Healing Doctor

Chapter 1 Reserve Resident Trainees

"Scars are a man's badge of honor."

"Do you know what the most shining medal is?"

The surgeon standing in front of the operating table looked around at the young people gathered around it, then glanced at his assistant, and finally met the patient's gaze. A smile spread from his mask, offering comfort.

The patient was very nervous; his legs were tense and trembling slightly.

"It's a surgical scar left from circumcision."

"Don't be nervous. Just imagine how wonderful it will be to fly freely like a bird in the sky from now on!"

The surgeon spoke the last sentence intently, staring closely into the patient's eyes.

After speaking, the short, fat sorcerer narrowed his eyes, emphasizing the word "爽" (shuang, meaning "enjoyable") in his words. For a moment, Ji Xiang, standing behind the sorcerer, couldn't tell whether the teacher was making a suggestive joke or not.

Or perhaps, driving.

Ji Xiang is a newly arrived reserve resident trainee. Today he visited the Second Affiliated Hospital. He will be officially recognized as a resident trainee after passing the exam in a few days.

He was tall, clean-cut, and handsome.

It's said that surgeons move incredibly fast on the operating table, but in Ji Xiang's limited experience, he has never encountered anyone as adept as the teacher in front of him.

After a few casual words, the patient's tension eased slightly. He slowly closed his eyes, adopting a helpless expression, waiting to be cut.

The key point is that we've already taken our pants off, so it's too late to say anything now.

"Colonel Wang, you always say this before surgery. Is it some kind of strange ritual? Summoning your surgical god?"

The nurse asked as she deftly organized the various surgical instruments the surgeon needed.

"I'm telling the truth." The sorcerer smiled slightly. "The most shining medal, I wonder which lucky girl will be able to see it in the future."

As he spoke, the practitioner hummed a familiar song.

"You urologists are a bunch of scoundrels, you all talk about vulgar things, it's so boring."

"I'm not talking about the lower three routes, but the upper three routes. Neurosurgery and thoracic surgery would have to agree, wouldn't they? This is professional knowledge; if you don't understand, don't talk nonsense. Actually, we're the ones who are really bad; breast and thyroid surgery is the real scoundrel."

The nurse ignored Colonel Wang's rebuttal, finished packing everything up, and finally opened the lidocaine and saline solution and put them aside, saying, "Just call me if you need anything."

Circumcision is a minor outpatient procedure and is not performed by a scrub nurse.

The surgeon didn't mind being called a scoundrel. He hummed a song, attached a 5ml syringe needle to a 10ml syringe, diluted lidocaine, drew a tube of the mixed solution, and began local infiltration anesthesia.

The "assistant" beside you wants to help, but doesn't know what to do.

"Look, pay attention to my hand shape and the angle of needle insertion. Local infiltration anesthesia is a minor procedure, but there are many different interpretations," Colonel Wang said to his assistant.

The assistant nodded and looked at it intently.

"Teacher, are you a retired senior colonel?" A newly arrived resident trainee behind me asked with eyes full of admiration.

"No," the surgeon replied naturally. "I said I was willing to laugh, and as a result, the department started calling me Colonel Wang."

"It turns out to be a misconception," Ji Xiang thought to himself, standing behind Colonel Wang and looking down at the surgical area.

During a hospital visit before his residency training, Ji Xiang was very pleased to be led by his supervising instructor to the outpatient operating room to observe a circumcision procedure.

He was actually very worried that, as some people online had said, the teachers in the department made the resident trainees do all sorts of odd jobs, including getting meals and taking care of children, without teaching them any proper work skills.

The so-called "real job" is writing medical records, plus all the other work-related documents in the department.

That would be really boring.

Although Ji Xiang understood that he and his classmates were just background figures for the person now standing in the assistant's position, he was quite satisfied with it.

The "main character" was the first to go on stage, followed by several resident trainees who took turns acting as assistants to "help" Colonel Wang perform the surgery.

Although it's called "assistance," it's really just about getting a close look at the atmosphere of the surgery; I'm part of the "atmosphere team."

"Watch my surgery carefully, pay attention to the details, and then read the book when you get back."

