Chapter 187

Xue Tao first held the elderly woman's hand, and did not push her away despite her great strength, merely turning his head to Liu Chaodong beside him and saying, "Family member, you take the old lady to the side to rest for a bit, let her calm her emotions."

"The old lady's emotions are rather agitated, which is not good for her condition at such an advanced age." According to the old lady's account, she was already over ninety years old this year.

Liu Chaodong nodded upon hearing this: "Then when will we be able to see the patient later? He'll come out from here too, right?"

"No no no!"

"A patient who just had surgery, even if the surgical outcome is good, will be transferred directly from the operating room to the ICU."

"They take the internal passage, they won't come this way."

"Later the patient will be sent to the ICU across the hall; once in the ICU, you listen to the ICU doctors' arrangements, you should be able to put on isolation suits and go in for a look. As for when the person might wake up, you'll have to wait for the ICU doctors to notify you."

"Mm, okay." Liu Chaodong nodded repeatedly.

After Liu Chaodong had the person accompanying him help the grandma out, he raised his head and asked Xue Tao, "Two doctors, thank you."

Xue Tao and Fan Zanyi — Liu Chaodong didn't know either of them, but the fact that he'd encountered so many unfamiliar doctors this time proved that the condition was indeed very serious right now.

"Family member, have you managed to contact the immediate family of the other patient? He previously went through a resuscitation, and his vital signs are currently unstable as well."

"You still need to set your mind at ease..." Xue Tao said while observing the changes in Liu Chaodong's expression.

"Contacted them, you don't need to worry! Just do your utmost to save them, the first priority is to save the person you're operating on right now, Zhang Yu."

"He holds extremely important intelligence and data, so..." Liu Chaodong kept rambling on.

"The other one surnamed Liu, is your son, right?" Xue Tao, having caught Fang Ziye's hint, directly pierced through it.

Liu Chaodong froze at those words.

He didn't deny it, just his eyes reddened; after taking two deep breaths, he asked, "His injuries are lighter than Zhang Yu's, although most of your doctors went to Zhang Yu's side, does he still, still have hope?"

There were four people total, one died on the spot, one died on the way.

Xue Tao then understood Liu Chaodong's meaning, but could only say, "We'll do our utmost, but when I just went out, I took a look, and the situation isn't good."

"If it could have been handled at the first time, the probability of resuscitating him would be much greater. But now, it's hard to say either way."

"Actually, according to our hospital's regulations, we're supposed to try to save the less severe cases first..."

Liu Chaodong merely cupped his hands toward Xue Tao, then turned and left with a pained look.

As if he didn't want to hear the rest of Liu Chaodong's words.

When turning back to walk into the operating room, Fan Zanyi asked Xue Tao, "Director Xue, do you think the one resuscitated earlier is that Bureau Chief's son outside?"

Xue Tao shook his head, merely saying, "I don't know either, we can only do our human duty and leave the rest to heaven."

"When TV drama plots shine into reality, I actually find such choices even harder to understand."

In the operating room, after Fang Ziye and Wu Guo Nan once again completed the right upper limb 'Simple Limb Salvage Surgery', when Fang Ziye put down the scalpel and needle holder, he felt his hips were about to stiffen up.

The immersive surgery kept Fang Ziye from moving much for a full five hours; the prolonged standing felt like his joints had gotten air-locked, the pain stimulus causing his muscles to reactively tighten.

"Director Wu, I need to step down and rest for a bit." Fang Ziye actively requested.

To tell the truth, he had rarely participated in surgery this immersively before.

Back when he was at Zhongnan Hospital, even with surgeries this long, Fang Ziye wasn't the lead surgeon; as an assistant, he didn't have to expend mental energy, just had to act as an assistant.

The pressure and mental expenditure of being lead surgeon are completely incomparable to an assistant's.

Every single detail needs attention paid to it.

"Good, Little Fang, you step down and rest first! By the way, get something to eat."

"The rest, leave it to us." Wu Guo Nan hurriedly let Fang Ziye step down.

"Circulating nurse, help Doctor Fang undo the straps."

There were two circulating nurses; one was getting things for the thoracic surgery people, the other hurried over to help.

