Path of Medicine With a System

Chapter 194: Humble Superintendent Ouyang

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“No need to cry! Your dad can take care of everything. Look at you, even your eyes are swollen. You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?” Lu Renjia’s father hugged his daughter, feeling bad for her. His daughter had stopped relying on him ever since high school. She was quite the independent type, but today she had been so scared! Lu Renjia’s father really felt such pain in his heart from this.

“I just finished going to the bathroom and was washing my hands when a hoodlum tried to molest me. Zhu Bing knocked him down and told me to immediately go back to the private karaoke room. When I came back out again, he was already lying in his own blood! Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!” Lu Renjia was finally able to talk about the sadness in her heart, although she had nobody to talk to about her regret!

Inside the operating room, cardiothoracic Director Liu asked, “Doctor Zhang, will you be the primary surgeon, or shall I?”

Zhang Fan had a serious expression as he answered, “Director Liu, please allow me to do this surgery. This person is my friend. I was also present when he was stabbed. I’d feel so bad if I didn’t do something for him.”

“Alright, you’ll be the primary surgeon, then. I’ll be your surgical assistant.” Director Liu nodded in agreement. There was no helping it. He wouldn’t have asked any other doctor in the hospital regarding cardiothoracic surgery, but Zhang Fan was different. Zhang Fan was just as skilled as he was in cardiothoracic surgery, and Zhang Fan even had steadier hands because he was younger.

The surgery began. For this type of surgery, the doctor would typically enter the chest through the fifth rib, especially in an emergency. Opening up the chest would be more important than worrying about bleeding. Luckily, Zhu Bing just happened to be a situs inversus totalis, meaning that he had the rare medical condition where his internal organs were completely reversed from a normal person’s, transposed from left to right. Normally, the heart would always be on the left—this was just common sense already. Organ reversal was rare already, but Zhu Bing was the rarest type where every single organ in his body was reversed like a mirror, which had odds of less than 0.01%.

Zhu Bing had been the descendant of a police hero. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been even accepted into the police force with his body’s condition, as he would have been eliminated already by the physical checkups.

Zhang Fan eliminated the blood clots after opening up the chest and then located the point of bleeding. Although the bleeding didn’t come from a major blood vessel, this blood vessel wasn’t minor, either. Zhang Fan swiftly pressured with his fingers while telling the anesthesiologist and operating room nurse, “Increase the rate of fluid infusion. Directly administer dexamethasone.”

He then began to deal with the bleeding. Such a blood vessel could be replaced by one of many other blood vessels. There was no need for connection, nor was there any time for connection, since the intercostal artery and internal thoracic artery were also bleeding. After Zhang Fan sewed up the bleeding vessel in the chest, he asked, “How are the patient’s vitals?”

The anesthesiologist immediately replied, “His vitals were undetectable just now, but they’ve just returned. 80/50 mmhg. His vitals will probably improve more with this fluid infusion.”

“Okay!” Zhang Fan didn’t waste any words. He immediately began to sew the intercostal artery and internal thoracic artery. The human body was truly so advanced. If a blood vessel was sewn up and ligated, the other blood vessels in the area would take its place in providing blood supply. However, the bleeding still continued even after Zhang Fan finished sewing these blood vessels, because this was a large interpulmonary vessel. Although the bleeding had now reduced significantly, there was still constant bleeding.

Zhang Fan now hesitated because he didn’t want to have to surgically remove a lobe from Zhu Bing’s lung. Zhu Bing was still so young. He was also a policeman. If this lung lobe could be preserved, then Zhu Bing would be able to recover fully after surgery, with nothing more than a surgical scar to show for it. But if this lung lobe had to be removed, Zhu Bing would likely no longer be able to remain a policeman, since he would be unable to keep up with the physical exertion required!

Cardiothoracic Director Liu who was acting as Zhang Fan’s surgical assistant noticed that Zhang Fan had paused during the surgery. “What’s the matter, Doctor Zhang? Is there a problem?”

When Director Liu asked this, the anesthesiologist hurriedly checked the monitors, and said, “Doctor Zhang, the blood pressure is rising. It’s now 100/60 mmhg, and the breathing rate and heartbeat have steadied.”

“No, Director Liu, it’s just that I was thinking about whether to remove this lung lobe or not,” Zhang Fan told Director Liu.

“Although you’ve already performed ligation, you can see that it’s still bleeding. It’ll be impossible to preserve this lung lobe.”

