics department for the next step of their treatment. This was done in order to transfer the patients who had gone through splenectomy and liver restoration surgery back into the emergency ward.

As they were about to leave, a wave of severe vomiting could be heard from down the hallway.

“Doctor! Doctor!” A patient’s family member yelled while frantically running out into the hallway.

“This is a hospital, please lower your voice,” Chief Surgeon Su said while pacing swiftly toward the medical ward.

Zheng Ren felt that the vomit sounded odd. It was too violent. It sounded nothing like morning sickness due to a pregnancy, but rather as if the patient would puke their entire stomach out.

He glanced over to Old Chief Physician Pan; as their eyes met, there was an unspoken endorsement and he followed Chief Surgeon Su into the ward.

The patient looked inhumanly pale with both hands shaking uncontrollably. Extremely nauseous, she was lying on her side, rocking back and forth and desperately trying to vomit but to no avail. Not even her gastric juices could be expelled.

It seemed like she had nothing left to hurl.

“Doctor, if there is really nothing you can do… just terminate her pregnancy.” From the emotional man’s tear-filled eyes, he was most likely the patient’s husband. His fists were clenched tightly.

Between the pregnant woman and her husband, it was obvious from their reactions that they were both absolutely determined to have a child. If they had never intended to do so, they would not have persisted this long.

“I…I still really want to keep it, no.” The pregnant lady managed a full sentence before once again violently vomiting.

Those words alone seemed to exhaust most of her strength; she was vomiting way too violently. In her current state, her body was curled like a giant shrimp and were it not for her baby bump, her head would have undoubtedly touched her feet.

Zheng Ren frowned at this sight as he recalled first looking upon her face earlier: seeing her huge eyes, full of life and spirit.

However, the problem was…

He glanced up toward the upper right corner of the System’s display.

As he expected, the patient’s diagnosis was similar to his initial judgement.

Zheng Ren proceeded to gently tug the edges of Chief Surgeon Su’s sleeves. He whispered to her, “Can I have a word with you, Chief Surgeon Su?”

“Sure.” Chief Surgeon Su was slightly displeased.

Since they were still undergoing room inspection and were currently dealing with a complicated patient, what could Zheng Ren, an emergency care doctor have in mind that could not be said later?

She simply glared at him.

“It’s about the patient’s condition. I have an unconventional thought in mind.” His voice was low enough for only the both of them to hear.

Su Yun simply stood behind Zheng Ren. He seemed to be thinking about something as he stared at the patient.

Chief Surgeon Su frowned and said, “Little Li, you can discuss this with the patient’s family. If they have no objections, the termination of her pregnancy can be approved.”

Some women had severe nausea during their pregnancy that did not ease up by the twelfth week. Instead, it would only grow increasingly severe throughout their entire pregnancy and leave them no choice but to terminate it

This was the same condition this patient was currently suffering.

It was the third time during the entire course of her pregnancy having symptoms of severe nausea. She was not new to this, and the severity of her extreme nausea required her to terminate her pregnancy.

Chief Surgeon Su turned around and left the room while Zheng Ren followed behind her.

The instant they left the room, she did not look back but instead went straight for her office.

“Speak now. What do you have in mind?” Chief Surgeon Su looked displeased.

Had it not been for Zheng Ren’s previous idea of an interventional embolization to save a patient suffering placental abruption, thus displaying his praiseworthy level of clinical knowledge, would a Class Three Grade A hospital chief surgeon even listen to a single emergency care resident’s advice?

What a joke that would be.

“Chief Surgeon Su, I think we should check the patient’s thyroid function.”

“Hmm?”

“I think the patient’s thyroid function might have some sort of underlying problem. She might be suffering from Graves’ Disease,” Zheng Ren explained patiently. Chief Surgeon Su’s bad mood did not stifle his argument.

It was not life-threatening, but the agony it caused was worse than being suffocated to death.

This was a living hell of absolute hopelessness and despair.

The sooner she was treated, the sooner this problem would be taken care of.

Zheng Ren never knew how to say things…in a polite manner.

“Graves’ disease occurs in one in twenty thousand cases.” Chief Surgeon Su contemplated in silence.

Such a rare disease was not a common conclusion to come to, since there were tens of thousands of patients with nausea during pregnancy, each with too many possible causes to list. It would be impractical to test every single patient.

There were plenty of doctors who ordered unnecessary tests and charged without reason. If these tests were carried out in order to eliminate every single possibility for the patient’s nausea, they would be sued beyond imagination.

Chief Surgeon Su grunted as she said, “Explain your reasoning.”

“The patient’s eyes were huge.”

“Good lord…” Su Yun immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter behind them.

Huge eyes; what kind of reason was this?