Great Doctor Ling Ran

At night, Yun Hua was shrouded in a halo.

If you were to look up at the sky from Yun Hua Hospital’s Emergency Medicine building at nine in the evening, you would neither be able to find the stars nor see the moon clearly. Instead, you would see all kind of garish signs and advertisements. You would also hear the relentless honking of cars coming from below the building.

A few young nurses who were still at that age where they were youthful and innocent scared each other with horror stories as they walked along a dark and quiet corridor. They turned and ran the moment they retrieved the spare equipment needed, only slowing their steps when they approached the operating theater. They giggled with their hands over their mouths as they observed the things happening around them, evading the pursuit of the head nurse like a couple of small animals.

“Doctor Ling is still performing surgery.” The young nurse who was taking the lead craned her neck and said, “He’s so hardworking.”

“He’s been carrying out surgeries since the morning—”

“Let me see, let me see.” The third young nurse went between two other nurses and looked at Ling Ran through the round glass window of the operating theater. She said in an admiring manner, “Doctor Ling looks so good from behind.”

“He probably trained it by standing up straight all the time.”

“To be able to stand all day, his waist is so strong.”

“Right, Doctor Ling’s stamina is so good.” The moment the young nurse said that, she suddenly blushed.

They giggled and chattered, only dispersing in a rush when the circulating nurse’s footsteps echoed in the corridor.

“I’m done.”

After he completed the surgery step by step, Ling Ran heaved a long sigh of relief.

It was a challenge for anyone to perform four surgeries and suture seven flexor tendons in one day. The nurses, the assistant, and the anesthetist also became a lot more relaxed.

There was an inherent sense of urgency that came with major surgeries such as those performed using the M-Tang technique, as if a small amount of epinephrine was consistently pumped into the heart.

Many of the nurses and anesthetists had their own little habits when participating in minor surgeries. For example, the young nurses who were preparing for nursing exams might have their earphones on to listen to English practice tapes, and the anesthetists might be anxiously watching the football matches they bet on.

However, when they participated in major surgeries, even if the situation was not urgent, everyone would naturally tone down on their habits a little.

Ling Ran massaged his neck and opened the ‘Basic Treasure Chest’ he just received.

A book shining with silver light hovered in the air.

‘Oh, it’s not an Energy Serum. There is now a deficit of one bottle then.’ This was the first thought that came to Ling Ran’s mind.

As Ling Ran was thinking about it, the silver book automatically opened to its title page. There were words there that served as an explanation.

[Single Skill Book. Obtained diagnostic skill: Physical Examination (Specialist)]

Ling Ran unknowingly touched his cheek. The first thing that came to his mind was that his parotid gland was working normally…

“Doctor Ling, we’ll take care of the operating theater. Do go back and rest first,” Ma Yanlin said proactively.

Ling Ran nodded in agreement.

Even though Lu Wenbin—who was again one step behind—jumped in anger, he did not know what to say.

Ling Ran hailed a taxi and sat in the back seat. He then started to touch himself from head to toe.

The so-called ‘physical examination’ included all the things doctors did when carrying out a clinical examination. For example, touching and feeling the subject’s neck, asking the subject to rotate his eyeballs, and placing the stethoscope on the subject’s chest to listen to the sounds were all part of a physical examination. A lot of information could be obtained during the stricter clinical examinations carried out during air force recruitment as it involved extremely meticulous inspection of the subject.

To put it simply, a physical examination was how a doctor judged the subject’s health condition through means such as sight, touch, percussion, hearing, and smell.

This was also why a physical examination was one of the four basic skills of diagnostics. The other three were history-taking, laboratory diagnoses, and auxiliary examinations.

From the perspective of modern medicine, these four skills were the only prerequisites to diagnosing a disease. Meanwhile, the prerequisite for clinical medicine was diagnostic skills.

After all, human beings already had the knowledge and could name tens of thousands of diseases. However, a diagnosis was necessary for the doctors to know whether the patient could be cured and for there to be a direction when it came to the arrangement of strategies.

Each of the few thousand diseases that humans could either cure or control already had a standard, or almost standard, medical prescription. For example, tuberculosis (can be cured), diabetes (can be controlled), thyroid cancer (had a rising cure rate), AIDS (patients had now gained increasingly longer lifespans), and pancreatic cancer (basically nothing can be done). Each of these diseases had a specific outline for treatment. As long as the disease was correctly diagnosed, most doctors could follow the steps and complete the treatment process.

Compared to internal medicine, diagnoses were a lot easier when it came to surgery, but diagnostics was still the prerequisite to treatment.

The fact that Ling Ran could continuously carry out surgeries performed using the M-Tang technique was also thanks to the prior diagnoses from other doctors.

But eventually, as a doctor, he would have to slowly pick up diagnostic skills. Even doctors who stayed in operating theaters all day needed to know some basic diagnostic techniques.

Ling Ran was quite satisfied that he obtained the ‘Physical Examination’ skill. He was especially happy when he considered the fact that it came from a Basic Treasure Chest. It was also enough for Ling Ran considering that the skill was of the ‘Specialist’ level.

There were four levels to the skills obtained from the system. The ‘Novice Level’ skills enabled Ling Ran to perform around the level of Yun Hua Hospital’s ordinary attending physicians, and slightly better than the lousy attending physicians from other tertiary grade A hospitals. With ‘Specialist Level’ skills, Ling Ran’s performance was already comparable to how associate chief physicians or chief physicians performed when it came to the fields they were relatively accomplished in. With ‘Master Level’ skills, Ling Ran could be the best in Yun Hua Hospital, which meant that he was also the best in Changxi Province. For example, the system had confirmed that Ling Ran—who possessed the Master Level M-Tang Technique—was the best in Yun Hua when it came to the said technique. Other doctors could no longer contend with him in terms of the M-Tang technique, and could only contend with him in terms of suturing techniques as a whole.

As for ‘Perfect Level’ skills, the fact that the ‘Perfect Level Barehanded Bleeding Control’ Ling Ran mastered ranked 126th in the world, 13th in China, 2nd in the Changxi Province, and 1st in Yun Hua was already self-explanatory.

When he thought of this, Ling Ran asked in his mind, ‘System, system, what is the rank of my ‘Physical Examination’ skill right now?’

“The Physical Examination skill you mastered is now ranked 1,128th in Yun Hua City. Your ranking will rise by one every time you carry out twenty to thirty correct physical examinations.” The system’s reply was clear, and its voice was as recognizable as ever.

‘Eh.’ Ling Ran thought, puzzled. He then asked, ‘Is this considered a mission?’

“No.”

‘Is it the accumulation of experience, then?’ Ling Ran already had an idea of what was going on. While he was at it, he touched himself from head to toe.

As the taxi driver drove, he glanced at the rear-view mirror every now and then. As he continued driving, he felt more and more guilty. However, when he saw his own face in the rear-view mirror, he felt a little relieved.

When they arrived at the alleyway entrance of Lower Groove, the taxi driver stared at the quiet and dark Lower Groove and refused to drive inside no matter what. He even gave Ling Ran a discount of two RMB so that he did not have to give Ling Ran any change.

The moment Ling Ran closed the taxi door, the driver stepped on the accelerator and sped away.

“What a strange driver.” Ling Ran touched his right axillary lymph node and slowly walked home.