This doctor is already middle-aged, and he's only just started practicing medicine.

Chapter 177 The Nameless Are Humble!

[By performing liver-protective surgery, hemostasis, and colostomy, I managed to save the patient's life and gained 16.3 skill points.]

Current skill point balance: 27.4

The team members communicated effectively with the 'patient,' alleviating the patient's anxiety, fear, and panic, earning skill point 1.5...

【…】

Current skill point balance: 29.8...

The skill points gained from this surgery were quite substantial, totaling a full eighteen points.

Are the team members able to communicate effectively with the 'patient'?

Lu Cheng saw this new entry and found it rather intriguing.

This is a term that has never appeared before.

……

After lying in the emergency room doctor's lounge for a while, Lu Cheng slowly figured out the possible reasons.

The "patients" here are not actually patients who have entered the recovery room and ICU, but rather the patients' family members, such as the patients' immediate family members and children.

Because of his father's sudden illness, they were mentally distraught. When Director Lin Qianlong communicated with them, he brought good news, which was enough to calm their emotions.

The reason this term didn't appear before is that such rescue activities are mostly irrelevant to oneself...

Of course, the reason why such entries didn't appear when they rescued Wei Yingshu might be because there weren't any emotionally vulnerable family members present at the time...

Lu Cheng made a decision: "The gains from these skill points are entirely based on chance; there's no fixed path to them."

After pushing open the door to the lounge, Zhang Tiesheng went straight to the bathroom. As he was about to leave in the dark, he heard a slight movement on the bed.

He knew that Lu Cheng was not asleep. He turned to Lu Cheng and gave him a thumbs up. After opening the office door, the light gradually entered, allowing Lu Cheng to see Zhang Tiesheng's gesture clearly.

Zhang Tiesheng had to be on duty, and Lu Cheng needed to rest, so Zhang Tiesheng didn't say anything particularly sophisticated, but his admiration was unspoken.

Lu Cheng closed his eyes again.

After leaving the house, Zhang Tiesheng paused slightly while holding the doorknob. His eyelids flickered several times before he finally closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

As he walked toward his emergency surgery office, he muttered to himself, "Will I still be able to call him 'Xiao Lu' from now on?"

Xiao Lu, who can perform tendon sutures, is at most the top salesman in the department, a brother who helps him make money. It's not shameful to be polite about him.

But a brother who could save my life, and who could also bring me a lot of direct financial income, and who was more capable than me...

Whether it's appropriate to continue calling Lu Cheng "Little Lu" is something Zhang Tiesheng is seriously considering.

At least one thing is certain: Zhang Tiesheng has relatives living in Long County. It's not a matter of being safe, but if something unexpected happens...

For this kind of emergency hemorrhagic disease, Zhang Tiesheng would definitely call on Lu Cheng to take action, not anyone else. Based on this alone, Lu Cheng is an irreplaceable asset.

……

Lu Cheng rested for a while and was not woken up again by Zhang Tiesheng until five o'clock.

After rubbing his face and leaving the break room, Han Xiaoping, who was on night shift in the ward, came up to him and said, "Brother Lu, a patient with multiple tendon injuries came to the clinic. Brother Zhang really had nowhere else to send him, so he called you."

"There were some minor injuries earlier, but Brother Zhang sent them all to a specialist hospital."

Longxian People's Hospital is different from many other hospitals. Even if you have a minor injury and send it to a specialist, the specialist will not say that the emergency department is useless and will accept the case accordingly.

After all, there aren't many patients in the department, so debridement and suturing can be considered a source of infection.

Lu Cheng's expression hardened: "Thank you, but I'm from the operating room. We can handle minor injuries, so you should still call me if you need to."

"After all, I'm on duty! I'll let Brother Zhang know later."

When they weren't on duty, Zhang Tiesheng and the others tried their best not to disturb Lu Cheng. When they were on duty, Lu Cheng would also try his best to fulfill his responsibilities.

The emergency department's patient volume and surgical volume are entirely supported by emergency surgeries. Although small debridement and suturing are minor, they are still valuable and contribute to the department's "performance".

Of course, patients do need someone to take care of them.

