Chapter 25: The Road Ahead Is Long (Asking for Favorites, Asking for Follows)

That night, Fang Ziye tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.

One reason was excitement, the other was apprehension.

Coming from a small town, after twelve years of diligent study, he had entered an undergraduate university, and Fang Ziye thought he had already stepped onto his future. But upon arriving at an ordinary 211 university, Fang Ziye discovered that he had merely put on Kong Yiji's long robe.

Clinical Medicine is a good major, with quite decent employment prospects and stable income, it's just that the internal competition is exceptionally severe.

Since freshman year of undergraduate studies, Fang Ziye knew that to stay in a teaching hospital in the provincial capital, a doctoral graduate student was merely the basic educational requirement. However, for an ordinary 211 undergraduate like him, when it came time for graduate school, he would have to go through cruel killing struggles.

Fang Ziye had been studying since childhood, only knowing how to do exam questions.

After graduating, he discovered that his parents were too ordinary; they could support him financially to leave that county town, which was their lifelong effort. From then on, if Fang Ziye wanted to make his way outside the county town, he could only rely on himself.

This was Fang Ziye's first coming of age.

During his master's stage, Fang Ziye luckily entered Zhongnan Hospital as a professional master's graduate student in Orthopedics. At this time, Fang Ziye discovered that in the hospital, the high-degree master's student in relatives' eyes was nothing but a dogsbody.

On the operating table, doctoral students wanting to get a chance to suture all had to endure, had to wait, and had to have the ability.

In the hospital, even after doctoral graduation, one was still just an ordinary brick — moved wherever needed. A doctoral graduate who had endured and become like a teacher, an attending physician, was merely a more premium brick.

One could say it is because Yuan Weihong is at Zhongnan Hospital that he is an 'attending expert' in outsiders' eyes, not because Yuan Weihong exists at Zhongnan Hospital that Zhongnan Hospital is the best teaching hospital for Orthopedics.

Even an associate professor like Xie Jinyuan, in the hospital, could only curl up, following Teacher Deng, honestly learning techniques and solidly doing research.

And even Professor Deng Yong, in the province's medical circles, was still not the topmost handful; above him were senior old professors, discipline leaders.

And Fang Ziye was also fortunate to follow his teacher to the national Orthopedics annual conference, where the bigwigs who stirred up wind and clouds in Hubei's orthopedic medical circles, whom he only occasionally saw, were still trembling with fear on such an academic conference stage.

If you are merely an ordinary professor?

You're just a senior worker, nothing much to say about it.

And Fang Ziye was also fortunate to be taken abroad once by his teacher; that time he followed Professor Deng Yong to nearby Thailand to attend a world-class academic conference, and only then did Fang Ziye know that the ceiling of China's medical circles, when facing world-class academic conferences, was so...

Not to say helpless, but one could also say everyone was a person who had put on Kong Yiji's long robe.

You fundamentally cannot imagine how developed foreign medical standards are; even if they appear to be dawdling, you can never imagine just how competitive it is over there.

According to his teacher, when he studied abroad, he rented a spot in someone else's living room, having no money.

Even fully funded international students still didn't have that much money and still needed part-time jobs.

And foreign medical students only enter the medical field at the master's stage; their professors get up very early every day, do surgeries, ward rounds, then soak in the lab, and the next day it's the same all over again...

Others doing academics are truly doing surgeries in a down-to-earth manner.

But Fang Ziye originally thought all this had little relevance to himself.

Let alone going abroad, let alone large academic conferences, he couldn't even pass the hurdle of reading for a doctorate; what awaited him was going to a prefecture-level city, then at provincial academic conferences, applauding others, cheering them on...

At best, he could mix in a publicly funded trip to the national annual conference, watch others perform from afar, and then there would be no after.

But now, it seems all this has gained a bit of push and variables.

Reading for a doctorate is no longer unreachable; as long as he can push forward one more step, Professor Deng Yong can recommend him to the Surgery Teaching and Research Office, give him a doctoral quota, letting him have a chance to study.

Write papers, practice surgery, then consider whether he can reach the level of staying at the hospital.

However, Professor Deng Yong also said, if he can truly benchmark against the master's stage clearance from the first training room — that is, besides debridement, suturing, hemostasis, and incision, he can also have some other skills meet clearance requirements.

He would allow him to graduate early with a doctorate.

There are many benefits to early doctoral graduation; he would have more time to calmly enter a postdoctoral mobile station after graduation, engage in specialized research, solidify his research ability and project capability, for later, like his teacher, to compete for those...

Incision, suturing, hemostasis, debridement — these are merely surgery's basic operations, basic skills, basic kungfu, entry-level. They are things that must be mastered.

Of course, there are some other capabilities that also must be mastered well enough before one has the qualification to say one can establish a foothold in the hospital later; otherwise?

Using the adjective 'despicable' to describe you would be praise for you!

Being a doctor, technique is first priority.

But to be a better doctor than others, technique and research must both advance side by side; otherwise, today's China is long past the era where one could stir up wind and clouds purely by relying on heaven-defying operations.

"Let's not think about the far future for now; the distance is too far."

"First get the hemostasis technique up to standard, then consider early graduation, then first stay at the hospital — that's the proper business."

"What Ten Thousand Talents Plan, Outstanding Youth, Distinguished Youth — are those things I can consider right now?"

"Master said, I'm from a professional master's graduate student background, so I should first prove I'm indeed a technical talent first, at least I can qualify as this hospital's senior technical worker in the future."

"Orthopedic theory, bone defect treatment, large-area de-gloving injury treatment, mangled extremity..."

"Muscle suturing, bone setting technique, fracture closed reduction, etc., are all things that must be further learned and practiced. To benchmark against the first training room's major clearance, it's best to raise both basic skills and specialty skills to a certain level before graduation next year."

"Bone defect splicing technique, bone plastic surgery, bone flap design." Fang Ziye located these skills one by one from the specialty basic skills, then confirmed the subsequent work focus.

Fang Ziye had a dream, dreaming that he not only successfully read for a doctorate but also stayed at the hospital; after staying, he was promoted to attending physician, associate professor, professor, becoming a wind-and-cloud giant in the provincial industry.

But forcibly awakened by the alarm clock, Fang Ziye knew that the current him was still a junior resident physician; besides a promising future path, only a long, long road ahead remained.

(Chapter End)