Great Doctor Ling Ran

At seven o’clock in the morning, Ling Ran exited the Operating Area upon finishing a round of surgeries. He felt refreshed, and he went to the rehabilitation area.

The recovery of flexor tendons was a very important segment in a patient’s perioperative period. It also required a lot of attention to detail. The rehabilitation rooms of Yun Hua Hospital’s Hand Surgery Department were equipped with doctors who specialized in rehabilitation. As long as the surgeon gave his orders to the staff in the rehabilitation room, he did not have to worry too much.

However, Ling Ran still insisted on making ward rounds in the rehabilitation room so that he could receive a wave of Patient’s Sincere Gratitude.

Ling Ran had made the groundbreaking discovery that if he met his patients for the first time after their surgeries in the rehabilitation area instead of their wards, there was a higher chance of him receiving a Sincere Gratitude from them.

Ling Ran entered the rehabilitation rooms one by one and soon received two Basic Treasure Chests.

Every time Ling Ran received a Basic Treasure Chest, he would open it immediately. Each of those Basic Treasure Chests gave him an Energy Serum.

Ever since Hayato Ueda came back, Ling Ran eagerly carried out approximately one hundred surgeries. He met his patients during his ward rounds and also met patients he had operated on in the past but did not manage to meet because he did not perform his ward rounds. He obtained twenty-three Basic Treasure Chests, which gave him twenty-three Energy Serums. As a result, he now had a total of seventy-two Energy Serums.

Together with the two newly-obtained ones, he now had seventy-four Energy Serums.

Ling Ran tapped his pockets. His expression could not be seen.

The nurses, patients, and patients’ family members greeted Ling Ran on both sides of the corridor.

Ling Ran only nodded slightly.

Even though he left a deep impression on anyone who only met him once, it was very hard for Ling Ran to remember everyone’s faces and names.

So, he could only treat everyone with common courtesy.

He could do nothing about it if happened to offend others because of this.

“Doctor Ling.” When Pan Jinyue saw Ling Ran’s side profile, she called out to him because she wanted Ling Ran to check on her husband first.

Ling Ran took the opportunity to walk over. He picked up the patient’s case file as usual. After glancing at it a few times, he said in realization, “You’re the patient who injured three fingers. I operated on you yesterday. How do you feel?”

He looked at Zheng Qi.

Zheng Qi was forced to start exercising his fingers at five in the morning. He clenched his teeth as he carried out the exercises and uttered a word through gritted teeth, “Sore.”

“Theoretically, you can take painkillers. But painkillers can easily numb your senses to pain, causing you to over-exercise.” Ling Ran paused for a moment and said, “You’ve already exercised your hand just now, right?”

“Yes.” Pan Jinyue quickly asked, “Does the ability to exercise mean that his tendon was sutured well?”

Ling Ran lowered his head and prodded Zheng Qi’s fingers softly. He nodded and said, “Since the fingers are able to bounce up during passive movement, there’s basically no more problems with it. You have to carry on with your rehabilitation exercises.”

“All right, all right.” Even though Pan Jinyue was Department Associate Director Pan’s elder sister, she still felt inferior in the face of other doctors. She asked again gingerly, “By doing rehabilitation exercises like these, can his hand recover to the extent of a normal person’s?”

She had already asked his younger brother, Pan Hua, this question. However, Pan Hua did not give her a direct answer.

Even though Zheng Qi was in so much pain that he was gnashing his teeth, he still paid an exceptional amount of attention to the conversation.

“Right now, I can’t tell yet.” Ling Ran paused for a moment and told them the truth, “With such a serious injury, it is very difficult for his hand to recover to its original state. You can basically say that it’s not very possible.”

Zheng Qi’s eyes immediately went dim, and even the pain in his hand did not aggravate him as much anymore.

What kept him going since the day before was the possibility that his hand could recover completely. The chief surgeon’s answer was obviously not what he wanted to hear.

“But I saw… I saw some people’s hands recovering quite well.” Pan Jinyue could not even articulate her words properly anymore. She then remembered her younger brother and quickly said, “I asked another doctor, and he said that it’s a good thing to be able to start rehabilitating twelve hours after surgery.”

“It is a good thing.” Ling Ran was very confident in this matter. He said, “It’ll basically eliminate the problem of adhesion. Adhesion is the most troublesome sequela that could happen after a hand surgery.”

Pan Jinyue’s face became a little less pale. She asked again, “I asked some other patients, and some of them only started rehabilitating thirty or forty hours after surgery. He started so much earlier. Can’t he regain normal hand function?”

“For patients who start rehabilitating twelve hours after surgery, the problem of adhesion is much easier to solve compared to those who start rehabilitating thirty or forty hours after surgery. However, it’s still very hard to regain normal hand function.”

“But some of them scored an ‘excellent’ when they took the hand function assessment.”

Ling Ran froze for a moment when he heard that and laughed out loud. “It is extremely easy to score an ‘excellent’ in the hand function assessment.”

“Huh?”

“If nothing goes wrong, Mister Zheng Qi would have no problem scoring an ‘excellent’ in the hand function assessment upon recovery as well.” Ling Ran scratched his chin and said, “Most of my patients score an ‘excellent’ once they recover. So far, the rate of my patients scoring an ‘excellent’ is ninety-eight percent.”