Lu Cheng had planned to go and get the signatures, but unexpectedly, Zhang Tiesheng had already obtained the signatures from the patient's family.

As soon as Lu Cheng arrived, Zhang Tiesheng greeted the patient's family, saying, "This is Dr. Lu. For tendon injuries, you can't go wrong by seeing him."

“Dr. Lu, this is my brother, and the injured one is his wife.”

"Hello, Dr. Lu." The young man opposite Zhang Tiesheng stood up and greeted him with a smile: "When Tiesheng was drinking before, he mentioned that he had a brother with exceptional skills, which I guess is you, Dr. Lu."

“I remembered that incident because I run a small factory, and this time my wife got scratched by a machine…”

Lu Cheng also politely stepped forward and asked, "Hello, how is your wife doing now?"

Zhang Tiesheng replied, "I had her get an X-ray, in case there's a fracture."

"My sister-in-law's mother accompanied me. Liu Long and I chatted here for a while and signed the document to save some time."

"Hey Lu Cheng, Liu Long is my good brother. If it's appropriate, try to get some good quality sutures later."

"Don't do that just to save money."

After Zhang Tiesheng finished speaking, he looked at Liu Long and said, "Tendon suturing is not the same as ordinary suturing. If the quality of the sutures is too poor, you will suffer more during the postoperative recovery."

Upon hearing this, Liu Long understood Zhang Tiesheng's meaning: "Dr. Lu, it's alright. Just use the best sutures. Don't worry about the cost."

Lu Cheng stroked his chin: "Brother Liu, since you brought it up, I'll definitely use the best sutures. But you know the situation here."

"Most of the patients who come here for treatment are not well-off, so we try our best to save money..."

Zhang Tiesheng must have said something to Liu Long, because the subsequent conversation and signing went very smoothly. Neither Liu Long nor his wife Lin Liyuan hesitated at all, and they went straight into the operating room after signing.

This saved Lu Cheng a lot of trouble.

Just before the surgery was about to begin, Lin Liyuan asked, "Doctor, is it possible to have cosmetic sutures done in my condition?"

Lu Cheng shook his head: "This won't do, sister-in-law. Your current condition involves internal tendon damage, not just simple muscle and soft tissue damage."

"Cosmetic suturing isn't practical; we need to prioritize functional applications."

Women all love beauty, but Lu Cheng still had to try his best to explain.

Liu Liyuan sighed, "Oh well... fine..."

Lu Cheng added, "Although cosmetic sutures cannot be used during the surgery, you can use some scar-reducing medication afterward. You can buy it online yourself."

"Some overseas products sold online by personal shoppers are quite cheap during promotional periods, even cheaper than in hospitals."

"But the price isn't exactly cheap either."

Liu Liyuan immediately asked, "Is it effective?"

"It works; it can fade scars," Lu Cheng said with a smile.

Lu Cheng brought this up because a patient he had treated before had his anxiety about appearance reduced because of the relatively small size of the scar.

Therefore, Lu Cheng had paid attention to issues related to postoperative scar repair.

Longxian People's Hospital certainly doesn't have any scar repair medication, but Lu Cheng can recommend some to patients. If patients request it, they can purchase it online at their discretion.

This can be considered as earning some extra 'skill points'.

"Dr. Lu, I heard from Dr. Zhang that you are very skilled. How did you learn such skills at such a young age?" Liu Liyuan asked politely.

"My skills aren't that great, it's Brother Zhang who's giving me too much credit."

"Learning a skill is all about hard work and painstaking effort..."

……

More than three hours passed in the blink of an eye. Although Liu Liyuan could not undergo cosmetic suturing and could not use absorbable sutures, Lu Cheng was still very meticulous when suturing her.

By striving to make the points and layers of needle insertion and exit more precise and the incisions more neatly aligned, the resulting scars will be fewer, unless the individual has a tendency to form keloids.

This is within Lu Cheng's capabilities and won't take too much effort; it will only prolong the surgery time a little.

But it doesn't hurt.

After Lu Cheng came out of the operating room, Zhang Tiesheng did not go back, but instead kindly prepared breakfast for Lu Cheng.