“But if I remove the lung lobe, this patient will no longer be able to remain a policeman,” Zhang Fan said with pity.

“Doctor Zhang, this patient is incredibly lucky already. Why think about such a matter? Let’s remove the lobe!” Director Liu had zero hesitation.

“Alright, let’s remove it then!” Zhang Fan said with pity. At this moment, the head nurse of the operating rooms arrived. She glanced at the nurse in the operating room, who nodded to the head nurse. The meaning was obvious. The surgery had been successful and the patient was saved!

The head nurse then stood behind Zhang Fan’s back and gently pressed up against him while glancing at the surgery’s progress. Her scent of a young woman was quite obvious. Also, everyone in the operating room would need to wear surgical attire, which was quite light!

She then whispered into Zhang Fan’s ear, “How is it, Doctor Zhang? The superintendent and other leaders are waiting outside for the news. They’ve also already contacted a professor from Dee University. Will there be a need to have the professor fly here? Still, I think that you and Director Liu have no problems, right?”

This was her treatment of a highly skilled doctor. The head nurse had great emotional intelligence. She took advantage of what she had without losing a single thing for it! This type of light seduction wasn’t obvious, but would still make people have some thoughts about her. But if you treated her flirtation seriously, then you would be overthinking things. A young woman with high emotional intelligence like her really loved to act ambiguously and try and charm you without ever treating you seriously! Only those middle-aged and older men would understand and be able to control themselves in such situations. An older man would smile in understanding and joke, saying “Head nurse, you’ve gotten fatter!” and end things there.

However, Zhang Fan was still young and naïve. He hadn’t been nervous about the surgery, but he started sweating profusely just because the head nurse had pressed herself against his back. Zhang Fan didn’t even respond for quite a long while to the head nurse’s question, so Director Liu answered, “Doctor Zhang is someone who always endeavors to improve. Still, the patient should be fine now. There’s no need to invite a professor from Dee University. What do you say, Doctor Zhang?”

“Yes, there’s no need,” Zhang Fan answered in a low voice.

“Haha. I knew that you’re an amazing youngster,” the head nurse said while gently patting Zhang Fan on the back before leaving the operating room.

“Doctor Zhang, there’s honestly no need to worry about things. This lung lobe absolutely must be removed. The human body has great ability to compensate. As long as the patient doesn’t do vigorous exercise in the future, it won’t be a major problem.” Director Liu was under the impression that Zhang Fan was still worried about cutting out the lung lobe.

“Okay, let’s cut it then!” Zhang Fan said in a bit of an unnatural voice.

He opened up a diagonal incision and adjusted the lung lobe to reveal the inferior lobar pulmonary artery. Because the basilar (dorsal) and lingual arteries typically originated from the left pulmonary trunk at the same level, ligation and cutting off the basilar artery’s connection would be necessary to perform first. The other basic arteries would be separated from the inferior lingual artery, followed by ligation and suturing before cutting it off. This would be followed by ligation and cutting off the inferior pulmonary ligament. After that, Zhang Fan needed to push aside the mediastinal pleura, separate the inferior pulmonary vein, ligate, sew, and cut that vein. Then, he would need to separate the lower lobar bronchus, then cut and suture the dorsal bronchus before dealing with the basilar bronchus.

Such a surgery wasn’t difficult at all for Zhang Fan. As long as the patient’s shock was dealt with, nothing else would be an issue. Thus, he was no longer in a hurry. If a patient was in shock, the doctor would need to act swiftly as there would be no time to afford slow movements. If there was too much bleeding and the doctor didn’t act fast enough, the shock would change to having many organs start to fail. Even the gods wouldn’t be able to save the patient then.

But once the patient’s state of shock improved, then the doctor would need to slow down and be cautious. Laymen might think that those who performed surgery quicker were more skilled doctors, but this wasn’t actually the case.

For a simple analogy, maybe a village doctor could finish an appendectomy in just 15 minutes, while a doctor from a Class A hospital would take more than half an hour to finish the same procedure. Who was the more skilled doctor?

The goal of surgery was to treat a problem, not to finish a race. As long as the patient’s life wasn’t in imminent danger, then being extra, extra, extra cautious would be far more important. Finishing an appendectomy in only 15 minutes would mean that the doctor absolutely hadn’t properly separated the tissue layers when entering the body, nor would the doctor have properly sewed things back together. Although 15 minutes would seem to be really quick, it would actually be quite bad for the patient afterwards as the patient’s tissue structure would become chaotic. If anything happened in that area of the patient’s body again, no doctor would dare to touch it!

