Path of Medicine With a System

Chapter 295: Vacations are just a lie!

Vacations and holidays were legally mandated in China. Yet, at Chinese hospitals, vacations were nothing more than a myth to the resident doctors and rotation doctors who were like dogs. The hospitals technically wouldn’t force the lower-ranking doctors to work overtime on vacation and holiday days, but the higher-ranking doctors, department directors, and hospital administration director would all be watching the lower-ranking doctors’ work attitude. The lower-ranking doctors would all “voluntarily” choose to work overtime then! It was by their own choice, as nobody would force them. Of course, they could choose to not work overtime, but it was likely that they would then lose their job or be left out of promotion opportunities.

The rotation doctor system at hospitals was similar to an employment fair for intern doctors. Both the doctor and the department would have the right to choose. You could choose a department, but the department would also have to choose you. Doctors who waited until the hospital assigned them to a department would be quite pitiful. These rotation doctors would be sent to the most marginalized departments with lots of internal conflicts and little income or departments with the most difficult work. It would be extremely difficult for a doctor to get reassigned to a different department once they were permanently assigned to one. It wouldn’t be possible to get reassigned without a special reason!

In order to get accepted into a department, first the rotation doctor would have to receive their teaching doctor’s recognition, then the recognition of the medical team leader who would usually be a doctor with second-highest level certification, and finally the department director’s recognition. Only then would the hospital allow you to join a department of your choice. It would require a foundational skill level combined with constant hard work in order to receive everyone’s recognition. If an intern doctor was always lazy, then nobody would want them when it came time to be permanently assigned to a department!

Although it was possible to get into a department by using connections, you would never be able to keep your head raised proudly, because the hospital was a workplace where skills were king. Someone who used connections to get in the department wouldn’t have a good time there. Others in the department would forever either openly or secretly laugh at you, as you wouldn’t be considered their own kind. Even someone with good connections would still be disliked by the director for having used connections to get into the department.

However, there were also special departments such as the thyroid and mammary gland department. At every Chinese hospital, this department would always become a mistress garden for government leaders. The doctors who were able to enter this department might only have average skills, while their connections would be far more amazing. At this type of department, it was likely that there were only one or two highly skilled doctors, while almost all the other doctors had used connections to join.

That was why it was common for the thyroid and mammary gland department to be incapable of performing many of their surgeries, which would then be given over to doctors from general surgery.

The weather was gradually getting warmer with spring’s return. The farmers, nomads, and temporary farm workers all became busy. The entire year’s harvest would depend on spring, so this was no time to be slacking off. This led to fewer people coming to the hospital to get treated. This was the only time of year when hospitals would have slightly fewer patients, giving the doctors a small break.

Chasu City Hospital gave all rotation doctors three days of vacation during this time. Although it was supposedly vacation, it wasn’t free at all. The hospital organized the young doctors to go tree planting.

Desertification in northwestern China was really severe. In order to protect the vegetative cover, the Chinese government had ordered all workplaces to have their employees plant trees, the number of which would correspond to the size of the workplace.

Chasu City Hospital was the workplace with the greatest number of employees in all of Chasu City if all the nurses who didn’t have official positions were counted. Thus, Chasu City Hospital’s tree planting task was quite significant. An entire hill at a village under Chasu City’s jurisdiction belonged to Chasu City Hospital’s area for tree planting. Several hundred doctors and nurses spread out on the hillside to plant trees, but the hill still seemed quite empty! This was quite a large hill.

Shao Hua’s bank also had the same tree planting task like everyone else. However, the bank was rich and willing to pay contractors to perform the tree planting task instead. Meanwhile, Superintendent Ouyang was really stingy with money, so she would never be willing to pay for contractors to help with this task.

Thus, the young doctors and nurses had fun as they planted trees on the mountain. They found it fun to come out as they usually lived in the city for most of the year. Besides, they simply had to plant the young trees without caring if the trees actually survived successfully or not. Even if all of the planted trees died, they would simply plant more next year!