In the director's office, Lin Qianlong, Zhang Tiesheng, and Lu Cheng sat facing each other. Lin Qianlong and Zhang Tiesheng started eating first and finished eating first.

The office door was closed, so Lin Qianlong and Zhang Tiesheng simply lit up a cigarette for a post-meal treat. Lin Qianlong, with a wisp of smoke in his mouth, said, "Xiao Lu, that patient from yesterday woke up once this morning and has had his tubes removed."

"But his blood pressure is still a bit low and his lactic acid is also high. He is expected to be able to come out tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow."

"Everything else is fine."

Lu Cheng glanced at Lin Qianlong and asked with a smile, "Director Lin, have you already visited the patient? I was planning to go after breakfast."

The fact that a patient has been transferred to the ICU does not mean that the surgeon can completely ignore the situation; they still need to make rounds.

However, surgeons mainly manage wound repair and check for bleeding from surgical incisions. Maintaining vital signs is the responsibility of the ICU director.

Lin Qianlong replied with a smile, "With such a major surgery performed in the department, I certainly have to be attentive."

"If this kind of surgery can become a routine procedure in our department in the future, it will be of great significance."

"Professor Chen hadn't performed many of these liver-protecting procedures when he was still alive, and I never expected you to manage to pull them off."

Zhang Tiesheng said, "Director Lin, Xiao Lu's talent cannot be described in ordinary terms; it's called amphibious."

Hearing Zhang Tiesheng use such a 'refined' way to describe the word "pervert," Lu Cheng laughed as well: "Brother Zhang, you might as well just say 'pervert,' you're driving like that..."

"What do you mean? I still don't understand?" Lin Qianlong glanced at Zhang Tiesheng in surprise.

“A pun.” Lu Cheng smiled. “I wonder if Brother Zhang meant traveling by both water and land, or just water.” Zhang Tiesheng’s dark face twitched slightly. “Damn, Lu, your brain works way too fast! You even learn these things?”

As the saying goes, a surgeon who can't drive isn't a good boatman.

Dirty jokes are a common practice in surgery and the operating room.

Lu Cheng quickly ate a few bites of noodles, drank a sip of soup, and hurriedly packed it up. Then, glancing at the time, he quickly said, "Director Lin, I have to go to the emergency room for my shift. I'm almost half an hour late."

Today is Lu Cheng's day shift in the emergency room.

There are quite a few people in the emergency department, but there are so many shifts. Lu Cheng's surgery shift is connected to the day shift in the emergency room.

Lin Qianlong immediately said, "Don't worry, Lu Cheng, it's like this, your day shift has been cut..."

Lu Cheng glanced at Lin Qianlong, a hint of confusion on his face.

Lin Qianlong understood what Lu Cheng meant: "Although Professor Tong said that the class schedule has already been arranged, it is not easy to change it."

"But we can make changes through the medical department."

"I discussed it with Director Huang from the internal medicine department, and we still think that if Xiao Lu could work even one more night shift, it would reduce the overall mortality rate in our emergency department."

“This is something that both our emergency department and the hospital are happy to see, so we had the medical affairs department step in and cut off all your remaining day shifts.”

Lu Cheng: "..."

"Director Lin, isn't this a bit inappropriate?"

Lin Qianlong meant that Lu Cheng's day shift was cut off, which meant that Lu Cheng could stop working day shifts and only work night shifts, which meant he would have fewer shifts than others.

"Zhang Tiesheng, do you think this is appropriate?" Lin Qianlong asked.

“It’s appropriate, how can it not be appropriate? Teacher Lu’s time should be used more effectively.”

After making a polite remark, Zhang Tiesheng explained directly, "Lu Cheng, it won't make much difference if you work a few more day shifts. You might as well use your free time to teach us some surgical techniques."

“If it weren’t for the fact that you haven’t been promoted, I would have applied to Director Lin to let you off the night shifts too, so you could be on standby for surgery every day.”

As Zhang Tiesheng was speaking, the sound of Tong Yuan'an and Tian Zhuang talking could be heard outside. Tian Zhuang was asking Tong Yuan'an some basic questions.

