System Came When the Doctor was Thirty

Both Chen Fang and Dai Linfang nodded.

The others naturally didn’t dare say much.

What’s a trauma center afraid of? Afraid of fractures? Afraid of traumatic injuries? Afraid of joint dislocations?

No, what it’s really afraid of is active hematomas, intra-abdominal hemorrhage of unknown origin.

With Lu Cheng taking on the hardest burden, who else would dare have any opinions?

”For now, that’s more or less the scope of diseases we’ll be handling.”

”As for other things, like our department’s performance pay arrangement, everyone will get the same pay for the same work. Du Hua’an, you just joined us, so according to hospital rules, your performance coefficient can only be 0.75!”

”For Liu Nongqiu, Zhang Zixu, and He Dongsheng, since you’re non-tenured, your performance coefficient is slightly higher than his, at 0.85. As long as you’re clear on this, that’s enough.”

”If you have concerns, go talk to the HR office yourself.”

Du Hua’an shook his head. ”Director Lu, I’m clear on it.”

In half a year, Du Hua’an’s performance coefficient would be 1.0, with room for further increases later. If people like Liu Nongqiu never get converted to formal staff, they’ll be stuck at 0.85 forever. That much, at least, Du Hua’an could see clearly.

For ordinary people, a master’s degree is like a gold brick you use to knock on the door.

Once the tasks were assigned, Dai Linfang smiled and asked, ”Lu Cheng, from what you just said, does it basically mean that whenever there’s a traumatic emergency, we just call you? You’ll handle everything, but you’re not strictly in charge of anything?”

Lu Cheng nodded. ”Whatever you can’t manage, I’ll take care of. Whatever you can manage, I won’t touch. That’s the gist of it.”

”I’m at least a minor leader. You’re not going to make me sit there writing charts with you, are you?” Lu Cheng cracked a joke.

Chen Fang stood up and put a hand on Lu Cheng’s shoulder. ”Then, leader, can you give your little brother a chance to kiss up and flatter you?”

”The coffee we ordered is here. Let’s go inside and talk about my compensation package.”

Chen Fang was three months older than Lu Cheng, so when they chatted, he really didn’t feel any psychological pressure.

The others all laughed.

Today it was Dai Linfang and Liu Nongqiu on duty. The trauma center had just opened and no patients had been brought in yet, so everyone was pretty relaxed.

Of course, people like Du Hua’an wouldn’t just leave right away. With the trauma center newly opened, they also wanted to see how exactly Dai Linfang and Liu Nongqiu handled their shift, so that when it was their turn, they’d know whether they should feel nervous.

After Lu Cheng and Chen Fang left, Dai Linfang said, ”The big bosses have gone into their little black room. Let’s get to know each other. I’m a bit older than you all, so today’s on me.”

”Coffee, milk tea, cakes, fruit—order whatever you want today…”

Du Hua’an said, ”Brother Dai, let me place the order. I’ve got some big discount coupons here.”

”All right then, you bring the coupons, I’ll bring the cash. If you don’t agree, you’re a damn bird.” Dai Linfang had picked up a few phrases of Ji City dialect.

...

In the break room, once Chen Fang and Lu Cheng were seated facing each other, Chen Fang finally hesitated and said, ”Brother Lu, I actually want to take on more responsibility too, I’m just not that proficient yet.”

”But personally, I feel like with blood vessel suturing, I should be able to handle some cases.”

Lu Cheng heard him and smiled faintly. ”Brother Chen, are you sure?”

”Blood vessel suturing is much harder than tendon suturing!! My suggestion is still that you start with laparoscopic abdominal debridement and intestinal repair procedures.”

”The more complicated vascular injuries fall into hand surgery. Your deeper foundation is in general surgery.”

Chen Fang froze for a moment, sounding stunned. ”Brother Lu, you’re going to do micro-arterial suturing for hand surgery too?”

”If I don’t, how are the brothers supposed to eat at the same table with me?”

”Everyone can play the gray zone. Once the scope is opened up, we and hand surgery will have equal rights and benefits. Whoever does better, it’s all on individual skill!” Lu Cheng replied.

”We’re not going to be any worse than they are.”

”Basically, once there’s external trauma and bleeding, we can handle it. With the hospital and the medical affairs office backing us, what’s there to be afraid of?”

Compared to the Lu Cheng from Huang Haibo’s era, Chen Fang felt the young man in front of him was almost unfamiliar. And if he compared this to the Lu Cheng from Xiao Zhaoxi’s era, if Lu Cheng claimed he’d been body-snatched by some soul, Chen Fang wouldn’t find it strange at all—he’d actually think that explanation made more sense.

