The Surgeon's Studio

Reading could increase skill points as well, but the increment was very minimal.

After one whole day of revision, Zheng Ren’s skill points in the general surgery skill tree had increased from 1690 to 1690.12…

Zheng Ren had no idea that the System’s skill points could go up to two decimal places.

‘When can the System assign a mission to me?’ Zheng Ren prayed eagerly.

Only the System’s mission could compel Zheng Ren to consume more than twenty hours of surgical intensive training in a targeted manner.

The day passed by uneventfully.

Normally, chief residents had to stay in the hospital all the time for at least half a year, but the same rules did not apply to Zheng Ren. After all, the emergency department could not perform major emergency surgery due to a lack of medical staff and wards.

The doctors on duty would call Zheng Ren regardless if they could not handle difficult cases.

Thus, Zheng Ren went home after work, continued his revision, washed up and slept.

The following days were dull and boring, and the System had become quiet with no new missions assigned to Zheng Ren, which made him curious and slightly anxious with anticipation.

Meanwhile, Old Chief Physician Pan would visit hospital management every day but with unsatisfactory results.

After five days of hard work, only a dozen nurses had been assigned to the emergency department. As for the doctors… Unfortunately, there was a shortage of doctors in every department.

In the end, the hospital management could not bear Old Chief Physician Pan’s well-timed visits every day and made him a promise—any doctor who agreed with the transfer would be assigned to the emergency department.

Old Chief Physician Pan fought the urge to curse. Why would he waste time and effort to ask for favors if the emergency department was so likable?

Well, he had no choice anyway.

After discussing this issue with Zheng Ren, he decided to take things slowly and strike while the iron was hot by storming appendicitis and cholecystitis cases.

Zheng Ren guaranteed that he could finish the surgery alone as long as nurses with basic skill levels were assigned to him, and with the secondment of two anesthesiologists, the emergency operating theater started to take shape.

Old Chief Physician Pan took credit for these achievements. None of them would have happened if the organizer had been someone else.

Five days later, Old Chief Physician Pan officially announced the establishment of the emergency operating theater and emergency wards, and that was when Zheng Ren finally received a mission from the System.

[General Mission: The Initial Construction of The Emergency Operating Theater.

[Task: Complete five cholecystectomies in the emergency department.

[Reward: 50 skill points and 1000 experience points. The higher the surgery completion rate, the greater the reward.

[Time: One week.]

The System spoke to Zheng Ren at last, which filled him with joy like rain after a long drought. It was simply too inefficient to increase his skill points by reading medical literature alone.

After one week of revision and various wound debridements and closures, Zheng Ren’s general surgery skill tree had increased from 1690 to 1692 points.

It would take thirty-three years for him to reach the Master rank at this rate.

That was precisely the time required for an ordinary doctor to reach higher positions.

However, Zheng Ren was an exception. He had the System, and he was proud of it.

A social gathering was inevitable in a newly established department because it was important for everyone to develop a sense of belonging in a foreign place.

Everyone was able to participate in the gathering as there were no patients at the moment. It would be impossible for the whole department to have a meal together once it was up and running.

Old Chief Physician Pan felt satisfied and complacent during the celebration as the emergency department had finally taken a crucial step toward the development of the emergency center under his impetus.

Regarding staff allocation… Medical staff was like water in a sponge. He could always get some by squeezing it a little harder.

The patients in the emergency department observation unit had known the department was going to receive an upgrade to the emergency center. Thus, they made silk banners in advance to show their sincere appreciation while joining the fun at the same time.

Sea City General Hospital emergency center would surely hold on to these silk banners well. In the future… Ahem… In case they were visited again, they could boast to doctors and nurses unfamiliar with them that they had given the silk banners because blah, blah, blah…

Even though there were no grand opening flower stands or red ribbon cutting ceremony, Old Chief Physician Pan was very satisfied upon receiving the patients’ heartfelt gratitude.

…

…

Cui Heming, a postgraduate student, had gone to Imperial Capital after his graduation from Project 211[1] to set up a business and established an internet company with a decent income of a few million yuan per year.

After his company had entered a successful transitional period, something annoying happened.

His mother had been suffering from tinnitus and dizziness recently. The attacks were frequent and she dared not be involved in any activity due to an increase in severity of symptoms afterward.

He was forced to put his work aside and return to Sea City so that he could bring his mother to the hospital for consultation.

