The Surgeon’s Studio

It took twelve minutes to travel from the operating room on the third floor to the emergency department ward on the second floor.

The patient was lifted onto the hospital bed. Zheng Ren breathed a sigh of relief.

The sky was already dark. Two to three hours for an appendectomy that he did not perform. It dissatisfied him somewhat.

Chang Yue was typing up the first-time admission record, the ward round record, the post-surgery record and other paperwork.

“Be wary of the patient’s family,” Zheng Ren warned Chang Yue.

Whether she heeded his warning would be another matter.

After the surgery, Su Yun headed for the CT room to follow up on the 64-slice CT scan.

Before the end of their shift, Old Chief Physician Pan took Zheng Ren, Chang Yue and Yang Lei for a ward round.

In most of the rooms, the patient’s family welcomed them with smiles and laughter, complimenting the surgical skill that speeded up their patients’ recovery. When they got to the room of the patient with acute appendicitis, they were greeted with a sight of her adult son taking up half the hospital bed. The patient was still recovering from anesthesia.

Old Chief Physician Pan’s face was grim. “Get up, you.”

He was a man who had been through war and witnessed countless deaths. The murderous aura currently radiating from the old man surprised Zheng Ren.

The patient’s son was startled from his nap and was about to throw a tantrum when he saw Old Chief Physician Pan’s expression.

Instead, he said nothing and curled up against his mother’s side like a baby quail.

“Doctor, the child is just tired. He didn’t get enough sleep last night,” the middle-aged woman said as she fought her pain. She shifted her body and tried miserably to shield the young man.

Each movement brought a stab of pain to her incision site.

Old Chief Physician Pan coughed lightly. It was not his place to criticize the patient’s parenting, so he began routine questioning.

Chang Yue stood behind him and wrote up the conversation.

“No major movement for a day. You can start eating after passing gas,” Old Chief Physician Pan advised in the end. He turned to leave the room.

He was clearly in a bad mood, apparent from the look on his face.

That was the patient’s son, not his. So, just like Zheng Ren before, Old Chief Physician Pan could only ball up his anger and keep it within himself.

The other patients in the room were stable. Old Chief Physician Pan had confidence in Zheng Ren’s and Chang Yue’s work ethics, so he only sat in briefly before leaving for the office.

An hour later, Su Yun returned with the 64-slice CT scan.

Zheng Yue placed the scan on the film viewer and used his phone to capture the image.

He studied the scan in detail and made sure his phone camera had captured it clearly. Then, he sent the photos to Chang Yue for her negotiations with Manager Feng from China Changfeng Microinvasive Surgery.

Chang Yue was not in the office. She was probably speaking with one of the patients.

Zheng Ren went to look for her to discuss Miss Yun’s surgery.

…

…

It was another quiet night. As the weather got colder, fewer roadside stalls were open. There was less drunken fighting and even if there were, thicker clothing led to fewer injuries.

The drop in cases of emergency surgeries was a blessing to Zheng Ren’s sleep schedule.

It was morning when Zheng Ren was woken by shouts from a patient’s room.

A shiver crawled up his spine and he quickly rushed out.

Following the sounds, Zheng Ren managed to locate the source.

Before he could enter the room, the young man from before barged out furiously, nearly colliding into him.

Zheng Ren frowned. ‘What’s this young man up to again?’

He moved aside and allowed the man to stomp past before entering the patient’s room.

The middle-aged woman who was recovering from her appendectomy had her head under the covers. From its shuddering, Zheng Ren gathered that she was crying.

The patients who shared the room, as well as their families, had looks of disapproval.

Zheng Ren asked, “What happened?”

Two of the patients who had more or less recovered remained silent. They had snuck off last night and therefore did not know the full story.

However, they were also shocked at the turn of the events.

One of the other patient’s family members spoke up: “Her son wanted her to prepare a meal for him. I told him his mother was still recovering from her surgery and he should just order delivery. He got mad and slapped her.”

“…”

Barbaric.

Zheng Ren sighed. He felt helpless. Some words of consolation would be nice, but it would be difficult to do so without being judgemental. After all, it was her parenting that led to this.

After a few seconds of contemplation, Zheng Ren decided to leave this conundrum to his junior, Chang Yue. Perhaps the fearless resident doctor could find a solution to this.

Zheng Ren went to the office and ran into her just clocking in. He gave her a summary of the patients’ status and asked about the discussion with Manager Feng.

Manager Feng had been very cooperative. He had passed on the CT scan images to the professor in Sorcery Capital and they would have a verdict on the case after the professor’s morning rounds.

Zheng Ren was eager to work with the professor. He wondered how being the Master rank in interventional surgery would compare against the world’s best.

He had an inkling that the difference could be translated into the skill point difference between a Master and Grandmaster.

Nevertheless, he wanted to witness it with his own eyes.

As he was finishing up his paperwork, Chang Yue came into the office with an odd look on her face.

This was the first time Zheng Ren had seen this expression on her. He asked out of curiosity, “What’s wrong?”

“A doting mother spoils the child.”

That was pretty telling.

“She tried calling her son but all her calls were rejected. Then, he blocked her number.”

There was nothing they could do about the situation, so he changed the topic to the Sorcery Capital professor.

Maybe Chang Yue could compose the patient, if she had the patience.

What could anyone say about an adult in his twenties acting like a wild animal?

Zheng Ren failed to hold back a sigh. He sat back down and started reading.

Chang Yue took a moment to manage her emotions. Then, with her spirits recovered, she trudged out into the hospital ward to get acquainted with patients and their families.

During lunch break, the wards were less hectic.

Some of the patients who lived near the hospital had covertly returned home after morning checks were complete.

Although insurance companies did not allow patients to leave the hospital, doctors could not force them to stay, either.

If they did so, it would be considered unlawful detention and could become a huge problem if a hard-headed family sued them for it.

In the hospital, they had the triple, double and single suites. Single rooms were limited, while triple rooms were usually cramped with three patients and their families making the air stuffy and uncomfortable. Therefore, doctors usually turned a blind eye to patients leaving their rooms as long as they signed liability disclaimers beforehand.

The rooms were thus filled with the three patients who had their surgeries only a day ago and could not walk yet.

These patients had undergone laparotomies. Patients who underwent laparoscopic splenectomy could usually go home in twenty-four hours post-surgery.

The muted hospital ward was preferable to Zheng Ren. He liked it more than the chaos of the first general surgery department.

After noon, Zheng Ren’s phone beeped. It was a WeChat message from Manager Feng of China Changfeng Microinvasive Surgery.