Fang Ziye moved a few steps and felt the pressure in his hips ease considerably; after taking off his clothes, he breathed a sigh of relief, then checked the time — it was already 7 PM.

Meaning, from entering the OR in the afternoon until now, nearly six hours had passed, and in those six hours Fang Ziye had been immersively operating for over five hours.

The empty-stomached Fang Ziye suggested: "Director Wu, the debridement and suturing afterward can wait a bit, let me order takeout and we'll eat together?"

"Fine, later I and Wang Zhongxing and the others will rotate down to eat."

"Little Fang, you go rest first; after you've rested well, go check the situation in the operating room across the hall."

"Logically speaking, the situation there should be lighter; they should have been done long ago." Wu Guo Nan instructed while continuing the finishing operations of debridement and suturing.

"Send me the ordering money later."

Wu Guo Nan only had the limb salvage surgery in mind, he simply hadn't thought about the not-having-eaten issue; actually, logically, he should have had the nurses help order food long ago.

"No matter, Director Wu." Fang Ziye had already unlocked his phone.

At the same time he saw a message from Luo Tingzhu.

"It matters; when you become my superior, you can treat me to a meal then, this rule still can't be broken."

"Even if it's broken, it has to be broken sneakily." Wu Guo Nan's mood improved, and he started cracking jokes again.

Fang Ziye returned a smile, then asked, "Director Peng, Director Chen, want to eat together? I'm ordering anyway."

During the life-saving, the circulating nurses who were usually most active about shoveling rice didn't mention going to the meal room to eat, so everyone in the OR was empty-stomached.

Huang Jiaoshan from Anesthesiology, who had rushed back from the operating room next door, heard this and raised his head: "Doctor Fang, no need to order, I've already called for twenty boxed meals to be delivered; they'll be placed in the meal room later."

"Director Huang is generous as expected, thank you Director Huang." Director Peng Yuanming raised his head slightly at this moment, expressing thanks.

Hearing this, Fang Ziye didn't say much more.

Although boxed meals aren't expensive, with his current savings, if he paid for twenty portions, he'd have a hard time getting through this month.

Competing with the director to treat, Fang Ziye wasn't going to worry his head about that.

Picking up his phone, chatting with Luo Tingzhu on one hand and walking out on the other, he didn't greet anyone else again.

He had to do two things first: one was go to the toilet, especially his bladder was swollen tight; the other was drink some water.

For long surgeries, the most crucial ability is holding your urine, and the reason surgeons are predominantly male is precisely this — female colleagues may not have it as easy as males.

If you encounter a major emergency resuscitation, the patient here is already spurting blood, so you tell me — are you going to hold it or not?

"In surgery, be down in a bit." Fang Ziye sent Luo Tingzhu a brief message, then walked to the restroom to relieve himself.

While squinting his eyes, a most captivating smile curved Fang Ziye's mouth corner.

Because, as this surgery neared completion, the knowledge points fed back from his surgical performance had also reappeared on the faintly visible panel.

"Knowledge Points +155!"

"Knowledge Points +111!"

"Knowledge Points +201!"

"..."

"Knowledge Points +3!"

"Knowledge Points +41!"

These knowledge points were apparently awarded separately based on each of Fang Ziye's minor operations — some more, some less!

But stacked together overall, although there weren't many super huge figures.

Still, this one super critical limb-salvage surgery still netted Fang Ziye a total knowledge point income as high as 1,183.7.

"Current Knowledge Points Balance: 1452.1!"

Knowledge points hadn't fully recovered, but had recovered over half, nearly sixty percent of knowledge points.

At the same time, Fang Ziye also obtained four Level 4 skills, though they were all in directions different from trauma surgery and osteotomy correction, possibly useless for his subsequent specialty development.

But for the surgical patients, it was a kind of salvation, and for sense of achievement, the feedback was very real.

Because of his existence, this man named Zhang Yu, who was originally going to have an amputation, now didn't need one — although he didn't directly save his life because of himself, being able to bring benefit through his own cause was his sense of gain.

And such a harvest was even more captivating than the thousand-plus knowledge points before his eyes.

"Comfortable!" Fang Ziye finished relieving himself and pulled up his pants.

Opening his eyes again, he looked at Luo Tingzhu's chat window, but Luo Tingzhu had not replied to Fang Ziye.

