Great Doctor Ling Ran

Chapter 118: Suddenly Understood

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After Lu Wenbin admitted the patient, he issued a few orders and quickly rushed back to the operating theater to help.

After a while, Nurse Wang Jia came out and checked the status of each patient’s preoperative preparation.

Young Tie quickly went forward and asked, “May I know where Doctor Lu is? He was here earlier.”

When Wang Jia saw that Young Tie was dressed in a large white coat and looked rather familiar, she said, “Lu Wenbin’s gone into the operating theater for a surgery. Which department are you from?”

There were more than a thousand authorized doctors in Yun Hua Hospital. There were also a few hundred postgraduate students and medical interns who were always on rotation. There were even more nurses compared to doctors, and together, there was easily more than three thousand medical staff in the hospital. For a medical staff to be known by everyone, he or she had to either be as disagreeable as Huo Congjun, or possess a few percent of Ling Ran’s handsomeness.

As Young Tie was neither, he was not qualified enough to be known outside his department. He could only pretend to be calm and say, “I’m Tie Bei, an attending physician from the Hand Surgery Department, and this is my relative. I’d like to talk to Doctor Lu about his condition.”

“If he has any special conditions, you can write it on a piece of paper, and I’ll pass it to them. You can also send a WeChat message directly to Doctor Lu.” As Wang Jia spoke, she lowered her head and continued with her task.

When Young Tie saw how busy Wang Jia was, there was nothing he could do. He still had to console Department Associate Director Pan’s elder sister and his other relatives. “Don’t worry, things are looking pretty good now. Doctor Ling is an amazing surgeon in our hospital, and there is a high success rate to the surgeries he performs.”

When Wang Jia heard that, she nodded without raising her head.

Her workload was no less than the doctors’. In fact, she had more responsibilities on her shoulders compared to the doctors. The checking of every single type of medication in the transfusion bottle itself was already an extremely annoying task. But it was an unavoidable task. There had been times in the hospital when the wrong transfusion was given to patients. Even though it did not really matter most of the time, in a few rare cases, emergency treatment had to be administered…

Apart from checking Zheng Qi’s transfusion bottle and how his preoperative preparations were going, she had to get the other two patients ready for surgery before Zheng Qi.

The high frequency at which Ling Ran carried out surgeries not only made himself busy, it also made everyone in the Emergency Department’s operating theaters busy.

Needless to say, it was the same for Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin. Their daily workload was not much lesser than Ling Ran’s. It was just that they were under less pressure. Moreover, the Emergency Department only had four operating theaters, and their surgical volume was not low to begin with anyway. Now that Ling Ran was carrying out almost ten surgeries a day, everyone there was tremendously busy. There was an increase in everyone’s workload, including circulating nurses.

Even the Department of Anesthesiology had to dispatch an extra anesthetist for them.

However, the staff of the Emergency Department did not dislike the amount of work Ling Ran had brought to them. On the contrary, they rather liked it.

The reason was they got to receive a sizable amount of surgery fees!

The basic work of doctors and nurses already made them very busy, and they were able to cope very well with a huge workload. The main point was the things they gained from being busy. Some of them gained their leaders’ appreciation, some gained their patients’ gratitude, some gained experience, some gained praise from their colleagues, while others made themselves busy just to get beaten up by their patients’ family members…

The toughest part of participating in Ling Ran’s surgeries was the high surgical volume. But the best part was also the high surgical volume.

Surgery fees were calculated based on the difficulty level of the surgeries and the number of surgeries performed.

For the suturing of each flexor tendon, Ling Ran would get almost 500 RMB. The first assistant would get around 150 RMB, and the anesthetist as well as the two nurses would get 30 RMB each. Even though it did not sound like a lot, it would still amount to a sizable sum since Ling Ran performed way too many surgeries.

Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin’s pockets were already overflowing with money. On average, they got to carry out at least four surgeries every day and receive 600 RMB. Their monthly salary was almost 20,000 RMB. For anesthetists, even though 30 RMB per surgery was not a lot, they were able to get an extra 6,000 or 7,000 RMB per month by participating in five of Ling Ran’s surgeries each day, then simply participating in two or three other surgeries by the side. As for the nurses, despite receiving an even lesser pay and only being able to participate in four or five surgeries a day as they had to carry out preoperative and postoperative preparations, they were able to get an extra 4,000 or 5,000 RMB per month. So, their efforts were pretty much not in vain.

In conclusion, even though the medical staff’s lives would be easier if they did not participate in the surgeries Ling Ran performed, their lives would not be easier by a large margin. There was always an endless list of tasks to be performed in the hospital. The medical staff hated to participate in rookie doctors’ surgeries the most because rookie doctors spent half an hour just to make the incisions and another three hours to carry out the surgeries themselves. The medical staff would then have to spend two hours looking for people to save the day. In the end, after standing for so long that their tendons become inflamed, the surgery fees they received would only be equivalent to fees for Level 2 surgeries.

In contrast, it was worth their time to participate in the surgeries Ling Ran performed.

Other than Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin who did not have a choice, the rest of the medical staff had the freedom to adjust their schedules. Based on the current situation, Ling Ran’s surgeries were quite sought after.