Performing surgery was far different from mowing the lawn. If you cut certain tissue, it wouldn’t regrow. If you messed up with cutting the grass, then you could say it was a mere accident, but accidents would be unacceptable in surgery!

Zhang Fan slowly worked on the surgery. Thanks to technological advances, many surgeries were now much easier to perform than before. In the past, removing a lung lobe would require slowly suturing everything back together afterwards. To give an analogy, it would be like trying to sew up a balloon. If the doctor didn’t sew things carefully enough, the balloon would leak, which meant that the surgery had failed. That would require opening up the chest again for yet another surgery! If that really happened, not only would the hospital deal with you, the patient’s family would want to devour you!

Things were far easier today due to the invention of the surgical stapler. The surgical stapler was excellent for helping in tissue closure. The only downside was that it was rather expensive. Just one staple would cost 3,000 yuan! Chinese-made staples would be slightly cheaper, at only slightly above 1,000 yuan. However, Chinese-made staples were inferior in quality. The staples were more likely to become dislodged if only a minor amount of tissue had been closed. While the imported staples were more expensive, they wouldn’t become dislodged unless the tissue itself was severely impacted. The expense was also due to their high quality. Zhang Fan ended up using eight staples after removing the lung lobe.

Outside the operating room, the head nurse removed her surgical mask and smiled while telling Superintendent Ouyang, “Reporting to the superintendent, Doctor Zhang and Director Liu said that there’s no need to trouble an expert from Dee University. The patient is no longer in danger. Such a surgery isn’t difficult for our hospital!

Although many high-ranking leaders were standing around outside the operating room right now, the head nurse didn’t even glance at them as she only reported to and looked at Superintendent Ouyang! Even though the head nurse’s medical skills were only average, she was highly skilled at social graces, which was why she had always remained as the head nurse. She knew that social hierarchy was also more important than actual skills at certain times. Everyone was a part of society, and humans were the ones who made society. The logic of society would often be far more complicated than the logic of science. There were far too many wicked people in the world. Those who were highly skilled would often have lower emotional intelligence, so they could only grind their skills even more. Otherwise, they wouldn’t make it in society. How ridiculous was that!

Superintendent Ouyang was astonished to hear this. She heard already that the patient had been stabbed in the left side of the chest at the 4th intercostal space by a dagger, yet the patient had still been saved? This overturned all of the medical knowledge that she knew. “Really!?” Even her question was rather hesitant. She then immediately asked, “Who was the primary surgeon?”

“Yes, Superintendent. When I entered the operating room, the patient’s blood pressure had already been restored to 120/70 mmhg, and his vitals were steady. The primary surgeon was Doctor Zhang, and Director Liu was the primary surgical assistant. Doctor Zhang and Director Liu personally assured me that the patient would be alright.”

“Alright! You have all worked hard. I represent Chasu City CPC in thanking you all. Excellent work by our comrades in the medical field. Superintendent Ouyang, you’re really skilled! You’re not arrogant at all. The hospital was able to even save a patient in such great danger. I must celebrate this. However, I must also scold Superintendent for being too humble! Honestly, when you said that the patient’s life was in danger, I was so worried! Still, this is good, as it means that our doctors and hospital aren’t prideful or overconfident.” Lu Renjia’s father was really happy for the sake of his daughter. With his daughter’s personality, if Zhu Bing died here, it was likely that she would be scarred by the incident for the rest of her life.

“Thank you, Leader! We still haven’t done enough yet. We’ll always keep improving.” Superintendent Ouyang’s face reddened because she had embarrassed herself so much with a mistaken guess on the patient’s outcome even though she had worked in cardiology for her entire life.

Lu Renjia came from a rich political family and was really prideful. She was also someone who understood social graces. She knew that this wasn’t the time for her to be hugging her father and asking to be consoled, nor was this the time for her to be standing out. Once she heard the head nurse confirm that Zhu Bing would be saved, her eyes misted up and she lost all her energy. This was a symptom of the adrenaline in her body decreasing.

Shao Hua went over to gently hug her at this moment and pat her on the head. The two of them shed tears together. Shao Hua slowly said, “It’s alright now. You can rest assured. Zhu Bing is fine!”

“Shao Hua!” There were too many people here, so Lu Renjia could only secretly cry in Shao Hua’s embrace. Lu Renjia was really sad as well as really happy! This was the best result that could be hoped for.

