"Why were you shouting so loudly earlier? Did you think your Senior Fang's face was thick enough?" After a full hour and a half, Fang Ziye finally questioned Lan Tianluo this way.
Fang Ziye could understand Lan Tianluo's envy. Lan Tianluo was a newcomer.
For Lan Tianluo to be admitted as a resident physician at Zhongnan Hospital meant he had surpassed at least 60% of medical students in his cohort. This was no exaggeration.
However, on his first day, full of confidence, he encountered a major setback. The hospital doubted his abilities and required an assessment before allowing him to manage patients' beds.
This struck Lan Tianluo like a bolt of lightning. After slowly realizing his situation, he had gone in and out of the practice room multiple times, and had now become quite obedient.
Seeing Senior Fang pass the next level of suturing that he coveted, Lan Tianluo was surprised, which was understandable.
But making such a big fuss actually made Fang Ziye feel a bit embarrassed!
Not to mention that Xiong Jinhuan, a top performer in both research and clinical skills from his own year, had already passed the orange peel suturing level. He was now not far from completing the tofu suturing level required by the trauma surgery department.
Even Li Yuanpei, the research powerhouse who had produced the most papers, had suturing skills on par with Fang Ziye. However, Li Yuanpei's incision skills had already surpassed Fang Ziye's.
There were even two second-year master's juniors with specialized talents who had also passed the orange peel suturing level in their suturing skills. They had been working on suturing tofu for a month, leaving Fang Ziye behind...
They were all quite modest about it. Now Lan Tianluo was making such a loud commotion after seeing him suture an orange peel!
Wasn't this putting Fang Ziye on the spot?
"Senior Ye, I'm sorry." Lan Tianluo offered his most sincere smile in apology.
Fang Ziye didn't dwell too much on this matter with Lan Tianluo. Instead, he practiced suturing a few more times, feeling the subtle changes brought by the Level 2 suturing skill. His mood became calm and pleasant!
As long as it was real, not a desperate fantasy, there was no problem.
The other skill that had been upgraded to Level 2 was incision.
Fang Ziye wasn't in a hurry to practice incision skills. He could do that tomorrow!
He hadn't brought the practice materials for incision, and it wasn't appropriate to borrow such things from others.
There were only two types of practice materials for incision skills: tofu and clay.
After strictly controlling the depth of cuts in tofu and mastering straight-line incisions, one could consider the tofu incision stage complete.
The second type was clay, which could be reused. It was mainly used to practice curved incisions and to more strictly control the depth of the incision.
Spread the clay on the operating table, shape it with 4mm and 5mm deep square molds, then simply make a standard S-shaped incision of 3mm or 4mm. If the clay splits open but doesn't separate, with consistent depth throughout, it would be considered a pass.
This was the level Fang Ziye needed to practice controlling. After a year and a half, he still couldn't fully meet the standard.
After passing the clay-cutting level, one could move on to carving tofu again.
Tofu was the first indispensable tool in the practice room...
After tidying up the operating table, as he was leaving the skills practice room, his classmate Li Yuanpei was also leaving the practice room. The two walked side by side: "Senior Ye, congratulations!~"
Li Yuanpei was tall and thin, slightly taller than Fang Ziye, but with a darker complexion. His face was full of pockmarks, as if it had countless stories written on it.
Although his clothes weren't designer brands, they were at least the latest Adidas styles. The total cost of his outfit wouldn't be less than six thousand yuan.
"Senior Pei, you're teasing me again. Among the three of us in our year, I'm the least skilled," Fang Ziye replied.
"But Senior Pei, why have you been coming to the practice room so often lately?"
Li Yuanpei had already published two SCI papers, one of which was in a Q2 journal[1].
A Q2 paper was of quite high quality. Publishing one at the master's level basically guaranteed admission to a doctoral program.
Even if he somehow slipped up in Zhongnan Hospital's doctoral admission re-examination, he could easily get into a 211 university's doctoral program. He was at a level that could easily outperform others.
After all, Zhongnan Hospital's basic requirement for doctoral graduation was just one Q2 SCI paper or two Q3 SCI papers. His future looked promising.
Fang Ziye also knew that Li Yuanpei had applied for the doctoral admission assessments at Union Medical College Hospital and Jishuitan Hospital. He didn't understand why Li Yuanpei had time to spend long periods in the practice room instead of focusing on these matters.
Li Yuanpei sighed: "What use are papers? We're surgeons!"
"It's too hard for a master's student to make it in a place like Zhongnan Hospital."
Fang Ziye thought Li Yuanpei was lamenting the lack of opportunities for hands-on practice, so he smiled and said, "Senior Pei, isn't my teacher still just holding legs[2]?"
