Chapter 159

Guan Hongming, a graduate student at Han City University's Enshi Clinical College, has his enrollment registration with Han City University.

Speaking of it, Fang Ziye is actually the more orthodox Senior Brother; Guan Hongming is a Professional Master's Student in Orthopedics.

However, after entering his Master's program, Guan Hongming not only didn't manage beds like ordinary standardized residency trainees, but was instead directly assigned by Zhang Mingcan to the laboratory, managed and taught in the manner of an Academic Master's Student.

This is equivalent to giving him money and only letting Guan Hongming do experiments, without needing to participate in clinical affairs.

Guan Hongming is in the same cohort as Jie Han, currently in Master's First Year, about to end; he also has a Senior Brother who is in the same cohort as Shu Lang and Gong Ziming, also a Professional Master's Student.

After all, Guan Hongming's capability is insufficient to supervise Academic Graduate Students; he can only supervise Professional Master's.

After Fang Ziye finished writing medical orders and walked toward the operating room exit with the small-statured Guan Hongming, he turned his head and asked: "So, up to now, you still haven't entered the department? Director Zhang only lets you do experiments?"

Guan Hongming's eyebrows are very short, only two-thirds the length of an ordinary person's, but he doesn't look shifty-eyed; just overly ordinary in appearance, a bit like a bitter gourd face.

His build isn't broad and thick; his strength probably wasn't honed in clinical practice.

Frowning now, he looked even more gloomy: "Yes, Senior Brother Fang."

"According to the teacher's meaning, if we take the Professional Master's Student route, we might not even stay at Ben Yuan, let alone pursue a Doctorate."

"The bit of professional knowledge learned during the Master's is completely insufficient; better to publish a few more papers to increase competitiveness for the PhD entrance exam, and even when job hunting, others won't look at your operational skills — just passable is fine, as long as you can write medical records."

"Then completing basic operations like disinfection and draping is enough."

"But actually, I still prefer clinical work; it's just the boss arranged it this way, so there's no way."

"Sigh!" Guan Hongming helped Fang Ziye carry his backpack while sighing helplessly.

Fang Ziye's brow furrowed.

Although he disagrees with Zhang Mingcan's approach, he cannot disagree with Zhang Mingcan's thinking; for a Master's student like Guan Hongming, without papers, wanting to read for a Doctorate, in the assessment process, he's just cannon fodder and padding.

Zhang Mingcan recognizes this very clearly.

It's just that completely preventing Guan Hongming from clinical work is a relatively extreme approach.

But having money to let Guan Hongming do experiments, letting him fully detach to pursue his future, not affecting academic graduation and certificate issuance — it's also hard to say whether Zhang Mingcan is specifically right or wrong.

"So right now in the lab, there are only you and your Senior Brother?"

"Do you want to pursue a Doctorate?" Fang Ziye asked again, feeling Guan Hongming was a bit pitiable.

Hearing this, Guan Hongming pondered for a while, then nodded lightly: "Senior Brother, having reached our Master's stage, if we can read for a Doctorate, who wouldn't want to continue?"

If he hadn't come out to broaden his horizons, Guan Hongming would have felt settling down working in a town was pretty good; after applying, he had planned that if unsuccessful, he'd just become benevolent and go straight to standardized training work.

But coincidentally, Guan Hongming actually passed the Master's exam, and even attended the Orthopedics Annual Conference.

Last year's year-end conference made Guan Hongming realize.

Oh, so this world is actually this big.

Turns out at the Orthopedics Annual Conference, a department director from a prefecture-level city hospital isn't even a fart; if you go missing, the first to notice your disappearance might be the police, not other peers.

An Associate Professor, Doctor, with postdoctoral experience, visiting scholar, who published over twenty SCI papers — a top big shot — at the Orthopedics Annual Conference also has to be trembling with caution, humble and prudent to some extent, carefully playing the foil.

A province's biggest big shot, top big shot, surrounded by a crowd outside, upon entering the venue still has to accompany old comrades with smiles, hahaha, ohohoh, yesyesyes and such, careful and cautious.

Orthopedics Academicians, when speaking, are all extremely careful, afraid of overdoing the posturing.