You, stand up ahead and look carefully.

"Surgery like circumcision may seem minor, but there are actually many details to pay attention to." Colonel Wang disinfected the area with 0.5% iodine solution, laid out surgical drapes, and spoke to the students from the very back.

"teacher."

The student who was called out by Colonel Wang said nonchalantly.

"Um?"

"They say that if you persuade someone to study medicine, you'll be struck by lightning."

"!!!"

"!!!"

The resident trainee standing in front of that person quickly and discreetly stepped on his foot to shut him up.

Colonel Wang was not angered by the rebuke. He didn't even look at the "disobedient" resident trainee. Instead, he injected diluted lidocaine and waited for the anesthesia to take effect.

While waiting, he laughed and said, "You are still young, and it's inevitable that you will be misled by public opinion."

"But Teacher Wang, there are too many doctor-patient disputes now. There are nearly ten incidents of violence against doctors every year. We are all scared."

"Yes, many classmates with connections don't even come for residency training after graduation; they just switch careers directly."

"The medical profession doesn't really have a high ceiling. What can you achieve at the top?" Colonel Wang said. "At most, you'll end up like Dr. Zhong, getting criticized even with a specialist appointment costing 1,300 yuan. Look at Buffett, he makes hundreds of thousands or even millions for a single meal, and it has to be auctioned off."

"yes."

The trainees were somewhat surprised to hear Colonel Wang say this. Was he contradicting himself? Did he have some kind of unusual fetish?

"But!" Colonel Wang raised his voice slightly, glanced at the young people around him again, and said earnestly, "Doctors may not have a high ceiling, but they have a high floor."

Moreover, it's not just high, the lower limit is exceptionally high. You'll understand in a few years when your family introduces you to boyfriends or girlfriends.

"Is that so?"

Colonel Wang fitted the outer edge panel with a leather ring and cut it, then turned the inner panel outward and fixed it in place. He said, "One is a white-collar worker in a big factory, earning 20,000 to 30,000 a month; the other is a junior doctor in our hospital, earning 8,000 a month. Guess which one your family will favor?"

The trainees looked at each other in bewilderment.

"I'm telling you, as long as you're not out of your mind, your family will choose a doctor." Wang Daxiao used a CO2 laser to make a circumferential incision on the inner panel of his bag, 0.5cm from the coronal sulcus, and cut off the excess bag.

"Programmers at big tech companies graduate at 35, but doctors are just getting started at 35. If you put your mind to it now, by then you'll be leading a surgical team, or at the very least, working as an assistant. Earning money is one thing, but high social status and convenient access to medical care are also considerations. The most crucial thing is—stability, as stable as a rock."

"You'll gradually come across the specific details later."

"Teacher, programmers at big companies achieve fulfillment and financial freedom by the age of 35," someone retorted.

"Hey." Colonel Wang chuckled, glancing up at the resident trainee who had spoken, but his hands didn't stop. He continued to stop the bleeding and repair the incision. "Financial freedom, is it that easy? When I was young... in the 1980s, a friend of my mother's was hit by a windfall."

"A pie? How big?"

"Inheriting the estate of relatives overseas, 2 yuan."

"Pfft~"

Several trainees burst out laughing.

For today's young people, millions of dollars are nothing; people flaunting their wealth online have raised everyone's threshold to an insurmountable level.

But if you reach into your pocket and have more than 100 yuan in your WeChat Wallet, you're considered rich.

"Back then, 2 yuan was worth more than 2000 million yuan now." Colonel Wang checked the surgical area and found no active bleeding. He then began intermittently suturing the circumcision incision. "That aunt felt she was financially free and completely let herself go. Now she's living a miserable life."

"On the other hand, if you have that ability, you can become a professor leading a research group at the Affiliated Hospital of Wudaokou Vocational and Technical College at the age of 35 without having to worry about inflation."

Colonel Wang performed the surgery swiftly, while instilling his insights on career and life into the children, regardless of whether these young people who had just entered society could understand him.

Ji Xiang wasn't interested in Colonel Wang's driving or his talk about life; he focused intently on watching the needle in Wang's hand intermittently sewing, trying to remember every detail.