Chen Fang secretly rejoiced. ”I thought you were an honest, easygoing guy, Brother Lu, but you’re not a soft persimmon at all. You’re pretty aggressive, huh?”

What Chen Fang feared was that Lu Cheng would turn out to be a pushover, someone who couldn’t shoulder things.

”What aggression? I’m just trying to earn a living.”

”Oh, right, Brother Chen, when you’re on duty, remember to hand out a few packs of cigarettes to the 120 ambulance drivers and the accompanying doctors.”

”I’ll cover the cost. Also, those teaching videos I sent you—when you can reproduce the effect in the last video, you’ll basically be able to handle the usual vascular and nerve injuries.” Lu Cheng instructed.

Chen Fang stared. ”Brother Lu, what kind of talk is that? The trauma center belongs to all of us. More patients just means we can all make a living.”

”The three of us will each handle our own shift’s workload. How much we get to do is all down to luck.”

The 120 ambulance drivers and accompanying medical staff can decide where the patient gets transferred. If you build a good relationship with them and your skills are decent, your patient volume won’t be too low.

These days, for traffic accident injuries, the 120 call-out rate is still very high.

”That’s a pretty sound suggestion too… Brother Chen, you should head back and rest for now… I’ll go pay my respects to the two professors again—they’re our real anchors here.” Lu Cheng hinted subtly.

Chen Fang smiled faintly. ”They’ve just got higher titles, that’s all. Titles don’t upgrade technique. I don’t think you need to be deferential to them, Brother Lu.”

Lu Cheng shook his head. ”Titles don’t improve skills, but titles don’t negate skills either. The two professors managed to reach professor and associate professor at the Provincial People’s Hospital, and they were willing to be dispatched down to a prefecture-level city hospital.”

”They definitely have something solid to show—they’re the hospital’s public face.”

”Inside a hospital, who’s a slacker, who can actually get things done, and who can be pushed to the front to earn the hospital some reputation—the leadership knows all of that perfectly well.”

Lu Cheng knew that in some aspects he would be stronger than these two professors, but in many other aspects, he still wouldn’t measure up.

They’d been able to hold up a trauma center at the Provincial People’s Hospital; they obviously had their own specialties.

When Lu Cheng went looking for Professor Dong, Professor Qu Daowen had already slipped away to the lab.

Today was just the trauma center’s opening day; there wouldn’t be that many patients coming in!

The hospital leadership would also control what categories of cases got admitted to the trauma center; they weren’t going to divert all the critical patients over.

The hospital wanted the trauma center to get off the ground, not to dump patients here in a pile, crush Lu Cheng and the others, and then turn the trauma center into a joke.

Professor Dong was watching teaching videos, apparently stuck on a tricky spot. ”Xiao Lu, perfect timing. Tell me, at this step when we rotate the needle, does the angle really have to be this big?”

”If we reduce the angle a bit, how much will it affect the quality of the suturing?”

Lu Cheng looked over the steps of the suturing technique and replied, ”Teacher Dong, in nerve suturing techniques, the most critical thing is clear layering. Otherwise, once you cause a local increase in pressure, that’s essentially structural nerve entrapment in disguise.”

”A smaller angle looks like it makes the maneuver easier, but the post-suture pressure dispersion is weaker, which ends up cinching down the local area…”

”Our traditional epineurial suturing emphasizes small angles and fine, dense stitches. The underlying reason its suturing outcomes aren’t that great might well be uneven pressure distribution.”

Lu Cheng’s ability to fully digest nerve suturing techniques and come up with his own original approach hadn’t just come out of nowhere—he’d clearly mastered the fundamental principles of suturing techniques before he dared innovate.

Dong Liumeng nodded slowly. ”Oh, oh…”

He put down his Bluetooth mouse and chuckled. ”The nerve field is still vast and profound—it’s way too far from my original specialty.”

Everyone knows subspecialty integration can drive discipline development, but truly crossing disciplines and specializing in both is tremendously difficult.

Brain: I don’t know how.

Hand: I don’t know either.

It’s not even a case of ’I understand but my hands don’t’—this is ’my head doesn’t understand and my hands don’t either.’

Lu Cheng smiled back. ”Teacher Dong, nerve suturing is tied to elective cases. With emergency cases, we usually don’t need to deal with nerves.”

”People have to have dreams, after all.” Dong Liumeng replied with a goofy grin.

Lu Cheng glanced at Dong Liumeng and fell silent—

Dong Liumeng wanted to surpass the master, very much hoping to reach Professor Qu Daowen’s level, and even go beyond.