"What's the situation with this patient?" Ling Ran asked as he fell in line with Nurse Wang's brisk and urgent footsteps.
At that very moment, it was impossible to say that he was not nervous. He may have obtained 'Master Level in Suturing' from the gift package, but the patient in the emergency room might need more than sutures.
Ling Ran wanted nothing more than to practice and complete his mission, but he also wanted to treat the patient with the appropriate amount of respect.
"The patient's hand was impaled by a tree branch when she fell from it."
Nurse Wang was even younger than Ling Ran. She had made that statement coldly—a habit nurtured from her line of work. But she went a little red when he turned to meet her gaze, and her tone quickly softened.
"You're so tall..." she murmured.
Ling Ran had always been blessed with good looks since birth. At that moment, his lips habitually curled at the corners.
The young nurse quickly hid her rapidly reddening face from him and said, "My name is Wang Jia. Jia as in 'family'."
"What a good name."
Ling Ran replied at the appropriate moment.
The young nurse was instantly filled with cheer. Her burdensome, mundane work life suddenly seemed a lot easier, a lot lighter. She made some additional, necessary comments about the patient only to give herself more opportunities to converse with this dashing doctor.
Upon arriving at the treatment room, Wang Jia pulled open Curtain 3. Ling Ran saw a middle-aged woman who lay on the light blue operating table with a hand extended out to her side. A doctor was already working on her hand. His back faced Ling Ran, but he could see him gently removing the dressings with a pair of forceps.
Ling Ran heaved a sigh that carried with it a mixture of relief and regret.
"Doctor Zhou, I have brought him," Wang Jia announced crisply.
"Thank you very much." Doctor Zhou's hands paused for a moment. When he turned around to greet Ling Ran, he was startled for a moment. He had never seen this person before, but he did not say a word about it.
Yun Hua Hospital was the biggest general hospital in the province. The hospital itself had almost a thousand doctors and every year, even more doctors came for training, observation, housemanship, and internship. It was not altogether uncommon to see an unfamiliar face.
It was also inappropriate to make self-introductions when a patient was lying on the table before them. He only said, "Please assist me with the debridement. 0.9% sodium chloride mixed with iodine complex. Have you brought the anesthetic here?"
"2% lidocaine," Wang Jia said as she drew the dosage required for local anesthesia into a syringe and passed it to Doctor Zhou. Doctor Zhou took it and scrutinized it before jabbing it into the edge of the patient's wound.
Ling Ran observed carefully, so earnestly that it looked as if he was repairing a Transformer.
It was only the act of injecting an anesthetic, but laymen would be at a loss if they were asked to attempt it themselves.
If the desired effect could not be achieved with the stipulated dosage, an additional shot could be sneaked in, but they would also have to pray that they would not bear witness to any complications that might follow.
The lectures in school were mostly theoretical in nature rather than practical. When it came to local anesthesia, only a couple of words were said about it accompanied by the same few standard examples.
However, there were too many variables and surprises in reality. The practicum of medical students served to mend the gaps in their knowledge in regards to these aspects.
"Wash it."
Doctor Zhou tossed the syringe aside. Ling Ran immediately picked up the bottle of solution that Wang Jia had mixed and poured it onto the wound.
"More," Doctor Zhou said as he fiddled the wound with the forceps.
His movements were gentle and straightforward. First, he removed the foreign object in the patient's wound. He then picked up a knife and ablated a small amount of skin at the edge of the wound. This step meant that they were already halfway done with the minor surgery in closing up the superficial wounds.
Doctor Zhou was rather plain-looking and ugly, but he was an attentive and good-hearted man. He smiled and said to the patient, "There's quite a lot of foreign objects in your wound. We'll wash it two more times before we start stitching. Don't worry, okay?"
"I'm not worried, I'm not worried."
After the local anaesthesia, the patient no longer felt any pain. She relaxed her furrowed eyebrows and said, "I fell on mud, and there were pine needles on the ground. There won't be any permanent damage, would there?"
"No, we just have to make sure it's cleaned up nicely," Doctor Zhou said gently.
The patient quickly calmed down once she received his assurance.
When Ling Ran heard this, he quickly grabbed the opportunity and said, "Doctor Zhou, if I may, I would like to do the suturing."
'Getting out of the waiting room was difficult enough as it is. This doctor seems easy-going. If I don't take the opportunity now, I'll never get it again.'
The mission from the system still awaited.
'Perhaps I'll finally be rewarded with a Transformer if I get it done perfectly?'
Ling Ran was so excited that his eyes sparkled.
"Hmm… alright." Doctor Zhou did not make things difficult for Ling Ran. He did not even start asking questions.
When it came to the operating table, the chief surgeon would be constantly barraging his assistants with request after request. The assistants' hands would be too full to even think of undertaking a task on their own.
However, when it came to such a minor debridement surgery, there was no need for such talk.
Doctor Zhou spent his time in the Emergency Department every single day. He had seen many young doctors come here looking for a chance to operate, and he was also willing to give them that chance.
He did not mind watching from the sidelines, and only intervening when complications arose. Even if they did, no lives nor livelihood would be at risk.
This was why so many young doctors were lined up outside the Emergency Department. The doctors in the department were often understandably busy and tired after their long bouts of surgeries. When it came to something minor like this, they were more than willing to have someone else step in.
Ling Ran suppressed his emotions as he made pre-surgical preparations. He then slowly took the chair as Doctor Zhou made way for him.
If it were not for the system, he would not have attempted this so soon. Now that he had obtained 'Master Level in Suturing,' Ling Ran was more confident in his skills.
Since Doctor Zhou had already performed the debridement, he only had to follow the steps needed before suturing a minor wound.
All of Ling Ran's thoughts suddenly came to a halt the moment he picked up the needle holder. In Doctor Zhou's eyes, the movements of the young doctor suddenly went from inexperienced to skilled.
Only a moment ago, Doctor Zhou had also been wondering if he should take over and perform the suturing himself, but in the next second… Ling Ran had inserted the needle under the skin and made a knot with the forceps…
"Ah… you're done?"
Doctor Zhou was so stunned that his tongue was almost numb in shock.
Throughout his few years in the Emergency Department he had seen many people who were fast, efficient workers. But according to legend, only those of the divine could suture a spontaneous aortic rupture within two minutes.
'I would like to see these divine physicians someday…'
Doctor Zhou fixed his gaze upon Ling Ran. A ceiling lamp happened to be just above Ling Ran's shoulder.
'Hmm… the light today is a little dazzling…'