The Surgeon's Studio

Panda Novel

After the surgery, Zheng Ren jotted down the emergency meeting minutes and the details of the surgery. Then, he went for his usual ward rounds.

Chang Yue was in one room, chatting with the family members. Zheng Ren did not consider it slacking off as communication was part of a doctor’s responsibility.

If Zheng Ren and Chang Yue were to fuse into one person, they would be the perfect doctor.

Hmm, the thought was slightly disturbing. Zheng Ren shook his head and crushed the idea.

The patients in the ward were doing well, and some were even being discharged.

Most of the patients were locals who opted to leave once they regained mobility. Even a single room in the hospital could not compare to the comfort of one’s own home.

Those who stayed in triple-bedroom wards had to deal with overcrowding as visitors flitted in and out. Sometimes, it felt hard to breathe in such rooms, and patients were thus often eager to be discharged from the hospital.

The hospital did not have many foreign patients as Sea City was neither the blessed city nor the vice city of the nation1. Regardless of medical insurers’ pleas to remain in the hospital, patients were still discharged accordingly.

The last room had Cen Meng’s uncle.

Cen Meng was in the room reading as his uncle rested with closed eyes.

It was an open surgery, so recovery was much slower.

There had been patients who left the hospital just one day after laparoscopic surgeries.

Zheng Ren had even heard of escaped patients gorging themselves and developing pancreatitis as a result.

Zheng Ren entered the room and gave Cen Meng a faint smile. There was nothing to say between the two of them. Now, it was strictly a relationship between doctor and patient’s family.

He meant Cen Meng no harm but was not about to forgive the man. Even though Cen Meng had knelt before him in sincere apology, Zheng Ren held onto his grudges.

The awkwardness between the two was palpable to Chang Yue.

She ignored the two chief residents and headed straight to the patient’s bed to start chatting with the patient.

The conversation captured Zheng Ren’s attention and he found out Cen Meng’s uncle was a fan of Japanese cuisine. Generally speaking, Japanese cuisine was mostly based on ocean fish which had relatively fewer parasitic worms.

There were unscrupulous businesses in the country that intentionally served freshwater fish as ocean fish. Freshwater fish had a higher incidence of parasitic worms. Ingestion of these infected fish could lead to a case like that of Cen Meng’s uncle.

Of course, luck and consumption volume were at play here.

Zheng Ren had once met a septuagenarian who loved essential oil massages. He had the habit of getting said massages twice a day. Three months later, he developed acute kidney failure due to overexposure to some unknown substances in the essential oil.

At the end of his ward round, Zheng Ren was very impressed with Chang Yue.

She was impassive toward him but incredibly sincere when dealing with patients. She knew about Cen Meng’s uncle’s love for fresh seafood and proposed a recovery plan with that in mind. The hospital was lucky to get a resident like her.

Zheng Ren had no doubts that Chang Yue would never treat him with such warmth. Without much fanfare, he went back to his office to do some reading.

He was a single dog for a reason.

Zheng Ren was a homebody, his home being the office and the operating theater.

As the days passed, the weather got colder, and yet the emergency department was heating up.

In two days, Zheng Ren treated eight acute appendicitis patients and four with acute cholecystitis.

The long-term main mission was to become the best general surgeon. He still had six unused skill points from surgery completions. Among the eight appendectomies, two had perforation at the appendix while one was gangrenous. Based on their classification, the three procedures were second-grade surgeries which warranted double points. From the appendectomies alone, Zheng Ren was awarded 11 completion points.

The four cholecystectomies were done through laparoscopy and thus considered a third-grade surgery. He gained 16 points for them.

A total of 27 points were added to his store. He also completed three main missions related to the vascular system, giving him another three points.

From all this, Zheng Ren was rewarded with 30 skill points and 3000 experience points, reaching a total of 1549 experience points1. After all those surgeries, his general surgery skill tree was up to 2065 points.

He was one step closer to the Master rank. His heart was filled with glee.

Zheng Ren just needed to focus on completing surgeries. He never thought this day would come. When he was with the first general surgery department, the surgeries were all done by the chief resident and he had no chance to learn.

This was hands-on experience. As older doctors would say, even the dumbest person would be able to perform an appendectomy after practicing a hundred times.

It was all about practice.

Going home was unnecessary to Zheng Ren. He figured that he should simply take a day off and move his belongings to the hospital.

At the house, he ran into Xiao Zhao and they talked for a while.

The livestream had initially been a huge success but reports of it being a breach of privacy soon emerged.

Hence, Xiao Zhao’s livestream was suspended.

Xiao Zhao was not saddened by the fact. Instead, he believed this was a blessing in disguise. He was in the midst of testing a few public websites, as he planned to edit the surgery videos and upload them to an open access site.

Zheng Ren was amused by Xiao Zhao’s eagerness.

Zheng Ren had no brains for business and marketing. He knew nothing about Weibo or other public websites and thus left such matters to Xiao Zhao. He only urged Xiao Zhao to keep it on the down-low.

Packing a suitcase with some clean clothes, Zheng Ren went back to the emergency room.

As he stepped into the corridor, he saw a detestable figure.

Su Yun had an unmistakable profile. Zheng Ren had a severe, irrevocable case of face blindness but Su Yun’s face still stood out.

There was only one figure standing in the hallway and Zheng Ren recognized Su Yun immediately.

“Chief Zheng, I’m reporting in.” Su Yun noted the suitcase behind Zheng Ren but made no moves to help. He leaned against the wall, striking a pose that seemed juvenile to Zheng Ren.

For a moment, Zheng Ren felt that Chu Yanzhi and Su Yun would make a good couple. Chu Yanzhi also had that childish habit of cheering for herself before an anesthesia procedure.

However, Chu Yanzhi was much more tolerable since she was a young and pretty lady.

Su Yun, on the other hand, was inexcusable.

Zheng Ren tamped down his disgust and forced a smile. “Why are you here?”

“I’m reporting in, didn’t you hear? Did the radiation exposure damage your auditory nerve? Or maybe the nephrotoxicity caused a loss of hearing? That’s a bit over-the-top from just one procedure,” Su Yun answered.

This man deserved a beating.

Zheng Ren cursed internally. He lost out in looks and wit when it came to Su Yun. He walked away with his suitcase, ignoring the man.

“What’s wrong? Am I not welcome?” Su Yun doggedly followed Zheng Ren all the way to the on-call room. He leaned against the doorframe like a boneless person with a mysterious smile on his face.

“Not really,” Zheng Ren said, “You should report to Old Chief Physician Pan. I doubt he would want someone like you.”

“He already agreed.” Su Yun showed a charming smile.

“Oh? How did you convince him? Are there insufficient personnel in the emergency department?” Zheng Ren asked as he sorted his things. He avoided looking at Su Yun, fearing that his self-control would fail to prevent him from kicking the man.

“I’m here to partner with you. That’s not the main reason of course. After all, you can perform solo surgeries,” Su Yun continued, “I’m here to solve the shortage of nurses in the department.”

Su Yun? Nurses? Shortage?

Zheng Ren identified the three keywords in Su Yun’s explanation.