My Medical Skills Give Me Experience Points

After filling in the information form, the supervising doctor, with a pointed voice, said "Do you know the first thing about joining Cardiothoracic Surgery? Learning to take out the trash. Because in our Cardiothoracic Surgery, there are no minor operations, all of them are high-risk, high-technical requirement major surgeries. Don't think about what you resident trainees can do; what you can do is watch more, learn more, listen more, ask less, and do less."

It's often said that those in Cardiothoracic Surgery are too proud and arrogant.

Zhou Can experienced it firsthand today.

Although resident trainees are indeed inexperienced in many aspects, they are still much better than interns. Moreover, some of the resident trainees present have already been in training for more than two years.

They have long since obtained their Medical Practitioner Certificate and can be considered formal Resident Doctors.

Even being the attending physician wouldn't be a problem.

Yet here, they are being told to learn how to take out the trash, which is simply infuriating.

While they were talking, a young female nurse rushed into the office in a panic.

"Dr. Zhao, Dr. Zhao, a patient with severe chest pain has arrived outside. Please, you must quickly come and see!"

"Why did they come here? Tell them to go and register at the outpatient clinic first!"

Dr. Zhao, who was speaking to Zhou Can and the others, frowned.

Normally, when patients directly run into the doctor's office, they are advised to first register and follow the outpatient clinic process.

Otherwise, if all patients did so, wouldn't it be chaos?

"He says he knows Director Xue Yan; maybe you could go take a look!"

The nurse seemed a bit troubled.

The relationships between medical and nursing staff in the department are complex, and when encountering patients who know doctors from the department, nurses usually handle the situation with caution.

When the patient knows a Director Level physician, they absolutely cannot simply send them away.

If Director Xue blames the nurses afterward, their life would become very difficult.

Usually, in the hospital, despite nurses often cursing up a storm—telling off patients, families, and then doctors—it seems like they fear neither heaven nor earth.

But they actually act quite shrewd.

If you observe carefully, you'll notice that the nurses only scold doctors below the level of Resident Doctor. When encountering more senior Resident Doctors, even if they have complaints, such as thinking the doctor is too slow or pushes too many tasks onto them, they wouldn't dare express it to their face. They typically just make a few disparaging comments behind their back.

Well, nagging is a natural talent of women.

As for scolding an Attending Physician, only a nurse who has lost her mind would do such a thing.

For the even higher-ranking Director Level physicians, even their Director Level nurse practitioner would greet them politely when they meet.

For some, respect is all they have.

Upon hearing it's a patient with connections, Dr. Zhao didn't dare delay and walked out of the office to find the patient at the nurse station's entrance lying on a gurney, continuously screaming in pain.

Three family members with anxious expressions were accompanying him.

Judging from the way these people were dressed, their financial conditions seemed quite well.

The two older males and females, likely the patient's parents, stood there with a certain presence.

Possibly they were low-ranking officials or managers in some unit or company.

People who have a little bit of power typically like to pull strings and take shortcuts when going to the hospital for treatment.

Especially for small-scale officials from most government and enterprise units, seeking familiar contacts or relations when going to the hospital for treatment is almost a necessity.

Probably it's related to their work environment.

In many government and enterprise units, those who can become low-ranking officials are usually people with backing.

"Doctor, hello, this is my son. I have a very close relationship with your Director Xue. She is currently in surgery. Could you please help check what is wrong with my son?"

The older woman spoke up first.

As for the young woman lying flat on the gurney, quite pretty with a good demeanor, she didn't speak but anxiously watched the young man constantly crying out in pain.

The four of them were probably a family.

The elderly couple was the patient's parents, and the beautiful young woman was the patient's wife or girlfriend.

"What happened to him?"

Dr. Zhao performed a physical examination on the patient while inquiring about the situation.

"My husband said he suddenly heard something like the sound of fabric tearing in his chest while doing pull-ups, and then it was unbearably painful," replied the pretty woman.

Dr. Zhao nodded, pulled open the patient's collar, and examined the chest wall.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Here... oh, it hurts..."