Those serving as Conference Chairmen are basically all Professors.

That's a scene where Professors are worse than dogs, Associate Professors everywhere, and even Distinguished Youth and Changjiang Scholars have to tremble.

"If you have such thoughts, then Director Zhang's advice to you is correct."

"Studying is the fastest shortcut; publishing more papers, writing more papers, is the best path we ordinary people can take." At this moment, Fang Ziye finally understood what his Master had told him back then.

For an ordinary graduate student, if they can publish papers, that's a wonderful thing.

Take Jie Han for example; he has no connections; his very existence is the connection.

No matter who his boss is, even if he publishes basic research papers, with enough tool articles he can also carve out his own sky.

If he published over twenty SCI papers, who would dare say no to his Doctorate?

Which research group would be so generous? They'd only be scrambling to get him.

Compared to the water-grinding kung fu in the training room, increasing difficulty — actually writing papers is the best shortcut.

It's just that my own talent in this aspect is truly limited.

"How many papers have you published now?" Fang Ziye asked.

Guan Hongming gestured half an OK sign — just the O.

But Guan Hongming still smiled bashfully and added: "However I wrote a meta-analysis and a case report, don't know if they can be published, they're under submission."

"My Senior Brother published one, I'm second author." Guan Hongming just entered the lab recently, not much workload; experimental steps still need to be learned slowly.

Immediately after, Guan Hongming explained his and Senior Brother Du's current situation to Fang Ziye.

Guan Hongming's Senior Brother is called Du Hai.

Very ordinary name, but looks slightly more handsome than Guan Hongming, maybe not as good as Fang Ziye, but still okay — this is Guan Hongming's description.

Du Hai's experimental operations are also very average; currently he can only do basic experimental operations other than WB and flow cytometry cell counting.

No way, no resources, can only rely on self-study, self-comprehension.

Although he previously hung around the Provincial People's Hospital lab for a while, hanging around after all isn't being a lab person; how could others teach wholeheartedly? Everything depends on oneself.

So, the small pathways he can do — not even one very complete workload has been finished.

Barely published a Zone 3 paper.

Although there's talk of impact factor 2.1, in terms of zoning it's still a bit lacking.

"Senior Brother Fang, if you could guide me and my Senior Brother in doing WB and flow cytometry cell counting, that would be great."

"Does your lab have instruments?" Fang Ziye asked a key question.

Given Zhang Mingcan's lab scale, estimated there aren't any.

"Have to go to Internal Medicine's lab to do it, and very few people do it there, can book anytime." Guan Hongming's face reddened.

Han City University's clinical hospitals also have distinctions.

After all, this is the affiliated Enshi Clinical College, not Zhongnan or the Provincial People's Hospital — the gap in platforms is too large.

Fang Ziye was glad he hadn't ended up in a godforsaken place like this, but was instead taken under his teacher's wing; otherwise, with his dead-last ranking in the re-examination, the slightest slip could have spelled irreversible ruin.

Before long, Fang Ziye followed Guan Hongming to the so-called Orthopedics Laboratory.

Very small — estimated floor area only forty or fifty square meters, if that.

Two small offices: one was Zhang Mingcan's, the other belonged to the students.

It bore the independent plaque of the Enshi Key Laboratory, and the Hospital's Orthopedics Bone Tumor Laboratory plaque……

The equipment inside was also extremely limited — just a refrigerator, a liquid nitrogen tank, a cell operation bench, a shaker……

It qualified as "though the sparrow is small, it has all five viscera" — though the viscera weren't quite all there.

Still, it was plenty enough for very basic experiments.

Right then, Fang Ziye saw Du Hai.

Du Hai stood as tall as Fang Ziye, looked quite good — crew cut, tall and thin, open and cheerful, especially his slender neck.

After Fang Ziye entered, Du Hai, his face dotted with many small moles, hurriedly said: "Senior Brother Fang, I'm Du Hai."

"Holy crap, a total handsome guy." Du Hai froze a moment, then blurted out the honest truth, as if it weren't just commercial mutual flattery.

Fang Ziye shook hands with him and gave a brief self-introduction as well.

Du Hai promptly had Guan Hongming prepare tea and such.

To tell the truth, although the experimental conditions here were poor, the environment was especially good.