It had been a long time since Zhang Fan had been out in the wilderness. He felt that the fresh mountain air was really comfortable.

Chasu City was located in a valley at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains. To the east was a large patch of primeval forest; to the west were plains and the -stan suffix countries. These plains were the largest plains in all of Asia.

To the north were endless snow mountains. Snow could be seen on these mountains even in summer. These snow mountains acted as a mega air conditioner for Chasu City that would prevent the summers from getting too hot. There were often large rainstorms that would wash away the heat of summer. These snow mountains also blocked off the spring sandstorms. This helped to make Chasu City really comfortable to live in.

To the south was another forest as well as some swampland. Chasu City Hospital’s assigned tree planting area was in the south. As Zhang Fan stood on top of the hill and gazed into the distance, he saw nothing but green now that winter had ended.

The hills and forests here were different from those in Zhang Fan’s hometown, which always had only the same dirt-yellow color! There would be nothing but endless dirt-yellow in his hometown.

“You’re slacking off! Come pull me up! My legs are going soft,” said Lu Shuyan, who climbed up to come chat with Zhang Fan when she saw that he was looking off into the distance at the top of the hill.

“You still haven’t finished planting your trees?” Zhang Fan pulled Lu Shuyan up.

“The others were fighting over planting my share.” Lu Shuyan was a woman who was single as well as beautiful. Plenty of single men would fight over doing heavy work for her sake, so she didn’t need to do anything.

“Haha! That must be nice.” Zhang Fan didn’t know what else to say.

“I heard that you’re about to be permanently assigned to a department?” Lu Shuyan adjusted her hair as a slight breeze blew past while turning to smile at Zhang Fan.

“Yeah, although I’m still going to do one last rotation in the hematology department.” Zhang Fan wasn’t concerned about how she had learned this news about him. There were far too many information channels in the hospital. It would be far too easy for a beautiful woman like Lu Shuyan to learn something.

“What about after your final rotation?”

“I’ll probably join the orthopedic surgery department! That was the official position that I was recruited for to begin with.”

“Okay!” Lu Shuyan began to think about her ex-boyfriend when Zhang Fan mentioned orthopedic surgery as her ex-boyfriend had also been studying the same subject!

Lu Shuyan remained silent for a moment, and then probed, “The hand and foot surgery hospital is your base?” She was curious just like anyone would be.

“Pretty much, haha!” Zhang Fan felt that it was awkward to explain directly that he was actually the boss of his own hospital.

“Could you help me ask if they need gynecologists to help with any work there?” Lu Shuyan asked with some embarrassment.

“What, you’re in need of money?” Zhang Fan turned to look at her.

“Look at what you’re saying. Who doesn’t need money? I need to prepare my dowry. I’ll be getting old if I don’t marry soon!” Lu Shuyan glanced over at Zhang Fan meaningfully.

“Oh, but I don’t think I’ll be able to help you. The hand and foot surgery only has the one hand and foot surgery department, with no other departments at all.”

“Alright then, don’t worry about it. How about you? When are you going to get married?” Lu Shuyan turned to look into the distance after asking Zhang Fan this question.

“Oh, the renovations on our new apartment are just about finished. I need to get engaged to my girlfriend first. My family is really traditional. I have to get engaged first,” Zhang Fan explained. But, before he could even finish, Lu Shuyan, who had been sitting next to him, suddenly got up and left without saying anything!

She got up and left so suddenly that the dust she kicked up entered Zhang Fan’s eyes.

“Sigh! Is there a need for this?” Zhang Fan mumbled to himself as he watched Lu Shuyan walk off. Maybe Zhang Fan had hurt her feelings because his relationship was going so well!

