Great Doctor Ling Ran

*Knock, knock.*

Ma Yanlin gently knocked on the door to Ling Ran’s office.

“Come in.” Ling Ran’s voice rang out from the room, and the sound of his voice was like music to the ears.

After Ma Yanlin opened the door, he could smell the faint scent of tangerine. He reckoned that the young nurses from the nurses’ station had purchased a new type of essential oil. It was probably the favorite scent of the nurses on duty that day.

Ever since Ling Ran became the leader of a treatment group, the income of the Emergency Medical Center’s medical staff had risen substantially. Aside from that, the Emergency Medical Center also had more cash to spare for their daily expenses. After all, there was only so much bonus they could give their staff members. If the Emergency Medical Center’s staff members were to receive too much money, those from other departments might complain about it. As a result, all that extra money went to the funds of the department.

For example, the nurses at the nurses’ station were given funds to purchase air fresheners and fragrances. The head nurse even took the opportunity to write a research paper titled “An Exploration to Elevate the Quality of Services Provided in Wards”. Consequently, all the wards and doctors’ offices no longer smelled like disinfectants.

However, the wards and the offices of other doctors almost always smelled like sandalwood or lavender. Ling Ran’s office, though, was embellished with a different scent every day.

Every now and then, Ma Yanlin would make it a point to sniff the scent drifting out of the door whenever he passed by Ling Ran’s office so that he could increase his knowledge and perhaps gain one percent of Ling Ran’s good looks.

Unfortunately, at that moment, Ma Yanlin was not in the mood to enjoy the scent of tangerine. He furrowed his eyebrows a little and said, “Doctor Ling, both patients with ruptured Achilles tendons who came over this morning requested that you operate on them using the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique.”

“Are both of them athletes?” Even though Ling Ran was the one who informed Ma Yanlin about the new patients, he had not met them yet. He merely relayed the message from the Emergency Department.

While Ling Ran was the leader of his treatment group and had to lead the charge in everything, he did not need to be on the front line. Basic tasks such as record-taking, physical examination, allocation of hospital beds, and filling authorization forms for medical imaging procedures as well as biochemical tests were done by junior doctors.

If these tasks were taken away from junior doctors, the hospital’s cultivation system would go into a meltdown.

Similarly, if experienced senior doctors had to carry out these tasks by themselves, the hospital’s cultivation system would also go into a meltdown.

Right then, Ma Yanlin felt that he was about to go through a meltdown too.

He thought things through and carefully said, going along with Ling Ran’s flow, “This is the problem: none of them are athletes. Even though they’re just ordinary people, they know about the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique and have stated that they want you to operate on them. Not only that, but they specifically said they want you to operate on them using the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique.”

The regulations of most public hospitals did not allow patients to ask for specific doctors to operate on them. However, certain hospitals had reformed things by allowing patients to pay a certain fee so that they could ask for renowned doctors to operate on them. The fee for consultation was usually a few hundred RMB for these doctors.

Most reformations carried out by hospitals nowadays merely involved making unspoken rules legitimate.

For instance, surgeons from renowned hospitals, especially chief physicians rarely operated on patients in the hospitals they worked in unless the patient was related to someone they knew. They just had to make a short journey to operate on patients in a nearby hospital for freelance surgery fees of a few thousand RMB. Why would they suffer by operating on patients in the hospital they worked in and receive surgery fees that were only a few hundred RMB?

From the hospital’s perspective, that was the logic of charging patients a fee to ask for specific surgeons.

However, patients could only ask for specific surgeons. It was impossible for the hospitals and surgeons to let patients choose the surgical methods they wanted.

This was because once the incision was made, they may find the patient’s actual condition different from what was shown in the scans and what was expected.

They could not just suck the anesthetics out of the patient’s body, wake him or her up, and discuss the desired surgical method all over again.

Aside from that, the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique was not something ordinary people would know about. Most of the time, ordinary people did not even know about renowned surgical methods. Take surgical repair for Tetralogy of Fallot as an example. All medical students knew what it was, but very few ordinary people knew about it.

Ling Ran did not think about it a lot, though. He merely said, “If they’re not athletes, there’s really no need to perform open Achilles tendon repair surgery on them. How old are they?”

Ma Yanlin said, “One is forty-eight, and the other is fifty-two.”

Ling Ran cleared his throat before he picked up his glass and drank a mouthful of water. “And why do they want to receive open Achilles tendon repair surgery?”

“The patients insisted on it, and they specifically stated that they did not want minimally invasive surgery. The main problem is that one of the patients said that he knows a reporter or something like that, and he said that if we refuse to use the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique on him, he would expose things to the media.”

“What would he be exposing?”

“That we said no to a patient? That we did not respect the patient’s wishes?” Ma Yanlin who had just operated on two patients felt like his head was about to explode when he met the two new patients earlier.

The Ling Treatment Group operated like the other treatment groups in the hospital. After a patient was taken in, the doctor-in-charge would be directly responsible for him. For patients who would be receiving surgery, the doctor-in-charge was responsible for everything aside from the surgery itself.