The patient's physique is quite robust, with two large chest muscles and no belly fat.

He must have been exercising regularly.

"There might be a chest muscle tear; you will need to register at the outpatient clinic and get a chest CT scan to see the details. If it's severe, surgery is definitely needed."

Dr. Zhao told the family after the examination.

"Doctor, can you make an exception and directly issue a request for my son's examination?"

"Sorry, I am in charge of the inpatient department. You need to find an outpatient doctor for this."

Dr. Zhao tactfully declined.

These relatives really dare to think big; in such a large hospital, it's simply not possible to operate outside the rules.

At most, if a patient or the doctor themselves gets injured and happens to be acquainted with the medical technician who runs the corresponding examination room, they might privately ask for an x-ray. They won't need the results printed; just take a quick look to assess where the injury is and how serious it might be.

But as for what the relatives suggested, forget about it.

There are many patients from out of town desperately waiting for a bed.

With no other choice, the family had to take the patient to the outpatient clinic.

Upon leaving, they were somewhat displeased, not even offering a word of thanks.

Dr. Zhao immediately began assigning tasks to the resident doctors.

The old rule was to manage the beds.

This included assisting in surgeries, writing medical records, and learning to prescribe, among other tasks.

Zhou Can was in charge of beds 16—20. His supervising doctor was none other than Dr. Zhao.

It was hard to tell whether Zhou Can was lucky or somewhat unlucky.

Just as he took charge, a patient in bed 17 needed to be scheduled for surgery.

This patient had been examined and needed to undergo an aortic aneurysm clipping surgery.

Thoracic surgeries and abdominal surgeries are actually two different concepts.

For abdominal surgery, cutting through the skin, muscles, and peritoneal layer is sufficient.

But to open the chest cavity, even for a simple heart vessel bypass, the sternum must be sawn open, and then a retractor is used to spread the bones apart. After the surgery, the sawn sternum is fixed back together with steel pins.

All thoracotomy procedures are major surgeries with very high risks.

An aortic aneurysm clipping surgery is a bona fide Level 4 major surgery.

It's just as Dr. Zhao said; in the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department, there are no minor surgeries, only major ones.

The patient's surgery is scheduled to begin at eleven in the morning. The lead surgeon is none other than Director Xue Yan, whom the patient had recognized earlier.

The patient has been advised to fast before surgery; the nurse had already notified them.

Zhou Can's task was to record the pre-surgery temperature, blood pressure, and other vitals, as well as to confirm if the patient had any known allergies, among other things.

The patient in bed 19 is being discharged, which involves many procedures they do not understand.

They kept coming over to ask questions, and Zhou Can explained everything to them patiently.

After a nearly grueling three-month training in the Intensive Care Medicine Department, managing beds in a specialized inpatient department felt incredibly easy to Zhou Can.

No longer constantly on edge, no fear of patients passing away in the next second.

He even didn't need to stay by the bed all the time; if he wanted to go to the bathroom or back to the office to write medical records, he could do so anytime at his pleasure.

Less than an hour later, the patient with the chest wall tear came back, holding the CT images in his hands.

Connections do pay off; his bed was arranged so quickly.

"The bed is here for you. Director Xue has already instructed us to schedule his surgery as soon as possible. During this time, do not eat or drink anything," the nurse said as she personally led the patient and his family over.

They were directly settled into the freshly vacated bed 19.

Then the nurses from the inpatient department came over with a tray. They started forming the patient's file, measuring temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and other basic data, followed by administering a pain relief injection to the patient.

The man, who had been in severe pain, finally calmed down.

Knowing the right people in the hospital can indeed get you special treatment.

The treatment that this patient with the chest wall tear received was far beyond that of an ordinary patient, whether it was medication use, queue jumping for a bed, or the expedited scheduling of surgery – all slick maneuvers.

This preferential treatment was due to their acquaintance with a Director Level physician who could accord them the utmost care.

Zhou Can observed all this social intricacies quietly, thinking to himself how powerful a Director Level physician could be.