The company’s repeated phone calls requesting instructions, as well as the fact that there had been no definitive diagnosis for his mother’s condition after visiting Sea City, Imperial Capital and Sorcery Capital, upset Cui Heming greatly.

He even encountered a strange diagnosis in Sea City General Hospital when a doctor in the emergency department asked his mother to get a tooth extraction. Could a tooth extraction cure tinnitus and dizziness? Cui Heming denied that claim with pure logic and probability granted by his high education.

It also made him realize that the medical standard of Sea City was very poor.

Even so, he had heeded the doctor’s advice for some inexplicable reason and brought his mother to Peking University Third Hospital in Imperial Capital for consultation.

He could not get a definitive diagnosis in the general outpatient department, and further consultation had to be made in the specialist outpatient department.

He then searched the internet and found a few well-reputed senior professors at Peking University Third Hospital. Everything had been simple thus far.

However, he was stumped by the process in the specialist outpatient department.

He went to queue very early in the morning but failed to acquire an appointment registration number for the department.

There were hundreds of people trying to make an appointment in the specialist outpatient department for medical advice. When Cui Heming stared at the crowd and overheard someone complaining about not being able to get an appointment registration number even after a month, anxiety gnawed at him further.

He made up his mind and purchased the registration number from a ticket scalper.

The normal registration fee for the specialist outpatient department was 100 Yuan, but the ticket scalper sold it at an inflated price of 5000 Yuan.

That was a little heart-wrenching, but Cui Heming endured it anyway.

His mother’s recovery was of utmost importance so that he could devote all his energy to his career. He could not possibly purchase that with a mere 5000 Yuan.

His consultation session was at three o’clock in the afternoon, so Cui Heming brought his mother to Peking University Third Hospital ninety minutes earlier.

He was thoughtful enough to place a small blanket on the hard plastic bench for his mother and sat like a statue so that his mother could lean on his shoulder. Her dizziness and tinnitus would aggravate after physical activity and this issue had troubled him for a very long time.

It was his turn at last. Cui Heming cheered up and pushed his mother in the wheelchair into the consultation room.

The specialist was an elderly professor with white hair that provided patients with a sense of security. Cui Heming made a simple comparison between him and the young goofball in Sea City General Hospital and ridiculed that brat numerous times in his mind.

After obtaining a detailed history and going through the imaging films Cui Heming had brought, the elderly professor asked Cui Heming to bring his mother for a few tests that he ordered.

‘Tests again! Bloody tests!!’ Cui Heming was losing his mind.

Even so, he put up with it and patiently brought his mother to undergo the tests. When he returned with the imaging films two hours later, the elderly professor was already preparing to leave work.

After hanging the CT films on the radiographic film viewer, the elderly professor put on a pair of spectacles with a presbyopic lens and studied them carefully for ten minutes.

“Has she had a dental implant in the last two years?” asked the elderly professor slowly.

“Yes,” answered Cui Heming.

“That’s weird.” The elderly professor pushed up his spectacles and pointed at an image of a denture. “Nowadays dentures are made of acrylic resin, but this is made of amalgam, which is very rare.”

“Huh?” Cui Heming was caught in a trance and a detestable figure appeared in his mind.

“Call your dentist and ask about the material used in her denture,” said the elderly professor as he started packing his belongings. It seemed like he was ready to get off work.

Cui Heming picked up his phone quickly. He was familiar with the dentist since he had been performing dental check-ups for his mother for more than ten years.

“The dentist in Sea City said that it was indeed made of amalgam.” Cui Heming put his phone away and admired the elderly professor even more. How knowledgeable was he to be able to figure out the material used just by looking at the imaging films?

“Nonsense!” The elderly professor was annoyed. “Here… Here…”

The elderly professor tapped his finger twice on the film. “There are two types of dentures. The first type is inlaid with gold which was very common a decade ago. Another type uses acrylic resin which is more popular nowadays. Two different metals will form a primary cell in the oral cavity and amplify bioelectricity. How can she not feel dizzy or have ringing in her ears in this condition?”

Cui Heming was slightly confused. He could not understand the elderly professor’s explanation but a familiar term stood out in his mind—a primary cell!

[1] A project of National Key Universities and colleges initiated in 1995 by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, with the intent of raising the research standards of high-level universities and cultivating strategies for socio-economic development.