Everything, from minor tasks like scheduling the patient’s surgery to major tasks like prescribing medication and deciding how much to charge the patient had to be done by the doctor-in-charge. They were even responsible for the patient’s postoperative recovery and deciding how much care the patient should be given as long as their superiors were not in charge of those tasks.

Within the Ling Treatment Group, Ma Yanlin had always been in charge of patients with ruptured Achilles tendons. Up until then, he had been in charge of a few hundred patients.

However, Ma Yanlin could sense trouble and danger after he heard the demands of the two new patients earlier.

He did not even need to think much about it. Meng Shan’s name was the first thing that appeared in his mind. Unfortunately, it would be inappropriate for Ma Yanlin to spell out his thoughts directly.

Ma Yanlin could only make things as obvious as possible in his reminder to Ling Ran. “Both patients are from Guangdong, and they said that they came here under the recommendation of another doctor. They refused to tell me the name of the doctor who sent them here, though. I feel like they may be acting under the instructions of the doctor who introduced them to you. The thing about the reporter may also be a lie.”

“Those two aren’t actually being unreasonable.” Ling Ran rose from his chair and paced around the office.

Even though his office was not big, it was very meticulously decorated. Moreover, other people would often switch the furniture in his office with furniture in other doctors’ offices as well as change the arrangements of the furniture. As such, being in his office always provided a new experience.

Nowadays, whenever Ling Ran wrote research papers, pondered about how to go about certain surgeries, carried out preoperative preparations or thought about a surgery after it was done, he liked to pace slowly in his office. It encouraged blood circulation and gave him a clearer state of mind.

Ma Yanlin went into a bit of a daze as his gaze followed Ling Ran around the office. “Not unreasonable?”

“Yeah, we’re doctors, after all, and our priority should be to respect our patients’ wishes.” Ling Ran nodded a little, and it was obvious that he did not object to using the Zhu-Ling Repair Technique on those two patients.

Ma Yanlin furrowed his eyebrows. “But their line of thought isn’t even correct. They’re already over the age of forty. They could be bedbound for three or four more months if they were to receive open Achilles tendon repair surgery instead of minimally invasive Achilles tendon repair surgery. They were definitely misled by someone.”

“Then, you should talk to them about it.” Since Ling Ran did not deal directly with patients, he authorized Ma Yanlin to do so.

After Ma Yanlin left Ling Ran’s office, he decided to talk to Zuo Cidian about it after a moment’s hesitation.

“You think that Meng Shan sent them here to give us trouble?” Zuo Cidian realized what was going on the moment Ma Yanlin relayed what happened to him.

“It kind of seems that way.” Ma Yanlin speculated and continued, “It’s true that we can do nothing but guess, however, Meng Shan is a renowned doctor. What if he tells the patients something—”

Zuo Cidian shook his head and cut Ma Yanlin off. “Meng Shan can’t just sever the patients’ Achilles tendon and send them to us, can he?”

Ma Yanlin could not help but laugh.

“Don’t laugh, this matter is no joke.” Zuo Cidian sighed and said, “Whether Meng Shan is part of this or not, the patients have made their demands. This should be our main focus right now. In my opinion, we should deal with the patients first.”

Zuo Cidian, who had worked in a town hospital for years, knew that in this world, many things were vague. If he were to make sense of everything that happened in town, he would never be done even if he was born in the era when China was still a republic. He would at least need to have been alive since the Qing Dynasty for that. Most importantly, even if he got to the bottom of things, the offending parties would still not admit their wrongdoings. In his eyes, the matter at hand was something similar to what he had encountered in the past.

As Zuo Cidian gazed at Ma Yanlin, who was only a little more than half his age, he said a little more gently, “Even though Doctor Ling doesn’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, he did make the right decision. Let’s talk to the patients a bit more. If they really want to receive open Achilles tendon repair surgery, we should let them have their way if it’s possible.”

Ma Yanlin was indignant. “Their recovery period would be prolonged by more than three months. What’s the point?”

“Maybe they’re willing to make that sacrifice.”

“Who would want their recovery period to be prolonged by three months?”

“But their Achilles tendons would be stronger than if they were to receive minimally invasive Achilles tendon repair surgery, right?”

“I’ve talked to them. Both of them don’t even hit the gym. What’s the point of having such strong Achilles tendons?”

“That’s their business. This is a matter of personal values.” Zuo Cidian sighed and continued, “Some people get breast augmentation surgery, and some people get breast reduction surgery. What do you have to say about that?”

Ma Yanlin was at a loss for words. The question really hit him under the belt.

“Let’s go and meet the patients together. Isn’t that the whole point of talking to patients before their surgeries?” Zuo Cidian smiled. “If they’re really willing to endure a few more months of pain just for a stronger Achilles tendon, I think that we can comply with their wishes and operate on them using the Zhu-Ling Achilles Repair Technique.”

“You mustn’t be biased then.”

“Of course not. Even if I were to be biased, I would lean more toward minimally invasive surgery.”

“I can’t believe that the day we have to say no to the patients has come… What’s wrong with Meng Shan?”

Zuo Cidian smiled. “No one asked you to say no to them. We just need to do whatever’s within our job scope well.”