Fang Ziye didn't urge her either, but explained: "There's another patient, I'll go check the specific situation first, you go to the laboratory or outpatient clinic first, we'll chat again at your noon or evening."

Fang Ziye himself also needed to rest for a while, tidy up a bit, before he could go to the operating room again, otherwise if he just 'charged in' like this, he wouldn't be able to help at all.

Ten-odd minutes later, Fang Ziye lay down on the reclining sofa in the operating room's rest room, propping his right leg up in an Erlang leg pose, rhythmically bobbing it up and down.

Deep green rubber round-hole slippers dangled on his toes, about to fall but not falling.

Right now, Fang Ziye was examining his own panel.

Simultaneously consuming knowledge points to plug gaps and fill deficiencies —

【Medical Basic Theory: Surgery Level 3 0/500, Orthopedics Level 3 0/500, Trauma Surgery Level 3 0/500, Hand Surgery Level 2 41/50, Joint Surgery Level 2 35/50, Sports Medicine Level 1 15/20...】

In terms of medical basic theory, compared to when he first got the panel, progress was quite significant, thanks to Fang Ziye reading literature and accumulating corresponding theoretical knowledge.

However, today was the first time Fang Ziye realized that his theory had become a relatively major shortcoming for him.

Even in the overall surgical procedure aspect, he was slightly lacking.

Before, Fang Ziye felt he didn't need to rush — why rush? In theory, he didn't need to worry at all, with Teacher Deng Yong and his Master Yuan Weihong backing him up above, giving him support; treatment principles, treatment choices — Fang Ziye didn't need to expend any thought on them at all.

So Fang Ziye felt he fundamentally didn't need to waste knowledge points adding points to theory.

Theory is mostly used for surgical approach selection, surgical process reasoning, disease diagnosis, postoperative medication and other comprehensive aspects, collectively called theory, a comprehensive ability.

But Fang Ziye didn't need to use these abilities.

Knowledge points are extremely limited; for a student like him, as long as he had necessary theory it was fine, no need to be omniscient from the start and then be unable to do anything —

Such a deformed structure.

Instead, many universities precisely because they previously cultivated not a few students who knew much but could do little, shifted toward comprehensive development.

When it's not his turn to sit outpatient clinic, see emergency, do emergency consultation, improving theory would be pure bullshitting.

But now it's different...

So, Fang Ziye added the corresponding theoretical knowledge of surgery, orthopedics, and trauma surgery to Level 3.

Theory improvement is even more intangible grinding work than operation improvement; Fang Ziye didn't feel any change discoverable at the first time, just felt that his understanding of diagnosis and treatment patterns for some common disease types in surgery, orthopedics, and trauma surgery would be a bit clearer.

But progress is good.

Specialty basic theory, Fang Ziye didn't make any improvements.

It's not that Fang Ziye didn't want to add points, but current knowledge points are really too few, every point must strive to be used on the cutting edge.

If he could have knowledge points freely, Fang Ziye would hate to not max out all skills, but the problem is, not enough.

Knowledge points far from enough, so a surgical medical student must still uphold learning skills first, solving some small problems first, undertaking the positioning of basic clinical operational functions.

Medical basic operational skills were relatively luxurious —

【Medical Basic Operational Skills: Medical Basic Physical Examination Level 4 2/5000, Suture Skill Level 4 4/5000, Hemostasis Technique Level 4 1/5000, Incision Technique Level 3 141/500, Debridement Technique Level 3 122/500, X-ray Reading Technique Level 3 15/500, CT Reading Technique Level 3 9/500, Puncture Technique Level 2 14/20, Knot Tying Technique Level 3 17/500, Surgical Routine Instrument Operation Experience Level 2 19/50, Medical Routine Examination Reading Experience Level 2 43/50.】

For basic skills, Fang Ziye just raised two to Level 4, respectively Medical Basic Physical Examination and Hemostasis Technique.

Hemostasis Technique improvement only consumed 200-odd knowledge points, while Medical Basic Physical Examination, added up from Level 2, consumed 500-odd knowledge points.