The doctors’ first day of “vacation” was for planting trees. The second day was for learning Communist Party knowledge at a Communist Party school. The teachers here were really professional! They lectured about what the doctors could say, how to be motivated, discipline, and so on! Not only did the doctors have to listen to the lecture, they would have to write self-reflections on what they had learned and turn in their essays to the leader of the hospital’s Communist Party branch.

The third day of vacation was the only real day of vacation for the slave doctors! The doctors who had a boyfriend/girlfriend would spend the day with their significant other, while the doctors who were single went out to have fun in the city.

“Oh! A new restaurant opened here! Oh! A new supermarket opened there! Heavens, a beautiful woman!” The single male doctors were just like people who had just been released from prison. They drooled at every beautiful woman that they saw! The male doctors were really pitiful!

Zhang Fan and Shao Hua had originally planned on furniture shopping for their new apartment, but Jia Suyue and Wang Yanan contacted them and arranged to go view peach blossoms together instead. Chasu City’s peach blossoms were really amazing. Since everybody just happened to have free time now, the others definitely wanted to drag Zhang Fan along with them because he had a car.

Zhang Fan and Shao Hua could only give up on furniture shopping and instead go peach blossom viewing. The peaches of the border province were rather unique. They were different from other peaches. Back when Zhang Fan had first arrived in Raptor City, the capital of the border province, on his way to Kuake City, he had wanted to buy a peach because he was really thirsty.

Zhang Fan knew that fruits would be more expensive in northwestern China, so he picked a flat-looking peach and asked the fruit stall owner, “How much for one of these peaches?”

“16 yuan!”

“How much?”

“16 yuan!”

“It’s already so flat, yet you’re asking for 16 [1]yuan!?

The fruit stall owner almost wanted to beat Zhang Fan up for saying this.

These border province peaches were known as Saturn peaches, or flat peaches. They really were flat, just as if they had been crushed. They also did taste quite good. Since days lasted longer here, and there was a great difference in temperature between day and night, all fruits from the border province were really sweet. Even locally grown tomatoes would be sweet.

Spring in Chasu City was the season for peach blossoms. When spring truly covered the land, a patch of wild peach trees in the nearby Chark City would start to bloom. This was really beautiful! The peach trees extended for 10 kilometers. They would seem just like a pink wave of fire that was burning in the mountain valley. Any slight breeze would bring an aromatic fragrance. A sea of flowers would gently wave in the spring breeze!

The mountain filled with peach blossoms was truly breathtaking to behold. The three women strolled unhurriedly through the peach tree forest. This was probably the largest wild peach forest in the entirety of northwestern China. The flowers were pretty, yet the women were even more beautiful. The flowers and Shao Hua accentuated each other’s beauty in the forest!

On the way back, the three women all squished themselves together in the backseat as they chatted. Zhang Fan was only half listening as he drove. He felt like he heard something about the hematology department, but Zhang Fan didn’t ask anything. Wang Yanan was there anyways, so he didn’t need to say anything.

Thus ended the three days of vacation. Although it was nominally three days, only one day had been a real vacation. But, the hospital leadership would describe any day not working at the hospital as a day of vacation. Tree planting was a vacation, as was learning at the Communist Party school. No objections were allowed!

Zhang Fan brought his paperwork from the hospital administration department to the final ever department that he would be rotated to—the hematology department. After he finished his rotation here, Zhang Fan would truly be a real doctor.

Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department wasn’t very large. This department had only recently started developing in the past few years. Before that, there had always only been only two or three people working in the hematology department. They would only do blood smears and so on, without providing actual treatment.

This was because the hematology department would depend far too much on a hospital’s high-tech medical equipment. It was common that only a few patients per year would require certain specific hematology tests. Yet, the medical equipment required for performing such hematology tests was really expensive. Additionally, special training was needed in order to properly learn how to operate such medical equipment. That was why Chasu City Hospital hadn’t placed much importance previously on developing the hematology department.

