Chapter 104: Half a Point Not Up to the Person

Ji Xiang gave a chuckle, moved around a bit, and feeling no discomfort, he set his mind at ease.

"Teacher, the situation was critical just now, so I had to act out of necessity. If I had followed the normal procedure, in case they thought I had Appendicitis, I would have had to endure a knife," Ji Xiang said candidly.

The System NPC was noncommittal, changed the subject, and asked, "Tell me, what are your thoughts?"

Ji Xiang thought for a moment, "Teacher, does every Empathy experience involve encountering an accidental situation?"

"Most of them do."

"Testicular Torsion occurring on the right side is quite rare, and it even manifested as clinical symptoms of Appendicitis; I reckon one might not see a single case in a lifetime," Ji Xiang grumbled.

"I have seen two cases, and neither was misdiagnosed," the System NPC said.

"!!!"

Ji Xiang was stunned for a moment.

"Teacher, how did you manage that?"

"Intuition."

Ji Xiang never dreamed that the professional-to-the-Extreme Point System NPC would actually give such an answer.

Practicing medicine based on intuition? Should one cast a fortune-telling hex?

"When you have seen many patients, a natural intuition will arise; this is the accumulation of experience, and also an explosion of Luck," the System NPC said very blandly.

"Teacher, look at what you're saying."

"That is the fact," the System NPC said. "You will understand once you go to Clinical duty. Some people are just lucky and sleep soundly until dawn. Others are trembling with fear, with a pile of emergency Patients every night shift."

"This has nothing to do with diagnosis," Ji Xiang felt the System NPC's words were drifting off-track.

"I once had a young Doctor under me whose shifts were particularly busy," the System NPC smiled. "And all sorts of rare cases came during his shifts. Let me ask you, what is the rarest and most fatal emergency in Thoracic Surgery?"

"..." Ji Xiang was bewildered and shook his head.

"Rib Fracture complicated by Aortic Dissection," the System NPC explained. "The pain of the Aortic Dissection tear is masked by the pain of the Rib Fracture, and since it is just a Rib Fracture, one wouldn't routinely perform a slice CT."

"So some Patients just die suddenly for no apparent reason."

The hair on the back of Ji Xiang's neck stood up all at once.

He didn't have a deep understanding of the Rib Fracture complicated by Aortic Dissection that the System NPC mentioned, but the Testicular Torsion he had just experienced manifested as symptoms of Acute Appendicitis; he had just gone through it.

This was only because he knew the System's purpose, so he narrowly avoided it in the end. If it were an ordinary person, they would likely face necrosis and amputation.

Many times, it is indeed true that one's whole life is fate, and not even half a point is up to the person.

A Doctor is also part of fate; the System NPC's words made sense.

"Teacher, what happened to that young Doctor under you later?"

"Over 8 years, he received a total of 6 patients with Rib Fracture complicated by Aortic Dissection. Once, he admitted a patient, and both the Resident Chief and the second-line duty Professor ruled out the diagnosis. He was restless, and at 2 a. m. in the middle of the night, he called my phone."

"He only said one sentence: 'Boss, all the tests are fine, but I just feel something is wrong.'"

"!!!"

Ji Xiang was shocked by this reason. Can one be a Doctor like this?

Are you kidding me?

"That patient had a regular CT, and the films looked fine to me. But I understood him, so we pushed the patient to do a bunch of tests together in the middle of the night and determined it was an Aortic Dissection, performing a major emergency surgery." (Note)

"Impressive," Ji Xiang murmured in praise.

"Do you know why I agreed with you adding your Free Attribute Point to Luck?"

So there was such a rationale; Ji Xiang was awestruck.

It is not that one can solve all diseases just because one's surgery reaches LV9; under the limitations of technological levels, human power always has its limits.

"As for people, there will always be some inexplicable sudden deaths," the System NPC continued. "Once, I went to eat, and I have a strange quirk: when I go out to eat, I like to sit in the lobby; it's lively when there are many people."

"Teacher, you enjoy the hustle and bustle of the human world," Ji Xiang laughed.

The System NPC waved his hand; he seemed unable to listen to such literary descriptions. To him, this was just being lively.

"At that time, someone choked on food and had difficulty breathing. If it were you, what would you do?"

"Heimlich maneuver."

"Mm, that is what I did at the time," the System NPC said. "As a result, it failed."

"!!!" Ji Xiang was puzzled. The System NPC's emergency rescue level must be quite high; he even suspected that after the Heimlich maneuver failed, the System NPC could use a table knife to cut open the Patient's trachea to ensure basic breathing.

How could it fail!

"That patient was eating freshly sliced live octopus, the kind where the octopus legs on the plate are still moving. Because the suckers on the legs firmly attached to the throat and airway, it caused suffocation."

"I first used the Heimlich maneuver, but it was useless. I immediately performed a Cricothyroid membrane puncture, but after opening it, it was still useless; the octopus leg was actually inside the airway..."

The System NPC sounded somewhat regretful.

Ji Xiang was awestruck.

With the System NPC's level and ability, he was actually helpless against a foreign body in the airway.

"Therefore, as a Doctor, you must know that the ceiling of your level and ability is limited by basic disciplines," the System NPC looked at Ji Xiang and said earnestly. "Misdiagnosis and mistreatment are unavoidable; one can only reduce the probability."

"Teacher, I understand," Ji Xiang nodded obediently.

"Good, next we will learn the manual reduction of Testicular Torsion."

"Testicular Torsion is often caused by a lack of normal fixation tissue around the spermatic cord inside the scrotum, leading to an abnormally movable testicle."

"The general probability of occurrence is 1/4000. Triggers can be trauma or sports, but more often it is spontaneous spermatic cord torsion, which mostly occurs upon waking from sleep. The cause is the sudden contraction of the cremaster muscle leading to the spiraling of the spermatic cord."

"Teacher, does this count as young people having healthy bodies?" Ji Xiang suddenly asked.

"There is a possibility of that," the System NPC said. "Testicular Torsion is more common on the left side, which may be related to the longer left spermatic cord. In diagnosis, typical acute Testicular Torsion presents as acute scrotal pain, but there are also patients with inconspicuous or progressive pain."

"There are several situations that are difficult to diagnose; among them, the patient you experienced who resembled Appendicitis is one, and another is the patient with intermittent pain."

The System NPC explained in detail, while Ji Xiang listened earnestly.

His memory was good, almost photographic, and plus he had learned these things before, just not as meticulously as the System NPC explained.

Moreover, after Ji Xiang had personally experienced it, there were some subtle and nuanced insights; whenever the System NPC spoke of a point, Ji Xiang would cross-reference it with their own personal experience and ask about any parts they did not understand.

Their diagnostic and operational proficiency grew continuously.

Ji Xiang understood that the significance of Empathy lay in allowing them to experience the suffering of the Patient, and even more so in allowing them to have a clear grasp of the onset process of a disease.

Although it was only one possibility, after experiencing it once, they had entered a brand-new world.

……

……

Note: I am that unlucky Doctor; I was restless that night, all the examinations were fine, but I just felt there was a problem. I called the director in the middle of the night and solved the problem.

Thinking back on this kind of thing now, it still feels inexplicably strange.

(End of this chapter)