Chapter 103: The Cry of a Crow in the Middle of the Night

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Even though the black second-hand Volkswagen Jetta emitted a lot of smoke, it posed no issue on the road as the driver obeyed all the traffic rules.

Ling Ran sat up straight with his eyes fixed to the front. He raised his feet slightly from the throttle pedal every time he was almost approaching the speed limit.

Ling Ran rarely overtook any cars or switched lanes, much less rev up the engine and made it roar.

The young nurses looked at one another. For some reason, they could sense a serious aura radiating from Ling Ran’s being. It was to the point where they toned down their volume as they chattered and laughed.

“We are at Hai Di Lao[1].” Ling Ran stopped his car at a junction beside a tall building.

“Doctor Ling, do join us for dinner,” Wang Jia said, having planned her words for a long time. “It was very troublesome for you to specially send us here—”

“My mother is cooking tonight,” Ling Ran replied briefly and urged them to leave, “You guys should hurry up. You won’t be able to get a seat if you miss your booking.”

The four young women were immediately disheartened. They reluctantly got off the car, and Ling Ran swiftly drove away.

It was very rare for Tao Ping to cook. She was only doing it today because she was in an extremely good mood due to the new Volkswagen.

If you were to look at it from an investor’s perspective, the prime cost of this meal was extremely high.

It would be a shame for it to go to waste.

…..

Four o’clock in the morning.

Ling Ran woke up naturally and rolled off the bed. He finished brushing his teeth, washing his face, and showering in less than ten minutes; he was done with his preparation to leave the house.

Immediately after that, he spent two minutes arranging his toothbrush, rinsing mug, towel, and other toiletries one by one. After he ensured that all the bristles on his toothbrush were pointing in the same direction, he quickly left home.

The Volkswagen was the first car Ling Ran ever owned, and it changed his life greatly.

Before this, he would usually choose to leave home at five o’clock in the morning, or even later. This was because there were very few buses at four o’clock in the morning, and neither was it convenient to take a taxi. It would also be a waste of time to walk to Yun Hua Hospital.

Things were different now that he had a car. Ling Ran drove at the speed limit all the way; he sped at thirty-five miles per hour at his fastest, and even during times when he slowed down, he was going at twenty miles per hour. When he reached Yun Hua Hospital, it was not even 4:30 yet.

‘Having a car does save time.’ As Ling Ran thought, he drove his car into Zone C, which was very near the building.

The parking lot he was using now was specially reserved by Director Huo, and was the Emergency Department’s flexible parking space. This type of parking lot was usually reserved for visiting scholars and doctors they paid with a high sum to come over to organize talks. This was so that they could combat the delays that occurred when applying for a space.

There was no need for Ling Ran to apply for a parking space because he was still an intern, neither did the doctors object to the fact that Huo Congjun straightaway gave special authorization for Ling Ran to use a flexible parking space.

Forget how difficult the M-Tang technique was and how incredible it was for him to perform one hundred cases of major surgery in a month, Ling Ran’s deeds during the past month had indeed increased the overall income of the Emergency Department by two to three hundred RMB. After receiving a bonus, how would the doctors and nurses have the nerve to go to Huo Congjun and argue about this?

Ling Ran reversed his car into the parking space in an exemplary manner. After he got out of the car, he even checked both sides to make sure that it was parked right in the middle of the parking space, and that the empty space on the right and left were of the same width. He also made sure that the empty space in front of and behind his car were of the same length. He then went straight to the operating theater.

The operating theater was the quietest at four or five in the morning. Most of the surgeries scheduled for last night had already been completed. If the surgeons were still not done by now, then the third-string doctors would have to be called to finish them.

The surgeries scheduled to be carried out in the morning had not started yet. Unless there were emergency operations, normal doctors would not schedule any surgeries to be carried out at this time, because no doctor was confident of completing a surgery within two hours, and the department’s most important ward round started at seven or eight o’clock in the morning.

However, Ling Ran did not need to make ward rounds. His position in the Emergency Department was more like that of a full-time surgeon; no one actually assigned any position to Ling Ran, it was just that Ling Ran preferred to operate rather than make ward rounds, and Huo Congjun just let him be.

As Ling Ran’s appendages, Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin did not really have much choice. The one who was acting as first assistant surgeon would continue to carry out surgeries with Ling Ran while the other made ward rounds. This was already the default template. Both of them even had to arrive half an hour earlier than Ling Ran.

The first thing Lu Wenbin did when he saw Ling Ran was yawn. He then quickly covered his mouth with his hand.

“Are you awake?” Ling Ran asked Lu Wenbin when he saw him yawn.

“I slept for around five hours.” Lu Wenbin smiled bitterly.

Ling Ran nodded and said nothing else.

He himself would only carry out surgeries if he had at least six hours of sleep. He had experience when it came to this, because if he did not get at least six hours of sleep a few days before examinations, there would be a marked decline in his results, and he would also become slow to react.

Because of this, Ling Ran slept at eight o’clock last night. As for days where he did not get to sleep early, Ling Ran would rather start carrying out surgeries a few hours later, or even reduce the number of surgeries performed.

However, there was no way to guarantee the amount of time resident doctors got to sleep.

Because Ling Ran carried out four or five surgeries a day, there were four or five medical records to be written every day, and each one was worth ten thousand words. Every day, the number of patients they needed to check on during ward rounds would also increase by four or five. Besides that, it was also inevitable that there were parts of the patients’ rehabilitation that they would have to participate in…

…One could say that the modern hospitals’ exploitation of resident doctors was a systematic one.

