After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

Before breakfast was even finished, Qingyun County People's Hospital was in an uproar.

"Have you heard? That young lady from the main hospital in Beijing didn't go to the archives to gather dust today!"

"Where else would you go if not the archives? Are you really going to have to go to the operating table? Don't be ridiculous. I've seen those hands. They're as white as tofu. They'd be fine for holding a needle, but a scalpel? Aren't you afraid of fainting from blood?"

"Exactly, look at those lambskin boots she's wearing, they're worth half a year's salary for me! That pampered brat, she'll be crying and begging to go back to the capital to find a man in three days at most."

At the nurses' station, several nurses who were preparing medications were exchanging glances and talking about Ye Zhen, who wore her wool coat like a magazine model.

However, at this moment, Ye Zhen, who was at the center of public opinion, was being dragged by Hu Dazhi by the sleeve and sneaked towards the back building of the inpatient department like a thief.

"Dean Hu," Ye Zhen stopped and looked helplessly at the slightly chubby figure in front of her who was practically hugging the wall as he walked, "We're going to check the rooms, not to steal landmines. With that posture, the security department might mistake you for a spy and arrest you."

Hu Dazhi jumped in fright, quickly straightened up, adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses, and said with a pained expression, "Xiao Ye, keep your voice down! Old Zhao went to a meeting at the Health Bureau and said he'd be back at ten. We need to hurry, or he'll throw a tantrum if he sees me taking you to the ward!"

He genuinely valued talent, but he was also genuinely afraid of Zhao Haifeng's stubbornness.

Last night, he went home and pondered Ye Zhen's sketch all night, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a way out. For Old Li's leg, he was willing to risk everything today.

"Let's go, let's go, it's just ahead, room 302."

Pushing open the door to 302, a wave of warmth, a mixture of the smells of tobacco, foot odor, and old bedding, hits you.

Lying on the hospital bed by the window was an old man in his sixties. His skin was dark, and his face was so wrinkled that it could trap flies. His injured leg was wrapped in a thick quilt with two pillows underneath, clearly indicating that he had been unable to move for a long time.

Old Li was idly counting fly droppings on the ceiling when he heard a noise. He turned his head, and his cloudy eyes instantly lit up.

A young woman followed Vice President Hu in.

She was wearing a white lab coat, unbuttoned, revealing an expensive-looking beige turtleneck sweater underneath, but that didn't matter. What mattered was her face and figure, a stark contrast to the drab hospital room.

"Oh my!" Old Li grinned, revealing a set of big yellow teeth. "Dean Hu, what's going on? Our hospital even has a performing arts troupe coming to perform for us? This girl is prettier than that... who was it again in the movie!"

Hu Dazhi's face darkened: "Old Li, don't talk nonsense! This is an expert from the main hospital, here to examine your leg!"

"An expert?" Old Li was taken aback, then waved his hand and laughed even harder. "Dean Hu, don't try to fool me. Aren't all experts bald old men? This young lady is as tender as a scallion, what kind of illness can she treat? Young lady, can you sing 'Ode to the Red Plum Blossom'? Sing one for this old man, my leg pain is making my heart race, listening to a song will make me feel half better!"

The patients and their families in the surrounding beds also laughed, their eyes conveying no other meaning than pure amusement and amusement.

Ye Zhen remained unmoved and walked straight to the bedside.

She didn't speak or explain, but simply took out a bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer from her pocket—she had brought it herself, as county hospitals didn't have it readily available back then.

Rub your hands together and put on a mask.

The movements were fluid and graceful, with a strange sense of rhythm.

The ward, which had been chaotic just moments before, became inexplicably quiet.

"Which leg?" Ye Zhen asked, her voice cool and clear, like a chilled mint candy.

"Left...left side." Old Li was taken aback by the aura and subconsciously suppressed his smile.

Ye Zhen lifted the blanket.

Due to prolonged bed rest and lack of exercise, Old Li's left leg muscles have shown significant atrophy, becoming noticeably thinner than his right leg.

"It might hurt a little, but bear with it."

After Ye Zhen finished speaking, the hand that everyone was saying was "only good for embroidery" landed steadily on Old Li's thigh.

With what seemed like a gentle touch, her thumb then precisely pressed two centimeters below the midpoint of the groin.

"here?"

"I don't feel anything..." Old Li didn't finish his sentence.

Ye Zhen applied slight pressure with her fingers, pressing deeper inside.

"Aww!!!"

A piercing scream instantly pierced the roof of the ward, its pitch so high it was comparable to a dolphin's cry. It startled the old lady in the next bed who was peeling an apple, causing her hand to tremble and the apple peel to break and scatter all over the floor.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! It's broken!" Old Li broke out in a cold sweat instantly. His earlier teasing thoughts had long since vanished. Now, the way he looked at Ye Zhen was as if he had seen the King of Hell.