Zhongnan Hospital was a top-tier tertiary hospital, ranking at least close to the top 50 nationally, with its orthopedics department ranking in the top 30.
Professors were abundant, even associate professors had to wait for surgeries, and experienced attending physicians fought over minor surgeries.
Attending physicians lifted legs, chief residents grabbed small emergency surgeries from the emergency department and outpatient clinic, specialized doctoral students were eager for opportunities, and master's students?
Being able to help hold legs and then cut some sutures was already not bad!
Hearing this, Li Yuanpei smiled: "You mean Senior Hong? At least Senior Hong has his own specialized surgeries. You're his first disciple!"
Fang Ziye was previously Yuan Weihong's only student, and everyone knew how many opportunities for hands-on practice that meant.
Fang Ziye's face instantly reddened: "Not a very successful first disciple."
"Mediocre at best!"
Fang Ziye was well aware that his clinical practice opportunities were more numerous than Li Yuanpei's.
But his clinical skills were not as good as Li Yuanpei's, nor was his research output.
To the extent that Fang Ziye didn't even dare to apply for the doctoral programs at absolute top-tier institutions like Union Medical College and Peking University Hospital, fearing embarrassment.
"It's okay, we'll just keep grinding..." Li Yuanpei smiled, and after exiting, he glanced at the massive structure of Zhongnan Hospital, his gaze becoming increasingly distant.
"It's all about the grind..."
"Senior Ye, my teacher said that this year they won't be accepting master's students from our own hospital for doctoral studies. They want to find someone more outstanding from another institution."
"Xiong Jinhuan's teacher will definitely take Senior Huang!"
Hearing this, Fang Ziye was shocked and stuttered: "Professor Deng isn't recruiting you this year?"
"That's right. There's a senior from Wuhan who passed the exam for Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing. He just graduated from a seven-year program and plans to come back for further studies, considering working at our hospital in the future!"
Li Yuanpei held up one hand: "Five papers. How can I compete with him?"
Hearing this, Fang Ziye could only click his tongue and smile bitterly!
Li Yuanpei was quite unlucky.
Originally, it was a sure thing for Li Yuanpei to pursue his doctorate under his own teacher.
But if that guy from Beijing University was a local from Wuhan, with consecutive bachelor's and master's degrees from Union Medical College, his educational background would be top-notch.
With so many papers and an intention to work in Wuhan, he would definitely be Professor Deng's first choice for a doctoral student, and would become a capable assistant in the future!
Li Yuanpei sighed again and said: "Can't even get out of this practice room..."
"In August, the doctoral application assessments for Union Medical College Hospital and Peking University Hospital in Beijing have already been completed. I didn't even make it to the interview round..."
"Next up are the applications for Sun Yat-sen University Hospital, and the affiliated hospitals of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Fudan University."
"Senior Ye, did you apply?"
Fang Ziye nodded, trying to maintain his composure: "My name probably won't appear on the second-round interview list. You have a chance, Senior Pei!"
With his own research output, applying was just going through the motions of being rejected at the application stage.
But he still had to apply, as it was at least an opportunity.
Li Yuanpei then said: "Even passing the second round wouldn't matter. The teachers there have their own students..."
"Master's degree, it sounds pretty impressive, but in the medical field, master's degrees are worthless, while PhDs are a dime a dozen..."
"Maybe finding a job is our true path." He became increasingly perplexed.
...
After parting ways with Li Yuanpei, Fang Ziye instantly understood why his own teacher, Yuan Weihong, had also suggested he look elsewhere.
Such a formidable tiger had come to occupy a general's position in Zhongnan Hospital's orthopedics department.
Even Professor Deng's own master's student, Li Yuanpei, faced an uncertain future.
Professor Han, Xiong Jinhuan's teacher, would definitely prioritize Xiong Jinhuan for doctoral studies.
As for himself, wanting to pursue a doctoral degree at their own hospital seemed impossible.
In his rented bachelor apartment, Fang Ziye fell into deep thought.
After pondering for a long time, he slowly said: "In the current situation, frantically writing papers is absolutely useless. The only option is to go all out in the practice room and pursue the path of absolute operational prowess!"
"If one can excel in the practice room! Whether the professors' practice room approach or papers hold more advantage, it's unclear how Professor Deng would choose!"
"First, I need to excel in the practice room before I can confidently talk about wanting to pursue a doctorate." Fang Ziye's gaze was determined.
Translation Notes:
[1] Q2 journal: Refers to journals ranked in the second quartile (top 25-50%) of their field based on impact factor.
[2] Holding legs: A junior role in surgery where the assistant helps position and stabilize the patient's limbs during the procedure.