The leaders no longer needed to stay here now that the result of the operation was known. They left only a few policemen behind. Lu Renjia’s father had other work to attend to, so he could no longer accompany his daughter. He patted her on the back as he brought his group to the hospital’s conference room.

He first needed to report things to the Chasu City CPC secretary, for the secretary was also really concerned about this matter. The local military was also paying close attention. “Secretary, our doctor comrades successfully saved the life of our excellent policeman. The policeman is no longer in any danger. Yes, it’s certain now!”

“Excellent! This is wonderful! Such great news to hear. No need for you to come here. You should stay at the hospital to take charge of hunting down the culprits. You absolutely must not let them escape!”

“Yes!” Lu Renjia’s father’s expression changed after hanging up the phone call. His expression became frightfully chilling. “Police Chief Chen, inform me of the current progress on capturing the culprits. The secretary is paying close attention to this incident. It will depend on you if we can have something proper to tell the citizens or not.”

“Yes, Leader. Currently, we’ve already captured two members of the hoodlum gang. We’re still searching for three more. Those three have already entered the area under border security’s jurisdiction. I’ve already communicated with border security and given them Leader’s command that they are to shoot to kill if necessary.”

“I will be remaining here to take command. If we don’t get them today, I don’t think I’ll have the face to return to Chasu City CPC. It’s the same for all of you.”

The hospital conference room thus became the temporary office for the leadership for capturing the culprits who attacked Zhu Bing. Phone calls constantly rang in this room.

The police chief received a phone call, and then reported it to Lu Renjia’s father. “We have been urgently interrogating the two suspects that have already been captured. We learned of their past criminal deeds. Not only are they smugglers, they’ve even murdered before.”

“Notify your subordinates that they’re to immediately execute those scum! No need for hesitation! We can’t allow the general public and our hardworking policemen to be injured again for the sake of some scum.” Lu Renjia’s father had a steely expression as he simply ordered for the culprits to be executed without due process.

Superintendent Ouyang didn’t have anything to do with the group focused on capturing those who’d stabbed Zhu Bing, nor did she even know about it. Right now, she was really curious and wanted to know just why her hospital’s surgical department was so amazing. Very few people in all of China would dare to make a guarantee about such a highly difficult surgery for saving someone who had been stabbed in the left side of the chest at such a critical location. Superintendent Ouyang washed her hands and put on proper surgical attire before entering the operating room.

Zhang Fan and Director Liu were still in the middle of performing surgery. Although surgeries were quick to describe in only a few sentences, they would still take a long time to perform. The surgeons would need to take care of every single point of bleeding, not to mention that this was a major surgery.

Superintendent Ouyang silently entered the operating room without saying a word. As she was an internal medicine specialist, she rarely came to the operating rooms, but she still knew the rules in the operating rooms quite well. She knew that she shouldn’t say anything which might distract the doctors.

Currently, Director Liu and the anesthesiologist were chatting, while Zhang Fan silently worked on the surgery.

“Old Chen, I heard that you recently bought a new car? Do you even know how to drive a car at your age?” joked Director Liu.

“Sigh, I regretted it immediately after buying it. Although driving it is no problem, finding a place to park is far too difficult. If I return home even slightly late at night, there’s nowhere to park at all. I really wish I could carry my car on my back.”

“Now you’re just being spoiled. If there’s nowhere to park your car where you live, let me drive it every day instead. There’s plenty of parking spaces where I live. I can come pick you up every morning and take you back home every night.”

“You’re just stingy.” At this moment, the anesthesiologist saw Superintendent Ouyang. “Super—”

The anesthesiologist didn’t get a chance to finish as Superintendent Ouyang raised her hand, indicating that he didn’t need to say anything more. Superintendent Ouyang now felt reassured to see the relaxed atmosphere inside the operating room, for this meant the patient was alright. She felt even more reassured after checking the patient’s vitals on the monitor.

“What exactly happened?” She walked over to look directly at Zhang Fan, asking him the question only after she was certain that he’d spotted her. Although Superintendent Ouyang wasn’t a surgeon herself, she was a cardiology expert. Her question was referring to how the patient had survived an injury in such a location that would almost always be fatal.

“This Officer Zhu is a situs inversus totalis. His heart is on the right side. Otherwise, he probably would have been in grave danger today!” Zhang Fan answered as he continued to work on the surgery. At this time, the surgery was almost finished. He was working on the closed drainage.