Due to the Chinese government recently giving great support to hospitals as well as Chinese production of medical equipment, Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department finally started developing as well. Although public hospitals technically weren’t for-profit businesses, the amount of money that a hospital received from the government would only be a fixed amount each year. If an expensive piece of medical equipment didn’t provide sufficient benefits for the hospital, then the hospital leadership wouldn’t be willing to purchase that type of medical equipment! That was a downside of modern Chinese public hospitals.

No matter how difficult a high-level treatment was, once it started being commonly used in clinical medicine, as long as it was quite influential or profitable, then it wouldn’t take long before it became popular all over China.

The easiest example would be percutaneous coronary intervention. Nowadays, not only were all larger city hospitals capable of performing this procedure, even most smaller city hospitals had developed this procedure, including hospitals which didn’t even have a cardiothoracic surgery department. Yet, they would still dare to perform percutaneous coronary interventions. What could really be said about this?

The basic departments which truly required research and development were left behind in the dust, such as the hematology department.

In Chasu City Hospital, the hematology department was located adjacent to the dialysis department on the very top floor of the internal medicine building. The hematology department director was Li Qing, a woman in her mid-40s. She was really skinny, just like a twig. Her hands seemed just like withered branches due to how often she had to wash them with soap and disinfectant. There was no glow to her skin at all.

Li Qing had originally been a nephrologist. She then obtained a master’s degree in hematology from Dee University in Raptor City when she was 32 years old. After this, since her husband and child both lived in Chasu City, she came back here rather than stay in Raptor City.

Former Superintendent Huang directly chose her to become the hematology department director. She was allowed to somewhat develop the hematology department as she liked, helping to finally grow the hematology department.

However, the hematology department required far too much support from basic academical research. If a hospital’s hematology department didn’t have a high-level research field’s support, then it would only be able to treat some basic diseases. Performing research on those would be too much to ask for.

Chasu City Hospital’s hematology department had six doctors, a majority of whom were female. The doctors in this department weren’t very busy, as Chasu City had a low population (for a Chinese City). Chasu City also hadn’t been polluted by major industries yet, so the environment here was excellent, meaning that blood-related diseases were quite rare.

Director Li Qing looked over Zhang Fan’s rotation paperwork, and smiled while saying, “I heard from the superintendent that you especially requested to rotate to the hematology department? Still, I think that you’ll regret your request. We don’t have many patients in this department, so we haven’t managed to develop very many treatments.”

“Of course not, Director. Our hematology department is at the top of Chasu City. I’ll be able to learn so much while being here,” Zhang Fan said as he smiled in return. Although the director could say that her own department was insufficient, he wouldn’t be able to say the same.

The director saying her own department was insufficient would be considered humble, but Zhang Fan would be brainless if he said the same thing!

“Haha, Doctor Zhang is really smart. Not only are you skilled at surgery, you’re also so skilled with words. Alright, I won’t say anything else for now. Today’s morning meeting has already adjourned. You can first get accustomed to how things are in our department for today. I’ll introduce everyone to you tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, Director!”

Director Li Qing then went to go perform outpatient services. The other doctors and nurses in the department all smiled and nodded at him. Zhang Fan was no simple rotation doctor anymore. There were thousands of people working at Chasu City Hospital, and almost all of them knew who he was by now.

The hematology department and dialysis department each took up half of the top floor of the internal medicine building. The hematology department had two patient rooms for special patients, but they were currently unused. There were also few patients in the regular patient rooms. Zhang Fan took a quick tour of the department, and then began to read the department’s medical reports, which was his standard way of learning the work in a new department.

Director Li hadn’t arranged for him to work under anyone. The other doctors wouldn’t ask Zhang Fan to do any work for them. The other doctors all knew that Zhang Fan was a special exception, so they were really polite to him.

Zhang Fan began his rotation in the hematology department. This would be his final rotation ever!

[1] TL/N: average price for regular peaches is about six yuan for an entire kilogram of peaches, so 16 yuan for a single peach would be considered exorbitant.