Due to that, the medical staff were extremely busy.

Young Tie was uneasy. Finally, he went to Doctor Zhou and said, “I want to follow Doctor Ling into the operating theater.”

There were indeed doctors who did not want to operate on their own relatives but still went into the operating theater to accompany them. Of course, some doctors were very aversive towards such things, and there were cases where conflicts happened because of that.

Young Tie could only hope that Doctor Zhou had the ability to help him.

As expected, Doctor Zhou paused and contemplated for a few seconds when he heard Young Tie’s request. Then, as Young Tie’s heart raced with anxiety, Doctor Zhou flashed him a heartwarming smile. “You can go into the operating theater if you want to. There are often people observing Doctor Ling’s surgery. You just have to keep quiet and not talk or chat. Besides, there can only be a maximum of five people in the operating theater. This is a new rule that was implemented to stop housemen and medical interns from crowding the operating theater.”

“I understand.” Young Tie nodded non-stop and praised Doctor Zhou, “Doctor Zhou, you are indeed someone who understands the anxieties of others. If you hadn’t told me all these things, I’m afraid, I’d still be thinking anxiously for a good solution.”

Doctor Zhou advised him again, “You can watch the operation because you’re a doctor. Don’t let the patient’s other family members in.”

“Of course.” Young Tie slapped his chest as assurance and quickly went to make preparations.

To prevent himself from displeasing others, Young Tie showered and changed into new underwear. He then wore clean scrubs and entered the operating theater. He arrived just in time.

Two MRI scans were hung in the operating theater.

Ling Ran had not put on his scrubs yet. He was looking at the scans with his hands crossed.

Ling Ran only turned to glance at Young Tie after he finished looking at the scans. When he saw that Young Tie was in the right attire, he nodded. He neither greeted Young Tie nor asked him anything.

Even though Lu Wenbin recognized Young Tie, he just stood where the first assistant surgeon was supposed to and did not say anything.

“Scalpel.” Ling Ran ordered Lu Wenbin to straighten the patient’s palm before he began the surgery by holding the scalpel in a pencil grip.

In the past, he only had his Specialist Level Fiddle Bow Hold. Even though it was very good for making incisions, it was slightly inadequate when it came to meticulous tasks. Some problems he used to encounter during the course of the surgery could only be solved by the Specialist Level Pencil Grip he obtained from the first wave of Patient’s Sincere Gratitude a while back.

The Specialist Level Pencil Grip was just as its name implied. While it was hard to exert great force when he held the scalpel in a pencil grip, it was very convenient when it came to making small incisions.

Zheng Qi—the patient lying on the operating table—had a laceration on the third finger of his right hand. There needed to be more exposure before suturing could be performed.

Young Tie watched as Ling Ran worked. He felt that even though the position in which Ling Ran made the incision was quite good, Ling Ran’s incision-making skills were only average. He could not help but furrow his eyebrows. ‘If this is the extent of his skill, any proficient surgeon from the Hand Surgery Department could do better even if they don’t use the M-Tang technique.”

“Retract.” Ling Ran’s voice was clear, and it immediately made the others in the operating theater focus their attention.

“All right,” Lu Wenbin quickly answered.

Young Tie looked over as Lu Wenbin spoke. He saw Ling Ran extending his hand downwards and fishing out the flexor tendon.

Senior Attending Physician Tie Bei’s gaze was immediately focused on Ling Ran’s hand.

The movement Ling Ran just performed was as difficult as the act of accurately fishing out a slab of fat from a hamburger patty made of lean meat. And during the process, the patty could not be broken even though it could be stretched. The lean meat could not be made to scatter, and could not lessen in amount. Plus, there could not be any empty spaces in the burger patty even if you could move the meat around. The slab of fat had to also be whole when it was brought out. Despite the fact that its juices could be squeezed out and some degree of damage on the slab of fat was allowed, you could not drop the slab of fat back into the patty…

Of course, even though you could do an MRI scan, Doppler ultrasonography, or CT scan on the hamburger patty made of lean meat beforehand, from what Young Tie knew, most doctors in the Hand Surgery Department relied on their naked eye to look for the flexor tendon.

After all, albeit making one look cool, saving time, and also posing little damage to the patient, it was not a decisive move.

The core to flexor tendon suturing was still the sutures themselves and the strength of the stitches.

“What the f*ck…” Young Tie could not help but swear loudly. As a person who was learning how to perform surgery using the M-Tang technique, he had to watch helplessly as Ling Ran finished suturing the tendon in two minutes. It was something he needed twenty minutes to do. The impact of the sight was absolutely… enraging!

‘Who do you think you are?’

When Young Tie looked at Ling Ran’s handsome face, which was obvious even when he was wearing a mask and a pair of surgical magnifying glasses, he was so furious that millions of cells in his body transcended.

‘Who do you think you are?!’

Ling Ran fished out another tendon as he made another incision.

He then made yet another incision and fished out another tendon. He returned the tendon to its position after suturing it.

Right then, Young Tie suddenly understood the sadness Pan Hua felt when he was smoking on the balcony.