Chapter 50

Eating too much mutton can produce internal heat, causing a dry mouth and tongue.

Yang Ping drank several cups of water, but could not suppress the fire in his heart.

Strangely, after Zhang Lin consumed mutton, the pimples on his face seemed to have decreased. I don’t study traditional Chinese Medicine, so I can’t explain it.

Song Zimo doesn’t drink alcohol, but after a night of drinking Tiandi No.1, he claimed to have drunk too much in the morning.

As for Little Five, that little amount of alcohol is nothing, nearly equivalent to gargling with mouthwash.

Handover, ward rounds, and surgery. These three routines govern their daily life.

Director Han led several people on ward rounds. The patient with a comminuted fracture of the distal humerus was training very hard on his rehabilitation exercises, showing significant improvement compared to yesterday afternoon. His hospital bill has only a few hundred Yuan left and he plans to be discharged in a couple of days, according to the plan.

With Su Yixuan’s help to negotiate with the billing nurse in the operating room, the bill managed to stay within three thousand Yuan.

There are over a dozen in-patients who underwent finger reattachment surgery. Many of them started rehabilitation in the physical therapy department after the sutures were removed.

The patient with chronic osteomyelitis of the right tibia has a somewhat controlled blood pressure and blood sugar level now. His surgery is to be scheduled soon.

The patient who underwent an amputation on-site, mainly because of a ruptured liver and spleen, has been transferred from the ICU to the Department of General Surgery. Now, he can walk back and forth in the corridor with his prosthetic limb.

The other patients are mostly various types of fractures.

Director Han has been quite busy lately. He is currently applying to establish an in-hospital orthopedic research institute. In addition, he intends to apply for it to be recognized as a key provincial department. Overall, he’s very ambitious and energetic.

Despite being busy, he occasionally rounds the ward with Yang Ping when he has spare time, understanding every patient’s specific condition.

In the corridor, they ran into Director Ouyang’s team. Dr. Jin happily said, “I’m preparing to remove those two screws tomorrow. Then we’ll see if the postoperative joint pain and swelling decrease.”

Little Five and Zhang Lin went to the operating room. Director Han summoned Yang Ping and Song Zimo to his office.

Old Han, in his customary manner, took a sip of tea before speaking: “Little Yang, Little Song, I want to add a new member to your team, and she’s a girl.”

A new recruit? A girl? Could it be that Tang Fei is going to join our four-person team? The combination of men and women makes work less tiring. Old Han truly understands the essence of management.

“Our department is developed rapidly and fresh blood will continuously be infused. Our new colleague has an excellent educational background. She is an eight-year program graduate from Beijing Medical School. I’m telling you this so you can prepare in advance.” said Director Han.

After all his talking, it wasn’t Tang Fei, but a new person. She hadn’t arrived yet, this was just a preventive briefing.

After a brief talk and some important reminders concerning the patients, Director Han left for the administration building.

Yang Ping and Song Zimo went to the ICU to check on the AIDS patient who had the surgery last night.

Two police officers were guarding the main entrance of the ICU. Yang Ping had seen such situations often and didn’t pay much attention.

The patient stayed in the negative pressure isolation room in the ICU. This guy is tenacious; the endotracheal tube was removed the same night. Now, he was asking if he could be transferred to the general ward, he was out of money.

The high cost of the ICU, around twenty-thousand Yuan a day, was something he could not afford.

His vital signs were stable, it was just an issue of blood loss shock and it’s almost corrected now.

Besides, with the patient being able to communicate clearly, there was no reason not to move him to a general ward.

“Of course, move!”, Yang Ping, after confirming that there were no wounds on his hands, reached out to shake the patient’s hand.

He hesitated for a moment: “I am HIV positive.”

Yang Ping smiled, saying: “I know. We can shake hands, you were really brave yesterday, passed through the ‘Ghost Gate’.”

He carefully reached out and shook hands with Yang Ping.

Handshaking would not spread the virus unless there were wounds on the hand.

“I had a note in my pocket, but I was unconscious and couldn’t take it out. Are you okay? I am really worried.” He said.

Yang Ping replied, “We’re fine, we took the right precautions.”

“Thank you for saving my life. Don’t worry about the expenses, I will definitely manage to pay them.” He said.

Yang Ping had seen many patients who owed bills, especially those involved in fights and brawls, but never had he met a patient who offered to pay the bills so proactively. Regardless of whether it was true or not, it was comforting to hear.

Once a man involved in a fight had surgery done as an emergency procedure and didn’t pay a single penny, escaping early one morning. Not only that, he stole the remote control from the ward, causing Yang Ping to eat instant noodles for two weeks!

After seeing the patient, Yang Ping left the ICU. Outside the entrance, the police were still guarding. A girl was sitting on the bench, her head low as she cried softly.

Dr. Meng from the ICU was discussing the condition with her: “That’s enough, his life was saved. The orthopedic doctor said he would be transferred to the general ward soon.”

“Really?” The girl stopped crying and smiled.

“Just right, Dr. Yang, this is the family of the patient who had a femoral artery rupture last night.” Dr. Meng noticed Yang Ping and Song Zimo coming out of ICU through the sliding door.

The girl immediately got up, bowed, wiped her tears with a tissue, and said: “Doctor, thank you. Is Wang Feng really okay?”

Yang Ping nodded, “He’s out of danger now, go and wait in the trauma orthopedics ward, you can see him very soon.”

“I will pay the costs as soon as possible. Use the best medicine, you must make him better.” The girl’s eyes were red.

It should be Dr. Meng who discussed the cost with her.

