Before Xie Yiren returned home, she gave her phone number and WeChat ID to Zheng Ren so that he could call her if there was any emergency surgery.
Meanwhile, Zheng Ren assisted Yuan Li with wound closure of a few minor trauma cases and rinsed the surgical tray after treatment. After exiting the procedure room, a physician on duty pulled Zheng Ren aside and said, "Chief Zheng, please take a look at this patient."
"Speak slowly. What happened?"
"A sixty-two-year-old female came in with intermittent tinnitus and headache for twenty-two years. I ordered a cranial CT scan for her but the results came back normal. I suspected she was having a tension headache and wanted to refer her to the neurology department, but she started crying in my room afterward."
From the history given by the female physician who was in her forties, Zheng Ren realized that she diagnosed the patient with hysteria, where symptoms were felt as a result of imagination.
The physician was merely being indirect in her explanation.
The messy and confusing cases in the emergency department made Zheng Ren feel helpless, too. Left with no choice, he followed the physician to the internal medicine division.
A pale-faced woman with an expensive-looking outfit was sitting on the floor when they entered the consultation room.
The person beside her was behaving decently, which indicated that they were not here to deliberately cause trouble. Perhaps the woman had lost confidence in life and was having a mental breakdown in the consultation room.
Staring at the female patient on the floor, Zheng Ren was dumbfounded when he noticed the hovering words on the upper right corner of his vision.
"Auntie, can you please stand up?" asked Zheng Ren kindly and politely.
Absent-minded and dejected, the weeping patient ignored him and continued to lean against the wall.
Her family member, who was a man in his forties, apologized sincerely, "I'm sorry, doctor. I've no idea what happened to my mother. I brought her to various hospitals in Imperial Capital and Sorcery Capital previously but they couldn't provide a definitive diagnosis nor treatment."
"Oh… To be honest, the diagnosis is obvious and the treatment plan is easy. Let us discuss this outside," replied Zheng Ren, wearing a warm and gentle smile to establish trust more easily.
After softly persuading the patient for a while, the middle-aged man managed to pull her up and brought her to a plastic bench outside the consultation room.
The emergency department was a madhouse right now with many patients waiting in line for consultation.
The patient's despairing sobs saddened a few people. When Zheng Ren mentioned that he knew what was going on with the patient, a few busybodies in the crowd quickly took out their cell phones and started video recording.
"Doctor, I'm really sorry. We'll leave after resting for a while," apologized the middle-aged man while hugging and comforting the patient, who was presumably his mother.
Despite feeling anguish, he still plucked up his courage and attempted to console his mother.
"Did auntie undergo a dental implant recently?" asked Zheng Ren seriously.
"Yes, half a year ago." The middle-aged man failed to understand the purpose behind Zheng Ren's question. More importantly, how did Zheng Ren know about his mother's dental implant when they did not know each other at all?
Zheng Ren smiled in response. "That's it. The dizziness and buzzing in the ears happened after the dental implant, right?"
The middle-aged man gave it some thought, but was uncertain about the answer.
That dental implant was a success and no one had related it with the vertigo and tinnitus experienced by his mother.
"Perhaps an after-effect of the dental implant?"
"Impossible. She would have consulted the oral medicine department a long time ago if there was an issue with the implant. Honestly, I think that doctor is talking nonsense."
"A complicated disease which the Imperial Capital and Sorcery Capital failed to treat but expecting a cure in Sea City? That must be a joke."
Onlookers started quietly exchanging views on this matter.
"Let's put it this way. There should be some dental prosthesis or dentures polished with metallic substance in your mother's mouth, yes?" asked Zheng Ren confidently.
"..." Was this doctor a fortune-teller, too? The middle-aged man was confused as to why Zheng Ren insisted on relating his mother's tinnitus and headache to the dental issue.
Was it possible that he was actually some private medical sales representative who wore a white coat and pretended to be a doctor in the Sea City General Hospital?
