Healing Doctor

Chapter 253 Folk Remedies

After the surgery, Ji Xiang was about to take the patient back to the ward when Director Liu waved his hand and said, "Dr. Zhao, you take the patient back."

"Okay, Director," Zhao Zhe replied.

He is a senior attending physician, the kind of doctor who can even perform partial nephrectomy on his own. Director Liu has great confidence in him.

As long as Zhao Zhe doesn't nag in my ear, it's fine.

That guy is like Tang Sanzang, he never stops talking.

"Xiao Ji, you did a really good job with the surgery." Director Liu pulled Ji Xiang to change his clothes, and while he was talking, he looked at Ji Xiang. "You must have participated in a lot of surgeries during your internship. Your technique is skillful and impressive."

"It's alright. The teacher takes good care of me and has taught me some classes," Ji Xiang said.

Director Liu tried to probe a few more times, but Ji Xiang ignored him.

Director Liu was quite interested in Ji Xiang's background, but Ji Xiang wouldn't say anything.

Director Liu didn't force him; he told him to take it slow, as he understood the adage that curiosity killed the cat.

"Xiao Ji, I have something to tell you." Director Liu stopped asking questions and changed the subject. "Director Bai from the Medical Affairs Department copied the surgical video of the patient with massive hydronephrosis, saying he wants to participate in a surgical competition."

"A competition? You're actually participating in a competition?"

Ji Xiang had heard about the surgical competition when he was in Guangzhou, but he had never participated. He had also heard about the provincial urological surgery competition, but Ji Xiang did not want to participate.

He didn't even have a doctor's license, and the system hadn't given him any tasks, so Ji Xiang didn't want to waste his energy on it.

"It's just a bunch of shoddy work." Director Liu said with a hint of disdain, but he concealed it very well, as if he were joking. "It's just young doctors trying to build up their resumes by comparing their surgical videos to see who can perform the best surgery."

"oh."

"In the past, there were very few competitions in surgery. Setting up a video camera in the operating room could lead to infection, which was another matter. I saw it once when an expert from Edinburgh came to China to perform surgery. In order to improve the level of Chinese doctors, the whole process was filmed."

"However, this kind of full-process video recording involves the patient's privacy, and many agreements need to be signed, which is very troublesome. Moreover, if the hospitalization fees are waived, the hospital leadership will not approve it if the experts being consulted are not of sufficient level."

Ji Xiang listened quietly as Director Liu explained the ins and outs of the surgical competition.

"Going forward, when we perform laparoscopic surgery, we generally don't record the surgery because it's troublesome," Director Liu said. "But a very small number of surgeries are recorded, so we don't need to apply to the hospital; the patient's signature is enough."

"Director Bai wants to use surgery for a huge hydronephrosis to participate in the competition, this..." Ji Xiang hesitated slightly.

It wasn't for any other reason than that Ji Xiang felt the surgery only deserved an 8 out of 10.

After all, they are young at heart. They may hide their competitive spirit very well, but it will still be exposed once they have the opportunity.

"If you're unhappy, I'll go talk to Director Bai. Originally, it was Professor Gu's student, Zhou Tianbo, who was preparing to improve his resume in preparation for the evaluation of the Outstanding Young Scientist or the Yangtze River Scholar. Having more eye-catching things on his resume is a good thing."

"It seems that Yangtze River Scholars don't need these," Ji Xiang said.

Director Liu was taken aback; Ji Xiang seemed more familiar to him than he was.

Director Liu only knew about things like Outstanding Youth and Yangtze River Scholar; such honors had nothing to do with him, a director from a provincial capital who was already quite old.

Those are things that only young and middle-aged people in Beijing and Shanghai who aspire to become academicians would care about.

Not wanting to appear unskilled, Director Liu smiled and said, "In short, it's all about enhancing my resume. Director Bai copied a surgical procedure over; I guess he's just doing it for show. He called me to ask for our opinion. What do you think?"

Ji Xiang recalled the first open-ended task assigned to him by the system NPC—the student whose family was poor and who couldn't afford laser lithotripsy.

Director Liu resolved the hospitalization expenses with a single phone call, clearly demonstrating his excellent relationship with Director Bai.

Asking yourself a question is also a form of respect.

"I'm fine," Ji Xiang said.

Are you going to participate?

"I'm not going," Ji Xiang said. "Teacher Wang said there are some surgeries at the men's hospital this weekend, so I'm going there to have my surgery."

"Okay, I'll handle the patient's signature, don't worry."

Without realizing it, Director Liu had begun to treat Ji Xiang as an expert of similar skill level, and he no longer spoke to him with the condescension that a director would show to a junior doctor.

"Thank you for your hard work, Director."

The two changed their clothes and went back to the ward to visit the patients.

Ji Xiang knew exactly what was going on; it was confirmed by the system's NPC. The patient only needed the incision sutured up a week later, and the surgery wouldn't significantly impact their daily life.

Around 3 PM, Ji Xiang was writing medical records in his office when General Manager Wu walked in, patted Ji Xiang on the shoulder, and said, "Ji, the surgery was excellent. Have you encountered similar situations before?"

"I saw the teacher do it, but it wasn't caused by injecting papaverine into the corpora cavernosa." Ji Xiang's expression was calm, making it impossible to tell whether he was telling the truth or not.

"What's going on?"

"A student, out of curiosity, took sildenafil orally and experienced congestion for 28 hours," Ji Xiang said. "That patient's timeframe was relatively short. The patient we're seeing today has been in this state for almost 144 hours. The fact that the necrosis hasn't completely occurred is a testament to the patient's good health."

"Tsk tsk, he even knew about injecting papaverine into the corpora cavernosa. The key is, he knew, but he still dared to do it. And not only did he do it, he even dared to inject an excessive amount," Mr. Wu remarked.

"Don't you understand? Ignorance is bliss." Ji Xiang smiled.

"Mr. Wu, have you seen anything similar?" Lu Kai asked.

Mr. Wu looked Lu Kai up and down, and seeing that he wasn't holding up his phone, he felt relieved and started gossiping.

"Similar cases are rare. The strangest one I've ever seen was a patient who somehow found a folk remedy: one seal kidney, 50g of Cistanche deserticola, and 500ml of white wine."

"Normally, it's fine to drink a little every day, but one day the patient got drunk and went home for another meal. As a result, he drank more than half a kilogram of liquor at home, and even finished the liquor that was soaked with seal kidneys."

"Does it really work?"

"Anyway, the congestion just wouldn't go down," Mr. Wu said. "That surgery was relatively simple; the patient arrived early, less than 12 hours ago. But he hadn't sobered up yet, so I didn't dare take him on stage immediately. We endured another 8 hours, and it was barely dawn before we started operating."

"They didn't yell at you in the operating room, did they?" Lu Kai said with a smile.

"Of course she yelled at me. The circulating nurse was throwing tantrums and taking out all her morning grumpiness on me. But the anesthesiologist seemed really interested; it looked like he'd memorized all the folk remedies."

"I'll write it down if it's useful, just in case I need it later."

"This recipe is said to have been given to Zhang Juzheng by Qi Jiguang. Zhang Juzheng drank this kind of wine every day, and later he didn't wear a hat even in the dead of winter," Mr. Wu gossiped enthusiastically. "But I always feel that something is not right."

The phone rang, interrupting the gossip. Mr. Wu answered the phone, and after a few replies, his expression turned grim.

(End of this chapter)