It was even easier for Huang Shiren to imitate the cry of a crow[2] in the middle of the night than for a resident doctor to work around the clock, because resident doctors had to wake themselves up

With Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin’s help, Ling Ran did not have to be responsible for many miscellaneous things.

He inserted the film from the MRI scan into the operating theater’s backlight with a snap. He compared it to the information he read earlier while pondering it. Lu Wenbin and Ma Yanlin were filled with envy as they watched Ling Ran.

For them, being able to understand MRI scans was an achievement that was truly hard to attain. Even though all medical students had to attend classes related to medical imaging, no hospital would attempt to make their clinicians learn how to read MRI scans.

The reading of an MRI scan was much more complicated than the reading of X-rays and CT scans.

Even students who specialized in the field of medical imaging might still not know how to read MRI scans after completing their undergraduate studies. If the hospital were a stage, it would be a realistic one; there was no use in studying since the shows enacted on this stage were especially brutal.

“I don’t see anything special. Let’s get started.” After he looked at the MRI scan, Ling Ran felt a lot calmer as he held the scalpel.

Before this, he could only read the Medical Imaging Department’s written descriptions, mainly to check if there was anything that made the patients unsuitable for surgery.

He did not use to have much perception when it came to how the ruptured tendons actually looked like. He could only look at them after making an incision on the patient’s hand.

This was how it was like for most surgeons. They would make all sorts of assumptions beforehand, but in the end, they would come to one conclusion: they would know the patient’s condition after the incision.

The best case scenario would be when the patient’s condition was in line with the doctor’s expectations. The second best scenario would be when the patient’s condition was in line with what the doctor had learned. The third best scenario would be when the patient’s condition was in line with the doctor’s experience. The worst case scenario would be when the doctor did not know what he was looking at.

Surgeons who knew how to read MRI scans could, to a very large extent, avoid the worst case scenario. Of course, that did not mean it could be completely avoided…

…There were always people with concealed or strange anatomical structures.

“Have you guys eaten your breakfast?” Ling Ran made an incision on the patient’s finger with ease and greeted everyone.

“Um… why are you asking?” Lu Wenbin’s guard was up. He also found it very strange. Ling Ran did not usually like to chat.

“I’m worried that you guys would fall asleep.” Ling Ran looked around and said, “By talking, you guys can probably stay awake.”

Lu Wenbin heaved a sigh of relief. “I do feel awake after talking to you.”

The nurse on shift could not help but laugh out loud. Lu Wenbin seemed encouraged and flashed a smile.

“Then, let’s talk.” Ling Ran asked again out of a sense of responsibility, “Have you guys eaten your breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Lu Wenbin answered in resignation.

“What did you eat? Pork trotters?” Ling Ran exposed the patient’s tendon as he spoke. He heaved a sigh of relief and said, “It’s basically the same as what I saw in the MRI scan. Our work after this will be easy.”

“Um… why don’t we… I think it’s better if we don’t chat.” Lu Wenbin felt like he could not even hold the retractor steady anymore.

“Sure.” Ling Ran was pleased. He was trying his best to force himself to chat, anyway. He felt happier now that he could keep his mind on the surgery without speaking.

The presence of uncontrolled chatter in the orderly operating theater was like the presence of sand in meat. Even though the meat could still be consumed, it would not taste as good.

Su Jiafu glanced at the numbers on the equipment before he retreated to the corner with his stool and took out his phone to play a game. He wanted to conquer two more cities while there were fewer players online.

Ever since the advent of smartphones, it could be said that there was a tremendous change to the life of anesthetists. In the past, it was as though anesthetists were imprisoned in hospitals, rushing about to different operating theaters round the clock. They did not even have the time to spend their pay.

But ever since smartphones came into existence, anesthetists lived a very good life in the hospital. They just had to play with their mobile phones in different operating theaters round the clock. The pay was not even enough for them to use.

One surgery was followed by another. When Ling Ran completed all four of the scheduled surgeries, it was only seven o’clock.

With his experience in hand dissection and the elevation of his abilities when it came to reading the MRI scans of the limbs, Ling Ran spent an even shorter time completing each surgery. Right now, Ling Ran was still kind of yearning to perform more surgeries, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Since there were no new patients, Ling Ran simply headed to the rehabilitation room. He wanted to see if there were any patients who woke up early to exercise.

For hand surgeries such as those performed on patients with flexor tendon injuries, even though the surgery itself was important, rehabilitation during the perioperative period was also absolutely necessary. There were already four patients seizing every minute and second they could get to exercise in the rehabilitation room loaned by the Hand Surgery Department to the Emergency Department.

A patient immediately recognized Ling Ran who was walking into rehabilitation room and greeted him with enthusiasm, “Doctor Ling, you’re here early.”

“Mm, I’m here to take a look.” Ling Ran nodded solemnly.

“I was about to show you my hand anyway.” The patient who greeted Ling Ran was in an extremely good mood. He deliberately waved with his injured hand, the hand did not look at all like it had been seriously injured before this.

He started his performance after Ling Ran came closer to him—he held three jujubes. He rolled the jujubes around his palm, picked them up, and placed them on the table with an extremely delighted manner.

After Ling Ran observed the patient with concentration for a while, he heard a “ding” from the system notification.

[Achievement: Patient’s Sincere Gratitude]

[Achievement Description: A patient’s sincere gratitude is the greatest reward to a doctor]

[Reward: Basic Treasure Chest]

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