Lin Qianlong quickly stood up: "Professor Tong is back from his rounds... He specifically told me this morning that he needed to talk to you... Xiao Lu, you should go there right away."

"Okay." Lu Cheng got up and packed up the three noodle boxes, taking them out of the director's office.

After Lu Cheng left, Lin Qianlong scratched his hair and sighed, "To be fair, Lu is excellent, but being his boss is really not ideal."

"Doing this for too long can easily lead to psychological abnormalities."

Zhang Tiesheng could understand Lin Qianlong. Lin Qianlong was the director of emergency surgery. Previously, Lu Cheng could perform tendon suturing, which was beyond Lin Qianlong's scope of expertise and belonged to an uncontrollable disease. Therefore, he had to listen to Lu Cheng.

Now, Lu Cheng has almost completely suppressed Lin Qianlong, which makes Lin Qianlong's position as director somewhat illegitimate.

It's a bit funny that a department head isn't a "top expert" in the department.

“Director Lin, there’s no way to control someone like Xiao Lu. It’s impossible to suppress him. We might as well go with the flow.” Zhang Tiesheng echoed what Lin Qianlong had said earlier.

"I didn't say I wanted to suppress Xiao Lu. I was just thinking that if there was a chance, I would like to keep Xiao Lu here."

"It's just a pity that the hospital platform is too small..."

Lin Qianlong said in a low voice, "Otherwise, your lives will be much better than mine now. Why would you need to argue with the surgeon over one or two surgical cases?"

……

In the cramped space outside the fire escape of the emergency surgery office, Tong Yuan'an smoked a cigarette.

"This is the current situation. The organizer of this provincial-level microsurgery young physician competition in Hunan Province is the Second Hospital."

"These people are really something. To save themselves trouble, they're going to cut off the registration list from the county..." Tong Yuan'an said, spitting out a mouthful of saliva.

Lu Cheng was naturally speechless. With his hands hanging down, he was helpless: "Teacher Tong, I was actually too arrogant before. Even if I participate in the competition this year, I probably won't get good results."

"Actually, the teachers from the Second Hospital didn't do anything wrong. If we let people from the county hospital sign up, it would indeed increase the burden of organizing the competition a lot."

The preliminary selection for the provincial microsurgical skills competition was organized by the Second Affiliated Hospital, with Xiangya Hospital as a co-organizer. Therefore, the hospital only had the right to make suggestions regarding some of the rules.

At first, Xiangya No. 2 Hospital probably didn't expect so many people to participate.

It's actually quite easy to understand. Such competitions and academic conferences offer several advantages: first, they provide opportunities for publicly funded travel; second, they allow participants to learn new things; third, they broaden their horizons; and fourth, they offer a chance to enhance one's social standing.

Winning a second or third prize in a provincial competition might not mean much, but what if you come back?
What about in the county?
If the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital wins a third prize in the province while no one from the People's Hospital wins one, wouldn't that be a benchmark for publicity?
So, everyone, with the principle of "giving it a shot even if there's no chance," will sign up to participate, since the registration fee and travel expenses can be reimbursed.

"Bullshit! That's killing the goose that lays the golden eggs!"

Tong Yuan'an said, "If we're doing this for a provincial competition now, what if the national competition is held in Hunan Province in the future?"

"Of course, this is not something that the two of us can decide on our own. Our big boss in hand surgery went to talk to Boss He from the Second Hospital and Boss Song from microsurgery."

Lu Cheng understood the implication in Professor Tong's words: "Professor Tong, the microsurgery competition isn't just for hand surgeons?"

"Of course, microsurgery and hand microsurgery are two specialties, and urology, neurosurgery, and general surgery can all participate."

"Microsurgery, microsurgery, of course I can participate in any minimally invasive procedure..."

Tong Yuan'an glanced at Lu Cheng and said with a smile, "Startling now?"

Lu Cheng remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement.

I had oversimplified things...

"Teacher Tong, after all, I don't have much experience," Lu Cheng replied honestly.