Upon realizing the possibility, he became frustrated.
"A primary cell can be formed by putting two metals with different reactivities into a solution. A lesson learned in high school, I believe," explained Zheng Ren without shame. In fact, he had absolutely no idea what a primary cell was.
Metal reactivity? That was all Greek to him.
However, he was forced to explain it after noticing the change in the middle-aged man's expression.
"So?" This is a Chinese internet slang for compliments.
Chapter 16 - The Length of The Entire Operation Depends On The Anesthesiologist
"There are two dentures of different materials in auntie's mouth and they use the secretion in the mouth as an electrical conductor to form a primary cell. The signs and symptoms will manifest whenever saliva is secreted during activities, so it's actually normal to experience some buzzings in the ears and numbness because of this," explained Zheng Ren.
The onlookers were amazed and confused at the same time.
Most of them had no clue what a primary cell was, but they could still judge the accuracy of Zheng Ren's theory in his diagnosis.
"I'll refer you to the oral surgery department for a tooth extraction. Any tooth will do. You'll feel better afterward," said Zheng Ren.
The middle-aged man was startled and confused. Zheng Ren's words sounded logical, but… was that true? It seemed like a made-up story or some wild imagination.
Well, at least he was convinced that Zheng Ren was not a conman from some private pharmaceutical company.
A young man, who had failed to squeeze through the crowd with a cell phone in hand, stood on a plastic bench and yelled at his phone, "Brothers, the doctor said that two dentures of different materials will form a primary cell in the mouth. Look at that theory, it's amazing! This is the current medical standard in Sea City. Fantastic! Absolutely outstanding! Everybody shout with me, 666! Send me airplanes and rockets too!"
Zheng Ren was stupefied. What the hell was this? Why did that young man, who appeared well and healthy, come to the emergency department in the middle of the night? Just for a live broadcast?
After informing the doctor on duty in the oral surgery department, the wait for an appendicitis case continued…
Fortunately, the worst-case scenario did not happen. Soon, a young patient, presumably a high school student, appeared before Zheng Ren.
After the diagnosis was confirmed, Zheng Ren brought the patient and his family members to the first general surgery department and called Xia Yiren along the way to inform her about the emergency surgery.
It was late in the night and extremely unsafe for a young lady to travel in this city, so Zheng Ren offered to fetch Xie Yiren personally but was rejected in return. According to her, she would arrive at the hospital very soon.
Sure enough, Xie Yiren reached the general surgery department right after Zheng Ren finished writing the preoperative assessment form, which took less than ten minutes.
"How did you arrive so quickly?" asked Zheng Ren as he prepared the patient's records for submission to the operating theater.
"I didn't return to my usual house since I could need to attend a surgery at any moment, so I'm currently staying in the house nearest to the hospital," replied Xie Yiren.
Zheng Ren failed to notice that Xie Yiren mentioned a house instead of home.
&
nbsp; "There was no need to rush. You ran just now?" asked Zheng Ren out of concern.
"No, I'm staying in a detached house which has a garage. I drove my car from the garage to the underground parking lot in the hospital. There isn't any traffic congestion at this hour anyway. That was fast, right?"
Prolonged poverty had restricted Zheng Ren's imagination and he could not understand the point Xia Yiren was trying to make. A house and home… The concept was the same, right?
This was a city center after all. The detached house she mentioned… should be a villa.
Xie Yiren once informed Zheng Ren that her family-owned seven buildings in the central business district. That was completely beyond Zheng Ren's imagination.
Both of them lived in a completely different world.
However, Xie Yiren's superb coordination with the surgeon in the operating theater was more than enough for Zheng Ren's needs.
"The patient had fasted long enough. Scrub up and go to the operating theater," Zheng Ren changed the subject back to something he was actually familiar with.
"Alright." Xie Yiren nodded in response and added, "Chief Zheng, the surgery you performed this afternoon was amazing!"
"Well, it was alright."