Hu Dazhi watched from the side, his eyelids twitching. He thought to himself, "This is too ruthless!" But he was an expert and saw through the trick at a glance.

That's a tender point in the femoral head projection area!

Ignoring Old Li's screams, Ye Zhen expressionlessly lifted his ankle and performed a "4" test (Fabere's sign).

It's just a slight outward abduction and rotation.

Old Li let out another scream, curling up like a shrimp on the bed, tears and snot streaming down his face: "Girl! Grandma! Spare this old man! I won't sing anymore! I'll never let you sing again!"

Ye Zhen let go, covered him with the blanket, and took off her mask.

"It wasn't an act."

She turned to look at Hu Dazhi, who was staring in disbelief, and said in a calm tone as if she were saying that the weather was nice today: "Deep groin tenderness is positive, the '4' test is strongly positive, and the affected limb is shortened by 1.5 centimeters."

Although the family members around them didn't understand the medical terminology, they all fell silent when they saw Old Li, who had been smiling just moments before, now sweating profusely from the pain, and when they looked at the calm young female doctor.

This isn't a performing arts troupe! This is clearly a tough guy!

……

Doctor's office.

Ye Zhen inserted Old Li's X-ray film into the viewing light.

"Dean Hu, look here." Ye Zhen held a ballpoint pen and pointed it at the femoral head. "Increased density and blurred trabeculae are signs of necrotic bone formation. The so-called 'blurred fracture line' is not healing, but an illusion caused by the absorption of necrotic bone."

Hu Dazhi squinted at the lightbox for a long time, sweat beading on his forehead. "It really is... How come I didn't think of this before? So... what do we do now? At the end of the second phase, is a joint replacement the only option? But that kind of surgery can only be done in the provincial capital; we can't even buy an artificial joint here!"

"No replacement is needed."

Ye Zhen put the pen back in her pocket, grabbed a prescription from the table, and wrote, "Perform core decompression and bone grafting."

"Stress reduction? How?"

"Using a 3.5 mm drill bit, drill in from below the greater trochanter, all the way to the area of ​​femoral head necrosis." Ye Zhen gestured with her hand to demonstrate the drilling motion. "To open up the decompression channel, reduce intraosseous pressure, drain venous congestion, and at the same time implant autologous cancellous bone to induce new bone formation."

Hu Dazhi was stunned, muttering to himself, "Drilling holes in bones... This... This is unheard of..."

"This is a well-established procedure abroad, but it's not yet widely used in China." Ye Zhen looked at him. "This is his only chance to save his joint. If we don't do it, it will definitely collapse within three months, and then even a miracle won't save it."

Just then, a loud "bang" was heard.

The office door was suddenly pushed open, slamming against the wall and sending dust flying.

Zhao Haifeng stood at the door with a dark expression, his chest heaving violently, clearly having just rushed back from outside. Behind him followed the head of general surgery and several attending physicians, all of whom also looked unfriendly.

"Hu Dazhi! I think you're getting more and more out of control!" Zhao Haifeng pointed at Hu Dazhi's nose and cursed, spitting all over his face. "While I was away, you brought unauthorized people to the ward to cause trouble! Old Li's shouting just now was heard even in the outpatient building! What are you trying to do? Try to provoke the family and make them smash up the hospital?!"

Hu Dazhi shrank back, but this time, when he looked at Ye Zhen and remembered Old Li, who was tormented by illness, he did not back down as usual.

"Old Zhao, listen to me, Xiao Ye, she..."

"What do you mean, 'she'?!" Zhao Haifeng didn't give him a chance to explain. He strode up to Ye Zhen, ripped the film off the projector, and said, "Comrade Ye, I know you're from the main hospital and have high standards. But this is the grassroots! Treating patients and saving lives requires science, not having you conduct human experiments!"

Ye Zhen had no choice but to patiently repeat her deductions again.

Zhao Haifeng slammed the X-ray film on the table, making teacups bounce around: "The fracture line is clearly healing, but you insist it's necrosis! You want to drill into the bone? Do you think his leg wasn't broken thoroughly enough? What kind of bullshit theory is this! I've worked in surgery for thirty years and I've never heard of such a ridiculous thing!"

"That's because you're ignorant."

Ye Zhen spoke calmly, her voice not loud, but it instantly drowned out Zhao Haifeng's roar.

The office was deathly silent.

Everyone gasped in shock.

Is this girl crazy? How dare she talk to Dean Zhao like that?

Facing Zhao Haifeng's almost murderous gaze, Ye Zhen not only didn't back down, but instead took a step forward.

"Dean Zhao, your so-called thirty years of experience is based on traditional orthopedic concepts," Ye Zhen said calmly and clearly. "But the theory of intraosseous high pressure is a consensus in the international orthopedic community over the past five years. After the medial circumflex femoral artery is injured, the femoral head is like a pressure cooker that only takes in but doesn't let out. If you don't drill a hole to release the pressure, the bone cells inside will be suffocated to death."

