Chapter 38: The young woman who wants to be a surgeon

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Zhang Fan entered a regular routine at his new job. Since the medical license exam results wouldn’t be out until December, he was still unable to perform outpatient services as he was without a medical license. He typically stayed in orthopedic department #1, performing surgeries whenever there were surgeries, and helping with patients whenever there weren’t any surgeries. The people in orthopedic department #1 also accepted Zhang Fan.

“He’s quite a solid fellow,” Xue Fei said about Zhang Fan. Xue Fei had a rash personality, but he was an alright person. “Zhang Fan, let’s go eat together. You can just leave the medical reports to the medical specialist doctor. You’re personally writing the report?” He now had an alright relationship with Zhang Fan.

“Brother Xue, you’re finished with your work? Just wait a little while for me. I’m almost done writing the report, I’m on the last section of room check times. Shall we go to the hospital cafeteria?”

“We’re going outside to eat. Come, and bring the little sister of your department. I’ll treat you today.” The female medical specialist doctor in Zhang Fan’s team was named Wang Yanan. Although she had technically already finished her studying time in orthopedic department #1, she still didn’t want to leave. The hospital’s administrative department didn’t care enough to do anything about it. Wang Yanan was typically icy to everyone, but she had a nicer attitude towards Zhang Fan who was such a skilled surgeon.

Most people in Wang Yanan’s family worked in the medical field. Her uncle was the director of the Bureau of Public Health in Chasu City. When she said that she wanted to work in a surgical department, Superintendent Huang Yun had neither directly agreed or disagreed. Basically, as long as a surgical department was willing to take her in, she could go there. If not, she would have to obediently go to gynecology, pediatrics, or internal medicine.

Wang Yanan was currently working together with Zhang Fan. She was truly impressed with Zhang Fan’s skills. During a night shift, Zhang Fan had previously asked her, “Why do you want to work as a surgeon? All orthopedic surgeries involve intensive physical labor. Will you be alright?”

“Women have to deal with far more than that, and it’s not like you’re the muscular type! If you can do it, why can’t I!”

“Why don’t you try microsurgery? It should be easier for women to perform microsurgery.”

Zhang Fan was looking down on her. While there were indeed female surgeons, they were incredibly rare. Surgery was almost completely dominated by men.

The four seasons of the year were incredibly distinct in Chasu City. There would be a great snowfall in winter, and the temperature would go below -20 degrees Celsius. In the summer, it would burn with high thirties in degrees Celsius. Fall was the most comfortable season, with fragrant fruit aromas everywhere.

Orthopedic department #1 split up into teams. Zhang Fan had suppressed the two attending physicians, so neither of them wanted to do joints anymore. Thus, it became Zhang Fan leading a four-person team focused on orthopedic surgeries for joints consisting of the two second-highest level certification doctors along with Wang Yanan, who refused to leave the orthopedic department. Gao Shijun led the other team together with his two attending physician disciples and several medical specialists to focus on spine orthopedic surgeries.

Zhang Fei tried his best to make friends with the two attending physicians, Xue Fei and Zhou Chengfu. This helped ease their relationship, and the two attending physicians no longer disliked him as much. Zhang Fan never tried to steal their patients from them. However, Zhang Fan still adamantly took all surgery opportunities he could. This made Xue Fei and Zhou Chengfu feel rather helpless.

“I’m still at least an attending physician. Could you please give me some face? You make surgeries that I’m incapable of performing look so easy. How am I supposed to stay here in the future?”

“Brother Xue, it’s truly not what you think. I have a problem. I can’t help but want to personally perform any surgeries that I see. If I don’t get to perform the surgery, I’ll feel like a cat’s scratching my heart. How about this: every time that I perform one of your surgeries, I’ll record the patient under you. Do you think this will work in the future?” Zhang Fan was being incredibly shameless for the sake of leveling his System.

“You’ll give me patients? It’ll be easy to talk to Old Li about this, but Old Cui isn’t that easy to talk to.”

“I really can’t help it. It’s like obsessive-compulsive disorder for me to want to perform surgeries.”

“I’m truly amazed by you. What kind of obsessive compulsion is this? Remember, from now on, whenever I’m on the night shift, I’ll give all emergency treatment patients over to you. But, I can’t give you the ordinary surgeries. Old Gao thinks that I’m bullying you, making you do all the work.” Xue Fei was already being quite roundabout with his words. It was already like this within the same department, so what about between different departments?

Zhang Fan was supposed to be an orthopedic surgeon, yet he also kept running to the general surgery department’s operating room. He then performed a gastrectomy quite easily, but what about the face of everyone in general surgery? Zhang Fan felt quite frustrated about all of this. He needed far too much experience still to level up general surgery. However, there was no helping things here. He could only focus on leveling orthopedic surgery to level 3 first.