"I was shocked when you made an incision on the upper right quadrant of the abdomen," replied Xie Yiren with a beautiful smile.
"I won't perform a surgery casually if the preoperative diagnosis isn't clear."
"Anyway, that was a marvelous surgery. What's the next case about?"
"Just an ordinary acute appendicitis. I'll finish it within five minutes," answered Zheng Ren with a convincing hand gesture.
"Okay. By the way, I'm hungry. Let's have crayfish for supper after the surgery. The meal is on me," replied Xie Yiren with a grin. Then, she hummed a song Zheng Ren was unfamiliar with and entered the female changing room without waiting for an answer.
…
…
The anesthesiologist had just anesthetized the patient when Zheng Ren finished changing into scrubs.
The circulating nurse helped Zheng Ren tie the surgical gown after he had performed his surgical scrub. On the other hand, Xie Yiren had finished preparing on her own and was currently standing in front of the instrument table.
Her eyes narrowed upon noticing Zheng Ren, seemingly smiling at him.
After putting on a pair of sterile gloves and placing the surgical dr.a.p.es around the surgical site, Zheng Ren, cool as a cuc.u.mber, started preparing himself mentally for the second appendectomy surgery.
The biggest uncertainty of the operation—the patient's diagnosis—was eliminated with the presence of the System, so the rest of the surgery depended solely on Zheng Ren's skill level.
His Expert rank in general surgery boosted Zheng Ren's confidence.
Most importantly, Zheng Ren realized that there was a huge improvement in his surgery skill after performing the complicated appendectomy surgery this afternoon.
The case that he was going to perform was merely a simple appendicitis case.
He just needed to achieve perfection in this surgery, and so he started revising the required surgical steps in his mind.
A pair of forceps holding an iodophor-soaked cotton swab was placed on Zheng Ren's hand.
Once the surgical site was disinfected, the forceps and contaminated swab were exchanged with dry sterile gauze.
After that, the handle of a scalpel tapped on Zheng Ren's palm with the perfect amount of pressure.
He felt good working with an experienced scrub nurse, not to mention that the scrub nurse was a beautiful lady too… A young beauty… Young, wealthy, beautiful, and adorkable lady.
That thought alone invigorated him. The scalpel then slashed through skin, making a precise, three-centimeter incision as if it had been marked with a ruler in advance.
Zheng Ren's surgery was again broadcast live in Xinglin Garden.
The anonymous account had attracted attention and numerous subscribers after the live broadcast of the successful appendectomy with an ectopic appendix that very afternoon.
Hundreds of viewers entered the broadcast channel as soon as it went live.
[An emergency surgery in the middle of the night? Did we guess wrongly just now and he is merely a junior general surgeon after all?]
[Hey, the guy who presumed that he is just a junior surgeon, I really doubt your qualifications and intelligence. The preoperative diagnosis and intraoperative manipulation in this afternoon's surgery were exceptional and high-skilled. He is an experienced and honest surgeon who is trying to save a patient now. Puny rat, tremble before your god.]
[Wow, a three-centimeter incision? How is he going to operate if the inflamed appendix is larger than the incision?]
Each and every comment transformed into specks of light and entered the System.
Zheng Ren had no intention of doing a laparoscopic appendectomy, not even a single-port laparoscopic surgery, in an appendicitis case.
With this simple appendicitis case, a single-port laparoscopic appendectomy was justified, but its incision size would be almost the same—two to three centimeters—as the incision Zheng Ren made in an open appendectomy. Moreover, a laparoscopic surgery cost a fortune and Zheng Ren would be unable to achieve perfection with it. Thus, that option had been discarded without the slightest hesitation.
The patient was just a teenager with a thin subcutaneous layer, which was exactly why Zheng Ren dared to make a three-centimeter incision. Nothing would be visible at all had the incision been made on an obese patient.
Incisions and blunt dissections of the subcutaneous layer, fascial layers, and peritoneum were made.
After that, a medium-sized curved forceps was placed on Zheng Ren's palm.