Also fortunate that Hemostasis Technique had some progress added before, otherwise Fang Ziye's previous knowledge points wouldn't have been enough to add points to vascular incision technique, thrombectomy technique, vascular anastomosis technique and other skills.

This was still with Fang Ziye today happening to do a difficult recurrent joint dislocation with joint soft tissue injury closed reduction, gaining nearly a hundred knowledge points as a result.

The following medical specialty basic skills appeared a bit unbalanced.

【Medical Specialty Basic Skills: Manual Reduction Technique Level 4 28/5000, Vascular Incision Technique Level 4 0/5000, Thrombectomy Technique Level 4 0/5000, Vascular Anastomosis Technique Level 4 0/5000, Compression Hemostasis Technique Level 2 0/50, Ligation Hemostasis Technique Level 2 0/50, Nerve Anastomosis Technique Level 2 2/50, Limb Simple Fracture Open Reduction Internal Fixation Technique Level 3 0/500, Tendon Suturing Technique Level 2 3/50...】

【Specialty Skills: Osteotomy Level 3 200/500, Bone Harvesting and Grafting Technique (Compression Bone Grafting) Level 3 201/500...】

【Specialty Advanced Skills...】

【Specialty Frontier Skills: Osteotomy Correction Technique...】

【Auxiliary Skills: Medical Basic Cell Experiment Technique Level 4 45/5000, Medical Animal Experiment Technique Level 4 76/5000】

Looking at the skill pool above, dense and packed, with some spots lit up and some not lit up at all, Fang Ziye immediately rolled his eyes.

Thankfully he himself hadn't closed it; otherwise, relying solely on his own meager talent, to raise this many skills would truly not be something a human could do.

Surgical talent is sometimes simply unreasonable; for example, some people might raise their proficiency by four to five hundred points in a month, while he himself could only raise one point every two or three days.

This gap...

Naturally, only such top-tier geniuses could possibly raise skills to Level 4 or even Level 5 without a cheat; surgery isn't something ordinary people can just play around with.

Even with a massive supply of operation opportunities, their talent might become the upper-limit barrier; some people, exhausting their whole lives, probably still wouldn't reach Level 4 or above.

Fang Ziye imagined: if someone had even worse aptitude than him, needing ten or even twenty days to raise one proficiency point, then a year would be only twenty to thirty points; five thousand proficiency points might require a hundred years of accumulation.

Even for himself, ten points a month, one hundred twenty points a year, would need forty-eight years total.

And a surgeon's career span in a lifetime is only about forty-odd years!!!

Forget it, let's not think about these things; rest properly for a bit, then go up and check on that surnamed Liu patient, see what's going on.

Fang Ziye picked up his water cup and slowly took another small sip of water.

Then he looked again at the hug emoji message Luo Tingzhu sent; Fang Ziye didn't reply again.

About five or six minutes later, Fang Ziye's phone rang — the boxed meal had arrived.

Fang Ziye hurried to the surgery meal room, finished the takeout first, then took a fresh cap and mask, put them on properly, and headed back toward the operating room.

After the cap and mask were both adjusted, Fang Ziye checked the time; it was already seven fifty, nearly eight o'clock.

Just as he was about to enter the operating room, Fang Ziye deliberately glanced at Zhang Yu's operating suite; inside, Wu Guo Nan had already stepped down to eat, while Xue Tao and Wang Zhongxing were still doing the debridement and suturing, placing drainage tubes, and other finishing work!

At the same time, Peng Yuanming and the Thoracic Surgery chief also brought good news.

Zhang Yu's vital signs had stabilized.

Hearing this, Fang Ziye smiled silently, withdrew from the operating suite, turned, and walked toward the opposite side, no longer disturbing the other doctors.

But the moment Fang Ziye entered the adjacent Operating Room 11, two rather familiar voices reached him from inside.

"Brother Qi, did your hospital only save one of those two?" The voice came from Nie Mingxian; he had already returned to sit in charge of Liu Linjie's operating room.

And at this moment, on the platform performing the laparotomy as lead surgeon, besides the Huang Kai and Hong Du Lao Zhuren Fang Ziye had summoned, there was an additional Wu Xuanqi.

"Mm, only snatched back one; the other one."

"Sigh." Wu Xuanqi didn't answer, just frowned tightly.

(Chapter End)