"The 'healing' you see is an illusion. If you don't believe me, you can have an isotope bone scan done on the patient right now, or a simple intraosseous pressure measurement. If it's negative, I'll pack my bags and go back to Beijing immediately, and I'll never touch a scalpel again."

Ye Zhen's eyes were sharp as knives, piercing straight to the heart: "But if it's positive, and because of your stubbornness and empiricism, the patient loses the chance to save their leg, can you bear that responsibility?"

Zhao Haifeng was speechless.

Although he had a bad temper, he wasn't incompetent. The terms that Ye Zhen uttered—intracranial hypertension, medial circumflex femoral artery, isotope scanning—didn't sound like they were made up.

Moreover, that confident aura made him inexplicably uneasy.

"You..." Zhao Haifeng gritted his teeth, "Where would our county hospital get isotope scans! You're making an unreasonable demand of us!"

"Then let's do a diagnostic biopsy," Ye Zhen insisted. "As long as we extract dark red clotted blood, it will prove my judgment."

Zhao Haifeng stood there, frozen in place, unable to back down.

If I admit it, I'll lose face; if I don't admit it, what if this girl is right...?

Just then, Hu Dazhi suddenly took a step forward, blocking Ye Zhen and Zhao Haifeng.

He took off his glasses, wiped the fog off, but his tone was unusually firm.

"Old Zhao." Hu Dazhi looked up at his old partner who had been suppressing him for half his life, "I think... Xiao Ye has a point."

"We've been treating him for six months, but Old Li's pain is getting worse. This is definitely not right! Even if there's only a 10% chance of success, we can't just watch people become crippled, can we?" Hu Dazhi gritted his teeth. "I want Xiao Ye to give it a try."

"Hu Dazhi, are you crazy?" Zhao Haifeng's eyes widened. "What if something happens..."

"I'll take responsibility if anything goes wrong!" Hu Dazhi shouted, his neck stiff. He was startled afterward, his face turning a deep purplish-red. "Anyway, I'm almost retired. At worst... at worst, I'll just quit being the vice-dean!"

Ye Zhen looked at the fat old man who usually seemed a bit comical, but who straightened his spine in crucial moments, and a hint of warmth flashed in her eyes.

Ye Zhen's voice was soft and unhurried, yet it easily pierced through the tense atmosphere. She reached out and straightened the slightly wrinkled collar of her white coat, her expression as calm as if she were going to the cafeteria for lunch, rather than discussing a surgery that could ruin her future.

"You don't need to take responsibility."

She raised her eyes, her gaze passing over Hu Dazhi and meeting Zhao Haifeng's fiery eyes directly.

"I will come up with the surgical plan, sign the preoperative consultation, and take the lead in the surgery." She spoke calmly and clearly. "If the surgery fails, or if the patient develops any complications, I will resign and compensate the patient and the hospital for all economic losses."

Zhao Haifeng was stunned, and so were the doctors around him. These days, doctors are too busy avoiding responsibility to even think about taking it on.

"However," Ye Zhen's tone shifted, her previously calm gaze instantly turning sharp, releasing the undisguised pressure of a top surgeon, "once we're in the operating room, I don't want to hear any dissenting voices, not even from you, the hospital director."

Zhao Haifeng looked at the excessively young girl in front of him. She was too arrogant, so arrogant that it made people grit their teeth, but that confidence was not faked, it was a certainty that came from the very marrow of her bones.

He glanced at Hu Dazhi, who was still panting heavily, then at the sketch paper on the table. His chest heaved violently a few times before he finally grabbed the X-ray film on the table and slammed it back down.

"Fine! I'll let you do it!" Zhao Haifeng gritted his teeth, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth. "Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, operating room number one! I'll personally be your assistant! I want to see if you really have the ability to bring the dead back to life, or if you're just putting on an act! If I find out you're inaccurate, don't blame me for kicking you out on the spot!"

……

The news spread faster than it could fly, reaching every corner of Qingyun County People's Hospital in less than half an hour, even reaching the old man selling roasted sweet potatoes at the entrance.

That "pretty face" from Beijing, who only knows how to wear Western suits and drink coffee, is going to drill a hole in the thigh of old Li, who's been lying in the orthopedics department for half a year, tomorrow! And she'll even have the notoriously hot-tempered Dean Zhao assist her by handing her the forceps!

In the nurses' station, a few young nurses huddled together, chattering excitedly with disbelief and anticipation; the older doctors gathered at the end of the corridor, smoking and shaking their heads, discussing how to handle the situation tomorrow; even the county health bureau called the director's office to inquire whether this was scientific research or just a chaotic mess.

The entire county hospital was like a boiling cauldron, bubbling and churning. Everyone's eyes were glued to nine o'clock the next morning, waiting to see what would happen: would a miracle doctor emerge and astound everyone, or would the young lady cause trouble and become the laughingstock of the entire county?