Yang Ping remembered the AIDS case, but immediately pretended not to. Because such a thing would be reported to the hospital infection department, they would follow the process, and the CDC would intervene. What a doctor needs to do is keep the patient’s confidentiality, as well as to protect themselves.

After returning from the ICU, he went to the general surgery to see the worker who had amputated his limb.

He had already put on a prosthetic limb and had started walking back and forth in the ward corridor, training to adapt to the prosthesis. The wound at the end of the truncated limb healed well, but he had phantom limb pain at night. Yang Ping gave some medication instructions to his brother in the general surgery.

The two hurried to the operating room, there were several surgeries waiting, one was an emergency finger replantation, which Song Zimo and Zhang Lin did.

There were also several fractures, humeral shaft, ulnar and radius bones, femoral shaft, tibia and fibular bones, yang Ping did with Little Five.

So far, apart from pelvic fractures, Director Han had totally trusted Yang Ping with limb fractures.

Director Han now knew that Yang Ping could be relied on. The comminuted fracture at the lower end of the humerus last time was easily handled with Kirschner wire, so he was completely relieved with long bone fractures in the limbs.

After a day of surgery, they were out by 4 p.m. The four of them checked at the end of work, and sat in the department for a while.

Old Han hurriedly said, “Old Sir Zhang fell down and fractured his hip, the situation is still unclear, let’s go to the emergency room and check.”

Old Han led everyone, rushing to the emergency department resuscitation room.

Old sir was lying on the Pingche, surrounded by a large group of people, Xiong Sihai’s tall figure was particularly noticeable.

Seeing Director Han coming, Xiong Sihai was a bit anxious, “The old man is very stubborn, he wouldn’t let us touch him, he said he was waiting for you, I think he may have broken his hip.”

“Be careful, he’s an elderly patient. He’s been in pain in the left hip and has had a movement disorder in the left lower limb for half an hour after the fall. The physical examination revealed obvious tenderness and knock pain in the area of the greater trochanter, deformities of shortening and external rotation of the left lower limb. It’s basically certain that there’s a fracture in the left hip, and looking at the degree of external rotation of the left lower limb, it’s reached 90 degrees, that’s not a fracture of the femoral neck, it has to be an intertrochanteric fracture. Don’t you guys do physical examinations, everything depends on the slides, can’t diagnose without slides?”

The old man was still giving a lecture to the people around him. Seeing Director Han coming, the old man said, “Second Brother Han, what I shouldn’t have said was prophetic, this time it really fell into your hands.”

“What happened, old man, did you break your hip as soon as you said you did?” Han wouldn’t let go of his hand.

Elder Man Zhang waved his hand, “There was nothing to do in the afternoon, so I took a walk in the hospital park, met some people playing Tai Chi, got excited and practiced pushing hands with them, I threw the other guy down, and fell myself, he fractured his lumbar vertebrae, I fractured my hip, he was taken to the spinal surgery department, do you see, how quickly do people age?”

He’s eighty years old, why does he have to play Tai Chi push hands.

“We’ll take a picture first, presumably a greater trochanter fracture, a small matter, think of it as a vacation.” Director Han comforted.

“Now that it has come to your hands, you’re the boss, you can decide what to do with me.” The old man was open-minded.

They pushed him to the radiology department for filming. Those who needed traction were given traction, those who needed bed transfer were given bed transfers, with so many people fussing about getting the old man up there.

The technician brought a neck brace to protect the old man’s thyroid gland, and then pushed the door of the lead door.

As expected, there was a left intertrochanteric fracture and the displacement was quite obvious.

The technician printed the film, opened the door, and respectfully handed it to him,

The glasses, where are the glasses, he took out his reading glasses and put them on, “Fractured and shattered, this sharp tip is embedded in the muscle, it’s troublesome.”

“I have a flight tonight, tomorrow’s field meeting for the orthopedic research institute. Traction for a few days first, I’ll come back and do the operation for you, you just relax, no more talk, otherwise it’s showing off one’s skill in front of an expert. In ‘Orthopedic Surgery’, your name is still on the first page.”

“You can’t delay the institute’s affairs, Second Brother Han, you’re busy with your own. There’s no need for traction. Waiting longer increases the risk of deep venous thrombosis, I still want to work for a few more years, do it as an emergency, I want to walk tomorrow, once bedridden, the problem is serious.” The old man is impatient.

“Doing it as an emergency, there’s not enough time.” Director Han was in a difficult position.

“No problem, you just find someone to do it for me.” The old man was quite calm.

A bit surprising, he actually agreed to let just any random person operate on him, that wasn’t like the temperament of this old man.

“How about this, I’ll talk to Dean Xia and push back the institute’s event.” Said Director Han.

The old man glared at him, “Why mention it to him? I’m not that desperate yet, you should know what’s important and what’s not, the institute’s work can be postponed, once postponed, it might be next year. That’s it, find someone, the same kid from last time.”

Then he looked up to find Yang Ping, “You’ll do it.”

“Me?”

“What’s wrong, don’t want to? Let me tell you, if you can’t walk tomorrow, it’s a zero score for you. Don’t tell me you’re too pretentious to only do upper limb fractures and not do lower limb ones.”

As long as it’s not the pelvis, Yang Ping is full of confidence. In the system, there are hundreds of such fractures.

But this old man is so quirky, demanding to bear weight and walk tomorrow, shattered like this, how to walk.

“That’s it, Second Brother Han, you can rest assured and do your thing, leave my business to him, whether it’s a mule or a horse, let’s run two laps and see.” Said the old man.

Then, with no room for doubt, he reiterated, “I want to walk tomorrow.”