Some patients were so seriously injured that it was impossible for them to recover completely even with modern medicine. Hence, there would always be patients who did not score an “excellent” or even a “good” in the hand function assessment. But under normal circumstances, the patients still needed to at least score an “acceptable”, or else, amputation would be a better choice.

Pan Jinyue stared at Ling Ran as he deliberately raised his chin. She could not help but repeat, “Would Zheng Qi’s hand be able to score an ‘excellent’ in the hand function assessment upon recovery?”

As Ling Ran spoke, he made a deliberate attempt to explain, “Under normal circumstances, even though a patient scores an ‘excellent’ in the hand function assessment, it doesn’t mean that his hand function is back to normal. It only means that the patient is able to perform simple tasks and take care of himself. For example, he won’t be able to carry heavy things in the gymnasium, and his ability to carry out meticulous tasks could be affected. The tactility of his fingers will also be different…”

“But I’ll be able to hold a pen and write, eat, shower and use the computer?” Zheng Qi could not contain his excitement anymore.

Ling Ran nodded a little and said, “If the rehabilitation goes well, you should be able to do all of those things.”

Zheng Qi was wild with joy. “I’ll definitely go through my rehabilitation properly!”

His voice was too loud. It drew a nurse, who was not far away, over.

The young nurse in the rehabilitation room was a bit shy, and she felt embarrassed to join the conversation previously. Upon hearing the noise, she quickly hurried over to help champion for Ling Ran. She said, “You must go all out in your rehabilitation. You’re in luck because Doctor Ling sutures well. The probability of adhesion can be reduced by starting rehabilitation twelves hours after surgery…”

Even though she said roughly the same thing as Ling Ran did, her words were music to Zheng Qi and Pan Jinyue’s ears at a moment like this.

*Boom.*

Another treasure chest obtained courtesy of a Patient’s Sincere Gratitude appeared in front of Ling Ran.

Ling Ran simply opened it and put away the Energy Serum he obtained into his pocket. He did this in an extremely skilled manner.

After making a ward round, Ling Ran returned to the Operating Area for his meal. The canteen lady was already familiar with Ling Ran’s menu. There was pork, beef, and chicken in Ling Ran’s meal. She also prepared all sorts of little snacks for him including pan-fried pancakes, deep-fried dough sticks, tofu pudding, and soybean milk as side dishes; it was considered a perfect meal.

Since Ling Ran had been carrying out a large number of surgeries lately, he asked for six or seven dishes in one go. He carried the food to his table and dug in. He looked like a glutton while he ate.

A young nurse sitting at the table next to his secretly took out her mobile phone. There was a clicking sound.

Ling Ran naturally raised his head to look at her. He saw that the young nurse was so horrified that she turned pale. Shock was written all over her face.

Ling Ran flashed her a perplexed smile. He had experienced people taking sneak shots of him since the era of film cameras. Ever since the advent of digital cameras, he experienced even more of it. All he had to do was remain nonchalant towards it.

*Slurp…*

Ling Ran drank half a bowl of soybean milk in one go.

The young nurse brought her hands to her chest. There were stars in her eyes.

“Having lunch?” Like a big dog, Huo Congjun sat opposite Ling Ran with a plop and blocked the young nurse’s view. At the same time, he got himself so much Hate from the nurse that his soul was mutilated so many times he could transcend and become a Nascent Soul.

“You could say so.” Ling Ran thought about it. It had been five hours since three o’clock, and this meal could be considered lunch.

Huo Congjun sighed. “All the young people nowadays sleep at three in the morning, but you wake up at three in the morning. I don’t even know if I should remind you to take care of your health. Don’t wear yourself out too much and remember to strike a proper balance between work and relaxation. Exercise when you have time, and rest well…”

Ling Ran hummed and said, “I don’t need to wake up early starting from tomorrow. There’s not enough space in the rehabilitation room already.”

Huo Congjun laughed out loud and said, “Speaking of which, I’ve obtained another rehabilitation room for you. From now on, Rehabilitation Room 5 is at our disposal too!”

Ling Ran eyes brightened. Even the speed at which he ate increased. “Then, I can do two more surgeries today,” he said.

“Right, it’ll be a waste if we let the rehabilitation room I went to such great lengths to obtain by trickery, stay empty.” Huo Congjun coughed a few times as he spoke. He continued, “Don’t wear and tire yourself out too much. Remember to strike a proper balance between work and relaxation.”

“Kay.”

“And, and…” Huo Congjun stroked the back of his head and tried to regain some of his dignity. “A few days later, there will be a health inspection team organized by the City Management Cadre. I fought for a place for you. Work hard to carry out more surgeries these few days. When there isn’t enough space in the rehabilitation room, you can join the team and take a good rest.”

“What do people do in health inspection teams?” Ling Ran was rather confused.

“They go to the veteran cadre sanatorium to carry out clinical examinations and a few other things. It’s very easy.”

Ling Ran said, “Am I going there to carry out clinical examinations? Can I not go? I don’t really have much geriatric knowledge. It’s better if I stay here and carry out surgeries.”

With a face full of regret, Huo Congjun said, “Chief Hao asked for you. When you go there, you can comfort the patients’ family members. Some of the young grandsons and granddaughters of those veteran cadres are extremely naughty…”