Chapter 765: He Can Do This Too?

Chapter 765: Chapter 765: He Can Do This Too?

"We need to schedule an emergency exploratory laparotomy immediately!" Zeng Yunjun was anxious. He looked around. "Who’s on the first-line general surgery night shift?!"

"Director, we are severely short-handed," Wang Kai, the attending physician of the emergency department standing nearby, said anxiously.

There were, at most, five people on the emergency department night shift. Among them, Wang Kai was the only surgical doctor who could step up to the operating table. Furthermore, earlier this evening, if it weren’t for Li Xu happening to be there, and the fact that apart from one patient who needed bone setting, the rest of the cases—food poisoning and cerebral infarction—were all manageable by the internal medicine department, the emergency department would have been completely overwhelmed and collapsed from that wave of patients alone.

Now, having to temporarily perform a splenectomy that could result in massive hemorrhage at any moment, relying solely on Zeng Yunjun as the chief surgeon and a resident doctor as an assistant was far from enough.

"Quick, call general surgery immediately. Page the second-line on-call director to come down and assist," Zeng Yunjun ordered decisively.

After all, the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine was not a specialized trauma emergency center. It did not have an independent cardiothoracic surgery department, and the nighttime staffing for general surgery was relatively weak. Across the entire hospital, the only people capable of performing such an emergency surgery for massive abdominal bleeding were Director Zeng of the emergency department and the two directors of the general surgery department. Now, with a life hanging in the balance, Zeng Yunjun desperately needed a senior assistant who could step up to the operating table and cooperate flawlessly.

"Director Zeng, I can help out as the first assistant," Li Xu said, just as Zeng Yunjun was pacing around like a cat on a hot tin roof.

"What?" Zeng Yunjun turned his head and looked at Li Xu in sheer astonishment.

He wondered, "Are my ears playing tricks on me from sheer exhaustion? What did Li Xu just say?" He hadn’t quite caught it, or rather, he couldn’t believe his ears.

You are an expert in traditional Chinese internal medicine, an acupuncture master. Even if your bone setting techniques are miraculous, you want to get on a general surgery operating table right now to act as the first assistant for a patient with a ruptured spleen and massive hemorrhage? Isn’t this cross-disciplinary leap a bit too vast and absurd?

"Dean Li, did you say... you can help?" Zeng Yunjun asked again.

This wasn’t some ordinary minor surgical procedure like suturing a small wound or removing an appendix. This was a Level 4 hepatobiliary and gastrointestinal surgery involving a ruptured spleen and massive intra-abdominal bleeding. The slightest carelessness or mishandling of the blood vessels would result in the patient dying of hemorrhagic shock on the operating table within minutes.

"I can do it," Li Xu replied calmly. There was no hint of a joke in his tone.

Zeng Yunjun was speechless.

This time, he was certain he hadn’t misheard. However, his brain had somewhat short-circuited. What in the world was going on? Li Xu was a genius in the field of traditional Chinese medicine. He was proficient in everything from acupuncture to bone setting and herbal prescriptions, which was already monstrously talented enough. But that and holding a scalpel to cut someone open were two entirely different domains. One was macroscopic holistic regulation, and the other was microscopic anatomical dissection. Wasn’t this crossover a bit too outrageous?

Little did he know, Li Xu’s confidence came from his system. The system refreshed a massive amount of intelligence every day. This included not only lost secret prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine but also cutting-edge surgical videos, anatomical atlases of modern medicine, and even detailed operational steps and complication management plans for internal surgeries. Even more insanely, Li Xu had performed countless simulations with 100% realism in the system’s "virtual space." His hands had long since developed muscle memory.

Therefore, when faced with this kind of emergency, he had the confidence to volunteer his help.

"Alright... then Dean Li, you’ll assist me as the first assistant in a bit." Zeng Yunjun finally agreed.

On the one hand, he really was in desperate need of a senior assistant right now; on the other hand, he had a sort of blind trust in Li Xu. This young man seemed to never do anything unless he was absolutely certain of the outcome.

Yet, Zeng Yunjun still felt a bit apprehensive inwardly, only feeling like he was somewhat falling behind the times. Were young people nowadays all this incredible? Li Xu, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, and such a high-level authority at that, was actually entering the operating room to perform a major surgery? If word of this got out, the entire Feng City medical circle would probably go into an uproar.

Zeng Yunjun turned his head and looked at Director Lin Guorui of the internal medicine department, who had been standing by the side as an idle spectator. He asked, "Director Lin, you... haven’t studied surgery, have you?"

Lin Guorui opened his mouth, looking utterly bewildered. "Me? I haven’t. I’ve never even held a scalpel."

"That’s good." Zeng Yunjun let out a long sigh, as if he had found some comfort. He patted Lin Guorui’s shoulder and said earnestly, "Old Lin, as doctors, it’s better for us not to learn too broadly. Biting off more than one can chew is no good; specializing in one field is the right path. As for someone like Dean Li... this kind of..."

Zeng Yunjun found himself at a loss for words, not knowing how to describe it.

Lin Guorui glanced at Li Xu, who was washing and disinfecting his hands nearby. He thought, "Old Zeng, you should be saying this to Li Xu. What’s the point of telling me? I’m not some unreasonable freak of nature like him."

However, it seemed like quite a few people had said similar things to Li Xu. But the guy was just that amazing; he could master absolutely everything he studied. What could you do about it?

"Director Zeng, the patient’s abdominal CT results are out. Internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, and a massive subcapsular hematoma. We must operate immediately." Just as they were talking, a doctor hurried over with the freshly printed report to inform them.

Sure enough, everything was exactly the same as the "blind diagnosis" Li Xu and Zeng Yunjun had just made.

"How could this happen? A ruptured spleen?" The private car driver, who had been waiting outside the emergency room all this time, was completely stunned upon hearing the diagnosis.

He had previously thought that the young man riding the electric scooter, lying on the ground clutching his stomach, was just faking it to extort money. He never expected it to be this serious!

At this moment, the driver’s heart was filled with deep relief and lingering fear.

Thank goodness! Thank goodness that, although he felt unlucky at the time, his conscience had prevailed. He hadn’t chosen to step on the gas and drive away ignoring the situation; instead, he had called an ambulance and brought the guy to the hospital.

Otherwise, given the rate of blood loss from a ruptured spleen, the young man would have died in just a few hours. Then he would absolutely be hit with a charge of "hit-and-run causing death," and he would have had to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

As these thoughts raced through his mind, the driver walked to the side with trembling hands to call his insurance company. This incident was way too serious. Originally, he had planned to spend a few hundred yuan to settle it privately, as he hadn’t made an insurance claim in several years and was afraid his premium would go up the following year. Now, it seemed, going through insurance was unavoidable.

Inside the operating room, the surgical lights flickered on.

Zeng Yunjun, wearing sterile gloves, looked at Li Xu, who was already dressed in surgical scrubs and standing opposite the chief surgeon’s position. His feelings were quite complicated.

"Dean Li, are you sure about this?" Zeng Yunjun confirmed once more. Holding the scalpel in his hand, he still felt a bit uneasy.