Lu Cheng had previously worked at Zhongnan Hospital, but he was just a resident physician and didn't even have a master's supervisor. What kind of worldly experience could he have had?
I'm busy with my own ward duties every day, and on top of that, I have so many clinical learning tasks. Where do I have the time to care about the specific specialties the hospital has?
"You can rest assured about that. Even if doctors from other county hospitals can't participate, you can," Tong Yuan'an reassured him.

Lu Cheng shook his head: "Teacher Tong, I'm not worried about whether I can participate. I'm worried that even if I do participate, I might not get good results..."

Lu Cheng felt a sense of loneliness.

Even if they can participate in the competition, in reality, many doctors in county hospitals still cannot.

Without Tong Yuan'an's support, no matter how outstanding Lu Cheng was, he would have received the same treatment as other doctors in the county hospital.

Let alone qualifying for the national competition, they might not even qualify for the provincial competition.

This is the real world, the real power structure, and you can't argue with it.

The harsh realities of life have already filtered out a large number of outstanding individuals. While some may be incompetent and hold positions without contributing, overall, county hospitals are simply not as good as prefecture-level city hospitals.

This applies to the whole world, everywhere; individual cases are just that—individual cases.

The rabbit is dead and the fox is sad!

……

Tong Yuan'an is an associate professor at Xiangya Hospital, holding a unique and unparalleled position in Long County!
But in the field of microsurgery in Hunan Province, he was still just a decent fart, unable to change much at all.

The current microsurgical skills competition for young physicians in Hunan Province adopted a registration system for prefecture-level city hospitals and a recommendation and invitation system for participants from county hospitals.

In other words, for the Hunan Province Microsurgery Skills Competition, microsurgery professionals from prefecture-level city hospitals can register to participate normally, while professionals from county hospitals can only be recommended by associate chief physicians from prefecture-level city hospitals or invited separately by the organizers.

The Great Way is fifty, and the Heavenly Evolution is forty-nine, leaving a glimmer of hope.

But at least 90 percent of people will inevitably be rejected from the participation threshold, and Lu Cheng is one of the remaining 10 percent.

Lu Cheng didn't wallow in the sentiment of "the rabbit mourns the fox's death." Instead, after receiving the notification and competition tickets, he immediately began buying tickets and booking hotels...

October 23, Friday, light rain.

After finishing his shift on the 22nd, Lu Cheng went home to rest. After waking up in the afternoon, he ate a meal and then rushed to the high-speed rail station in Shashi.

On the high-speed train, Lu Cheng chatted with Mu Nanshu, who had already returned to Wuhan, while looking at the scenery outside the window.

Lu Cheng said, "So what should we do now? Can we only conduct temporary experiments?"

"Yes... if the original data is lost, we'll have to rework the experiments..."

"I only just found out that Professor Xie is quite unethical as well. He actually..."

Mu Nanshu hesitated, then said, "Of course, Professor Xie is a good person; at least he gave his student a chance to graduate."

"Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to graduate normally."

"Well, what I mean is, Professor Xie isn't generous enough. If Professor Xie were truly generous, he should have received both his doctoral dissertation and the paper on this research topic."

The situation Xie Yuan'an encountered was actually a "comparative exchange"!
Professor Xie's doctoral research was so extensive that the doctoral student had no output by the time of graduation and could not graduate normally, so he had to extend his studies.

So Xie Yuan'an used one of her relatively short papers to exchange doctoral degrees with Professor Xie, allowing her to graduate normally.

Then Xie Yuan'an continued working on the research project, and the article was attributed to Xie Yuan'an.

But now it has been discovered that Professor Xie's doctoral student had fabricated data in the early stages of the experiment, resulting in poor data.

Moreover, he himself has now forgotten which data was fabricated and which data was true...

Lu Cheng said, "It's good enough that we can graduate properly. Why should we get this and that?"

"If this kind of thing gets featured on social media, it'll become another long essay!"

From Lu Cheng's perspective, Professor Xie did nothing wrong, he was just not magnanimous enough.

But at that time, Xie Xiao was only an associate professor. Where would he get so many articles to give to his doctoral students?

He has more than one PhD, is he some kind of sow? Giving them away so easily?

"Xie Yuan'an said she wants to video call you," Mu Nanshu sent a message, ending with a period.

Lu Cheng: "???"

(End of this chapter)