The procedure was completed with a circular pressure bandage of oil-soaked gauze and gauze.

The pressure bandage was applied beautifully; for a moment, Ji Xiang even felt that Colonel Wang would tie a bow on it.

The patient was sent away, and the next patient was sent in.

The outpatient operating room was like an assembly line, and Ji Xiang then heard Colonel Wang bring up his previous remarks about medals once again.

These words seemed to have a magical power, easing the patient's anxiety somewhat upon hearing them.

Who doesn't enjoy driving?

Especially in the operating room, the doctors' humor and wit effectively eased the patients' tension and anxiety.

Ji Xiang thought that Dr. Wang was indeed a clever person; it turned out that his words weren't just for flirting but had other purposes.

"What's your name?" Colonel Wang turned around and immediately saw Ji Xiang, who stood out from the crowd. He looked up at Ji Xiang and asked.

"Ji Xiang, Ji as in auspicious, Xiang as in flying," Ji Xiang answered loudly.

"Good name," Colonel Wang said absentmindedly. "Come and lend me a hand during the next surgery."

Ji Xiang suppressed his excitement; he never expected that he would actually be on the operating table during the hospital visit before the exam.

Although I was just an assistant, and most likely I would do nothing at all, just observe a "simple" circumcision surgery up close.

But this is already the best reward for a resident trainee.

"Don't listen to their nonsense. What they mean by 'persuading people to study medicine will get you struck by lightning' is utter rubbish." Colonel Wang said to the young people as he began preparing for his surgery.

"Everyone says that the end of the universe is taking the civil service exam, but in the eyes of an old man like me, that statement is truly misleading."

"Teacher, civil servants have it good, their income is guaranteed regardless of drought or flood, that's what I call stability!" a resident trainee retorted indignantly.

"Okay?" Colonel Wang's mask shifted, as if he were pursing his lips. "Back in the 1990s, your parents should have experienced that. State-owned enterprise employees had what was called an iron rice bowl. But with the mass layoffs, that iron rice bowl was smashed to pieces. Not only were rice bowls sold off, but even pots and pans were sold off."

This experience was quite unfamiliar to the young people, and no one believed Colonel Wang's words.

In the limited experience of young people, taking the civil service exam has already acquired a sacred aura.

Colonel Wang knew the young people wouldn't believe him, but he continued, "Laid-off workers aren't having an easy time. Go back and look up why eating chicken frames is so popular in Fengtian, and then put yourself in their shoes."

From persuading people to study medicine to chicken frames, Colonel Wang's thinking was wildly imaginative, leaving the resident trainees speechless and falling silent.

Ji Xiang finished scrubbing his hands following the steps in the book. Seeing that Colonel Wang glanced at him a few times without offering any comments, he breathed a sigh of relief. As for the whole chicken frame thing, Ji Xiang had heard of it, but he didn't care.

As long as he didn't get scolded during his first surgery, Ji Xiang was quite satisfied with his performance.

Upon going on stage, Colonel Wang put on his gloves and patted Ji Xiang's hand. "Don't be nervous, help me hold on. I'm getting old, I can't do it anymore, I can't sit down without support. Back when I was young, I could do it with just one hand."

"Colonel Wang, be serious," the nurse scolded. "These young people have just arrived at the clinic. If you lead them astray, you'll only make them go astray."

"Hehe." Colonel Wang chuckled and began preparing the anesthetic drugs.

Ji Xiang was a little nervous and didn't think about Wang Daxiao's speed at all. Instead, he quickly recalled the scene of his classmate helping the surgeon during the last operation.

As soon as his hand touched the patient's surgical area, Ji Xiang suddenly felt dizzy, and the system panel in the upper right corner of his vision, which had been blank, began to flash as if it were being charged.

[System is starting up.]

In less than a second, light and shadow flickered around Ji Xiang, as if he had passed through a time tunnel and arrived in the system space.

He appeared in a corridor, the corridor of the general surgery operating room, where the LCD signs on the doors of the operating rooms on both sides clearly read – Surgery in progress.

(End of this chapter)