The apartment that Kang Hua loaned to Zhang Fan was truly impressive. It had two bedrooms and a living room, and was on the third floor. This wasn’t too high or low, and it had good lighting. It was also fairly close to Chasu City Hospital. Originally, Li Hui had wanted to rent a room from Zhang Fan, but Zhang Fan refused. He felt that Li Hui was someone who played around with girls too much. Previously, Wang Sha had mostly been able to suppress Li Hui, but now that Li Hui was single and free, he became much wilder.

Since Zhang Fan decided to focus on leveling orthopedic surgery in his system, he completely stopped returning to his apartment, and started living in the hospital. He monopolized almost every single emergency treatment orthopedic surgery, causing orthopedic department #2 to greatly object.

Whenever Zhang Fan didn’t have anything to do, he would go wait at the emergency department. If any patients who required surgery arrived, he would take that patient to orthopedic department #1. Over the past entire month, orthopedic department #2 barely received any emergency treatment patients at all.

Zhang Fan’s behavior was rather high-handed. However, others couldn’t do anything about it. They could only complain to the superintendent.

“If you want, you can go wait at the emergency department as well. I won’t say anything if you do,” Huang Yun told them.

The emergency department doctors were absolutely delighted by this. They didn’t need to deal with any emergency treatment patients who required surgery, as Zhang Fan took care of every single surgery patient for them. Xi Zhen, the director of the emergency department, even secretly asked Zhang Fan, “Do you want to switch to our emergency department instead? As long as you’re willing to come, I’ll instantly ask the superintendent to reassign you to my department.”

Li Hongtu and Cui Pingjun were also highly satisfied with Zhang Fan. Not only was Zhang Fan a hard worker, he had zero objections to however they wanted to split the medical equipment fees. He was even willing to give up 10% of his own share and give it to Wang Yanan, the fresh graduate medical specialist doctor. Zhang Fan was willing to sacrifice his personal financial benefits, and his only request was that he be allowed to perform as many surgeries as possible as the primary surgeon. Cui Pingjun was quite happy to be able to receive money without having to do any work.

Wang Yanan was also quite hardworking. She loved working in surgery to begin with, and was also influenced by seeing Zhang Fan work so hard. Although she wasn’t as ridiculously hardworking as Zhang Fan, she typically stayed in the hospital whenever she didn’t have anything else to do. Any time that Zhang Fan brought a patient over, she would help him with the surgery as his surgical assistant. After the surgery, the patient would be recorded under either Li Hongtu’s or Cui Pingjun’s name, and everyone was happy.

“If you keep acting like this, I won’t be your surgical assistant next time. All I’m doing every day is holding surgical retractors for you.” Zhang Fan had agreed to let Wang Yanan sew the surgical sutures at the end for this surgery, but he forgot about it, and did everything himself as he typically would during a surgery. Wang Yanan had hesitated to say anything during the surgery, so Zhang Fan finished everything by himself. Since Zhang Fan and Wang Yanan were approximately the same age, this made Wang Yanan rather unhappy.

“I’m really sorry. I honestly just forgot. I’ll definitely let you do the surgical sutures next time.”

“Zhang Fan, everyone in orthopedic department #2 hates you now. Yesterday, the director of their department was angrily scolding their department’s doctors. Your department’s number of surgeries is almost double their number,” said a nurse in the operating room.

“Hey, if they want, they’re free to also hang out in the emergency department and wait for new patients.” Wang Yanan was quite direct with her words. The nurse was rendered speechless.

“Hey, don’t be so direct, alright? You made her unhappy,” Zhang Fan said after the nurse left the room.

“That’s just how I am!”

“Do you still want to perform surgeries in the future or not?! You have to maintain a good relationship with the nurses. They can help you arrange surgeries faster than anyone else.”

“Hmph!” Wang Yanan wrinkled her nose, but she had to admit that Zhang Fan was correct. Both of them had the position of resident doctor, and in addition, neither possessed a medical license yet. They were basically on the lowest rung of the hospital ranking system. If she had a bad relationship with the operating room nurses, that would become quite troublesome.

The nurses could complain that you were being too slow, or that you were wasting too much cloth. The constant complaints could really make you uncomfortable. Moreover, between doctors and nurses, nurses were even lower in ranking in comparison, which meant that the nurses were far friendlier to each other compared to the doctors, and all acted as far more of a group. If you made one nurse angry, all the nurses would try their best to make surgeries as difficult for you as possible.

“Sigh! Each person has a worse temper than the previous.” Zhang Fan shook his head.

Zhang Fan’s income at a bigger hospital like Chasu City Hospital had also increased. Although his base salary was the same, his bonus and kickbacks had increased quite a lot. Every month, Zhang Fan wired 1000 yuan to his younger sister. His younger sister was now in her third year of high school, the most critical and tense moment. He didn’t want her to worry about not having enough money, which would distract from her studies.