Quiet, relatively spacious, not crowded.

How could it be crowded — about ten people, five rows of seats, only three people present; each person could have a super-large tabletop to themselves.

Moreover, the small items inside were quite complete.

There were tea leaves, snacks, even some fruit, plus tissues and other daily necessities.

After Fang Ziye exchanged a few pleasantries with the two, he began asking about the research direction of the project group.

These two were studying the relatively hot membrane receptor BMPS pathway; currently, the subtype selection was the relatively rare bpm5.

The depth of their work certainly wasn't very deep.

What the two wanted to do next was to thoroughly elucidate the relationship between osteosarcoma OS and BMPS5, striving to detect the absolute expression level of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPS) in osteosarcoma.

Regarding reagents, both had already purchased them; it was just the WB experimental operation — they had tried several times before, all failed, and they didn't know the specific reason.

Of course, the two didn't immediately ask Fang Ziye to teach them right away; instead, they hoped Fang Ziye would help check their experimental steps and whether the preparation of experimental materials was complete.

After all, the experiments would be done in other laboratories, so prior preparation had to be thorough.

After Fang Ziye carefully examined their experimental material preparation, he immediately covered his forehead: "Which paper did you directly copy this experimental protocol from?"

One look and Fang Ziye saw the protocol was entirely a patchwork version — because the beginning didn't match the end, the reagent sequence was chaotic.

If this were Jie Han, Fang Ziye would have slapped the experiment notebook right onto his face.

Of course, since it wasn't his own project group's money, Fang Ziye didn't have that right.

Guan Hongming looked at Du Hai; the cluster of moles on Du Hai's right cheek twitched, and he, having his truth exposed, couldn't help but redden.

After explaining the situation, Fang Ziye added: "Doing it like this won't work — you need to find reagents related to BMPS5; otherwise what you detect will either be the total content of the whole BMPS family, or an impure mix of several subtypes."

"When the time comes, even if you put the experimental steps up, they'll be rejected."

"You still need to find several more papers, tailor the experimental methodology, and then separately design an experimental protocol for BMPS5."

This kind of blind groping — if it could succeed, tumor treatment would have been standardized long ago; how could it be tackled?

Having hit the nail on the head, the two could only go search the literature again — this was something Fang Ziye absolutely couldn't help with.

You haven't even worked out the experimental steps, yet you want me to design for you?

Would the whole experiment count as yours, or mine?

When my Master applied for the grant, he already roughly designed the direction of all experimental protocols; afterward I just had to follow up, and when I did the later stages myself, I also designed such experimental protocols and processes myself.

The two also knew in their hearts they had to do it slowly themselves, but estimated it would take three or four days to produce a plan; at least there was now a direction to strive toward.

Fang Ziye, for his part, felt the environment here was excellent, and the internet speed especially fast.

Even more importantly, this place could actually use the Hospital's intranet — that was incredibly awesome.

You see, the reason Fang Ziye rented a run-down place next to Zhongnan Hospital was because it could use Han City University's campus network.

And Enshi Central Hospital is a Han City University affiliated clinical hospital, with download permissions for literature; using the intranet directly, without logging into an account, you can download many resources for free — extremely easy to use.

"Right, Xiao Guan, Du Hai — can I come work here in the future?" Fang Ziye asked.

Such a good place to study — one more person doesn't count as many, right?

"Sure, sure, Senior Brother Fang — we're very welcome."

"Our lab's air conditioning is also powerful, especially toward the back when summer comes — welcome Senior Brother to station here often." Du Hai promptly agreed.

Only, as he agreed, a sidelong glance caught the Word document Fang Ziye was currently editing.

The contents were both familiar and strange.

Moreover, looking at the dense results and large number of images.

Du Hai was stunned on the spot, to the point that the two moles on his forehead, at the upper edge of his brow ridge, seemed to bulge out in shock, as if his shrimp eyes had been blinded by brightness.

"Senior Brother Fang, this is…?" Du Hai was a Master's student, had read many papers — at least he should have finished reading the references he cited when writing his own papers, right?

"Oh, writing a paper preparing to submit." Fang Ziye didn't hide it either.

