The Surgeon’s Studio

After Zheng Ren returned to the on-call room, he lay in a comfortable position on the bed and opened a novel app on his cell phone.

Reading novels was one of his few pleasures in life.

He devoured one on his phone while chatting leisurely with the “extravagant” group via WeChat.

It turned out that they had gone for dinner after Su Yun had sent Sister Zhao home.

Since Su Yun had refused to hit the bottle with Chang Yue during their meal just now, all of them were still energetic and had decided to play mahjong together at Xie Yiren’s house.

These guys… Zheng Ren could even feel the excitement radiating from his phone when the group talked about their plans in WeChat.

However, this excitement was short-lived as Chu Yanzhi began to wail that she had lost all her pocket money in the group.

Losing two to three hundred yuan in a mahjong game that cost only one yuan per session was considered a gamble. Zheng Ren suddenly realized that if someone reported the situation… These emergency doctors could be arrested for gambling, leaving him to perform surgery alone again in the emergency department.

Then, Chang Yue gave a lukewarm response in the WeChat group stating that she was tired and wanted to return home first.

Zheng Ren suspected that she had lost all her pocket money as well.

Who was the winner? Without a single doubt, it had to be Yang Lei.

Yang Lei, who was normally a fly on the wall, had the same aura at the mahjong table as well. The player on his left always forgot to consider the tiles he discarded, and nobody paid him any attention even when he was holding a ready hand.

Chu Yanzhi became particularly active once she left the mahjong table and sent meaningless emojis in the WeChat group from time to time.

When the WeChat group had been created, they had agreed that it would be used only for work-related topics.

However, reality showed how true that supposition turned out to be.

An hour passed as Zheng Ren subsumed himself fully in his novel.

The phone rang as he was in the midst of the updated chapters that he had saved over the past month.

Zheng Ren’s heart rate instantly sped up to 110 beats per minute.

Trepidation gnawed at him as he accepted the call.

Fortunately, it was not a major rescue operation but an uncomplicated case of acute cholecystitis. Zheng Ren regretfully turned off the novel app, put on a white coat and went downstairs to the emergency department.

Upon reaching the department, the System gave a clear diagnosis on the upper right corner of his vision—acute cholecystitis.

However, the patient was unable to undergo surgery due to inadequate preoperative fasting, having had dinner only just now.

This was a headache. It was almost nine o’clock, and the patient had to fast for at least six hours before undergoing surgery…

Performing a surgery in the middle of the night?

Zheng Ren took the patient back to the ward. After speaking with her family, they reached an agreement that the patient would undergo laparoscopic cholecystectomy once she had adequately fasted.

The nurses began to perform necessary preoperative preparations while Zheng Ren took out his cell phone and notified the group about this “unfortunate” news.

A howl of anguish dominated the WeChat group as they were reluctant to deal with patients arriving at the latter half of the night.

In addition to their complaints and protests, they blamed Zheng Ren’s tough luck in particular.

This was a term commonly used in the medical field.

For example, one must not call a night uneventful during night shifts as there was a 76.34-percent chance that multiple emergency cases would then arrive one after another.

For example, one must take off their socks and not be fully clothed when going to bed. Otherwise, there was a 54.58-percent chance that one’s slumber would be disturbed in the middle of the night.

Et cetera.

In fact, no one knew when the myths were created, but the god of night shifts actually existed in the medical world.

Even though the god had no physical form, it existed in the spiritual world of every night shift doctor nationwide.

Every clinician working night shifts would pray for zero cases in the emergency department every single time.

One would rather have dust covering all medicine on the cabinet and hope for a healthy and prosperous life for everyone.

This statement had inadvertently embedded itself into the mindsets of night shift doctors and nurses.

Although it was slightly contrasting with their original intentions…

The complaints and accusations against Zheng Ren’s bad luck in the group chat soon ended, and they were now discussing the best course of action to deal with the situation.

In the end, they decided to play mahjong while waiting for the surgery.

After all, Xie Yiren’s house was near the hospital. Zheng Ren assumed that the time taken for him to go for a consultation was enough for her to drive back and forth twice.

Su Yun claimed that a sleepless night would not affect his work efficiency and directly asked Yang Lei to return to the hospital.

After the necessary arrangements were made, Zheng Ren asked the patient, who had just arrived, for her detailed medical history.

The thirty-six-year-old female had experienced abdominal pain that very afternoon, but had chosen to ignore it. However, the pain became unbearable while she was in a class reunion party earlier, and so she was sent to the hospital.

‘Nothing gets between a foodie and delicious food,’ Zheng Ren thought.

However, Xie Yiren’s behavior was much more advanced in comparison. Not only did she prefer to order delivery or dine in a restaurant, she would also try to figure out the recipe for every delicious dish she had tasted.

Just as Old Master Q[1] used to say, “Know the how and endeavor to know the why.”

That girl… The thought of Xie Yiren’s cute, furry appearance subconsciously put a warm smile on Zheng Ren’s face.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

Everything that had been arranged went to pieces twenty minutes later.

Two patients with acute appendicitis were sent consecutively to the emergency ward. Zheng Ren immediately summoned everyone to prepare for surgery.

It was surely a sleepless night, but not a big deal as everyone had gotten used to it by now.

These patients’ conditions were relatively simpler, unlike past major resuscitation events where doctors’ blood pressures had almost burst through their heads while patients’ blood pressures had dropped to ankle-height.

That was truly a hectic night with countless problems to be dealt with before and after surgery.

The group was disciplined enough to reach the hospital within twenty minutes and began making the necessary preparations for each surgery. The only exception was Yang Lei, who quietly left a WeChat message saying that he would invite everyone over to dinner next time.

Zheng Ren jotted down the main points during history-taking from the patients with acute appendicitis so that Chang Yue could document the cases tomorrow.

He was a little envious of Chang Yue now. How nice it would be to be able to sleep peacefully at night as well.

A hundred thousand words in his novel had been eagerly waiting for him tonight; what a pity…

He had to have suffered brain damage or gotten too confident to think that there was no need to visit the emergency department tonight.

As Zheng Ren counselled the family members about the surgery, the night shift nurses finished preoperative preparations such as preoperative skin preparation, venous cannulation, and urinary catheter and nasogastric tube insertions for the patient with acute cholecystitis.

Su Yun wheeled the patient into the operating theater once preoperative counseling was complete. Zheng Ren then counseled the next patient’s family members before going to the operating theater to change his attire and perform the surgery.

When Zheng Ren finally entered the operating theater, Su Yun had already performed most of the surgery and was waiting for him, like a student waiting for his professor, to take a look at it before completing the most crucial part of the surgery.

It took less time for Zheng Ren to finish the surgery than to perform a surgical scrub.

The mission One Tree Does Not A Forest Make seemed to have benefits even without a reward.

‘Surgery really can’t be done alone,’ Zheng Ren thought happily as everyone rested after the successful completion of both appendectomies.

[1] Old Master Q (老夫子) is a popular Hong Kong manhua created by Alfonso Wong.