The forceps was then inserted into the peritoneal cavity and the inflamed appendix was pulled out like an obedient earthworm.
The appendix was removed and the abdominal surgical wound was sutured. Everything went well as planned.
Zheng Ren was as calm as a millpond throughout the surgery. After the surgical wound was sutured, he took off his gloves and applied the sterile dressing handed by Xie Yiren on the patient's wound.
The anesthesiologist was flabbergasted.
The anesthetic had just taken full effect, but the surgery was complete? The length of the entire operation depended solely on the time of injection of the anesthetic?
The anesthesiologist tonight was a senior anesthesiologist in Sea City General Hospital and had seen various doctors or surgeries throughout his career. However, the appendectomy Zheng Ren performed today made him stare in open-mouthed astonishment.
"The… The surgery is complete?" asked the absent-minded anesthesiologist.
"Yes, it was just a simple appendicitis case," replied Zheng Ren as he removed his surgical dr.a.p.es as he prepared to transfer the patient out of the operating theater.
"Wait, hold on…" the anesthesiologist jotted down the surgery time. Four minutes and thirty-two seconds…
"I must have calculated it wrongly," he thought from within a deep mire of self-blame as he took out his cell phone to use its calculator.
Sure enough, he had made a mistake in his calculations, but the result on his cell phone made him sink in contemplation—four minutes and twenty-three seconds.
Chapter 17 - Sc.u.m
[I'm here. Which step is the surgeon doing now?]
Some latecomers finally joined the live stream in Xinglin Garden.
There was nothing fascinating about an appendectomy, but the viewers were particularly interested in watching the subtleties and fine details such as blunt dissections of adhesive tissue with fingers or the removal of abscesses on an edematous tissue in the surgery.
Even though it was simply an appendectomy for acute phlegmonous appendicitis, professionals could understand the extreme difficulty behind it through the surgeon's many savvy techniques.
This resulted in the anonymous account receiving a significant amount of atte
ntion and subscribers after this one appendectomy live broadcast.
[I regret to inform you that you're too late.]
[The surgery was completed. My two-hour wait was not in vain.]
[How long was the surgery? I went online as soon as WeChat sent me a notification, and the surgery is done?]
[Around four minutes, if I'm not mistaken. It was just a normal appendicitis case anyway, but the incision was only three centimeters. You can watch the replay later.]
Even though the surgery was over, many studious doctors continued to exchange views in the chat room.
In their opinion, a surgeon with the courage to broadcast their surgery on a professional website was essentially a powerful person.
They were definitely not normal surgeons, as even ordinary but high-skilled surgeons dared not broadcast their surgeries like Zheng Ren did. This was the Internet, any mistake would end up facing the consequences for a very long time.
Thus, the doctors held high regards for the surgeon who live streamed his surgery. Apart from expressing their admiration and respect for Zheng Ren in Xinglin Garden, many doctors had put in a request for advanced surgical studies in the hospital he worked in as well.
However, they received no response. The host surgeon seemed to care only for the surgery and nothing else, judging by his quick disappearance as soon as the operation was over.
…
Zheng Ren delivered the patient back to the first general surgery department.
None of the patient's family members approached him upon his exit of the operating theater. The patient's parents, who were perturbed and sat on a hard plastic bench outside the operating theater, were comforting each other without even looking his way.
"Zhao Jia's family members," yelled a curious Zheng Ren, who wore his surgical attire beneath a white coat, after realizing that no one was approaching him as he pushed the hospital bed out of the operating theater.
"..." Zhao Jia's parents were momentarily stunned. They must have misheard the surgeon. It must have been a mistake.
Zheng Ren had met with Zhao Jia's parents earlier when they signed the preoperative informed consent doc.u.ments. After scanning around for a while, he finally located the duo on their bench and he raised his voice again. "Zhao Jia's family members, please come and lend me a hand."
The Surgeon's Studio c1-799 Page 12