Submitting a paper isn't shameful — acting all coy like you're still some whore.

Du Hai dragged a stool over and leaned in sideways, his gaze flickering rapidly a few times, discovering Fang Ziye had only edited three words so far, but just the page he stayed on left Du Hai a bit overwhelmed.

Moreover, looking at what Fang Ziye edited out, it was like reading a heavenly script.

Many words and abbreviations — completely impossible to guess what they meant.

"Senior Brother Fang, this paper of yours — the target journal's impact factor shouldn't be too low, right? What journal do you plan to submit to?" Du Hai tried asking, though his heart was actually very hollow.

He cursed inwardly: Teacher, oh Teacher, you call this no output, you call this not being valued, so there's no article thickness?

"Don't know for now, but when the time comes it'll definitely be my Master who sends it out, though I estimate maybe ten-odd points, twenty points." Fang Ziye replied openly as well.

Excellence isn't something disgusting; saying it openly isn't wrong either. Fang Ziye wasn't deliberately showing off either. After speaking, he just continued editing his own article.

Only, right at the instant Fang Ziye's words came out.

Guan Hongming, who was drinking water opposite, directly sprayed a mouthful all over his own notebook.

The notebook was still on, and immediately went black screen.

Fortunately Guan Hongming was still fairly rational; eyes quick hands fast, he directly pulled the power cord, and after watching the computer shutdown, directly flipped the computer face-down on the tabletop.

On one side he hurriedly went to get tissues, started wiping water.

"Senior Brother, there's no hair dryer in the lab, so let me go back and get one." Guan Hongming explained while wiping water off the keyboard and screen.

Du Hai looked at his embarrassing fellow trainee, but didn't blame him.

Fortunately he himself hadn't been drinking water, otherwise his outcome would've been the same as Guan Hongming's.

This was no longer making a fuss over nothing.

This was already a heaven-shaking holy crap.

You have to understand, Du Hai fought tooth and nail for over a year, nearly two years, before publishing a single Zone 3 SCI, and that was still with the teacher secretly helping with some things that couldn't be spoken of outside.

Fang Ziye opens his mouth and it's ten points, twenty points of articles — this damn thing has already broken free of zone restrictions entirely.

What concept is a basic Zone 1 article? Basically with this one article, within the province, even without a doctorate, aside from top-tier Grade-A hospitals, the rest of the teaching hospitals — you could pretty much pick any.

Because it's hard to publish.

There are too many doctors who graduate on Zone 2 articles.

There are too many associate professors and even professors who've never had an article of this high a level hanging on them — this is already the ceiling that ordinary master's students can hear about, can see.

You really think people who can publish in Nature and JAMA and such top journals are visible just because you're in grad school?

Remember, it's visible.

"This, actually it's also my Master's research project; I'm just a small slacker."

"Du Hai, no need to make such a fuss." Fang Ziye said.

Du Hai nodded: "Really envy you, Senior Brother……"

"I'll go to the restroom, Senior Brother, the restroom is out the door then right turn, then left turn and you'll see it……"

Du Hai hurried off.

But he went out not to go to the toilet, but to call his own teacher.

Zhang Mingcan had just come off surgery.

After hearing Du Hai's phone report, his face instantly darkened, his scalp even hiddenly numb.

What the hell kind of pervert is this?

Publishing twenty-plus point articles — you'd have to lure him with your life.

"Master, I feel maybe Senior Brother Fang looks down on ordinary achievements altogether, so what do we do? Just follow him and slowly learn?" Du Hai asked again.

"Slowly learn. One who's seen the world — ordinary rouge and vulgar powder are destined to be hard to enter his vision."

"Still have to rely on yourself, Little Hai." In Zhang Mingcan's voice, there was an added sentence of helplessness.

"Sigh." In the sigh, more helplessness.

"Master, you mean you wanted to invite an associate professor over to guide, and it also didn't succeed?" Du Hai asked subtly.

Because the sentence Zhang Mingcan taught him and Guan Hongming the most was: everything in reality is mostly interest exchange; everything in reality is resource exchange.

Do resource allocation well, and you can control the whole situation.

But it seems the resources Master understands aren't things he can exchange, so there's no talk of control.

(Chapter End)