Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 580: Chapter 580: Unable to Sign

City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Internal Medicine Comprehensive Clinic.

Li Xu had agreed to Dean Song’s request to hold clinic for an extra day each week, partly to prepare for the integration of the oncology department.

Today was his first "overtime" day.

Once the news got out, patients began to arrive in an endless stream. Suddenly, there were twenty or thirty more people waiting to register at the door.

This was the base effect, and with the addition of Lu Ke’s promotional videos, many oncology patients came, drawn by his reputation.

When he was busy, time flew by.

A little after ten, the sound of hurried footsteps broke the calm of the clinic.

"Hello, Doctor... I’m back."

A woman ran in, panting, holding a film.

She wasn’t old, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight. While not stunning, she possessed a kind of intellectual beauty.

Right now, however, her forehead was beaded with sweat, and her damp hair was plastered messily against it.

Her eyes were filled with anxiety.

Li Xu recognized her.

She had come in earlier with a young man.

The young man had been wearing a mask, coughing violently, his face pale.

When Li Xu took his pulse, he had felt it was deep, rough, fine, and rapid. He’d had a bad feeling and sent him for a CT scan.

In truth, he had been worried about a worse outcome even then.

The woman sat down. With trembling hands, she placed the film on the consultation desk. Her voice was full of apprehension. "Doctor, please take a look... Is it pneumonia? The radiologist just now asked us so many questions, and he also said..."

She didn’t dare finish the sentence.

Li Xu remained impassive as he took the film and mounted it on the light box.

One look, and his brows furrowed involuntarily.

On the lung lobe, there was a clear ground-glass nodule. It had an uneven density, an irregular shape, and spiculated margins.

This...

’It really is possible.’

As a doctor, Li Xu was used to seeing all kinds of diseases, but seeing such an image in the lungs of a man so young still made him sigh inwardly.

"Where’s the patient?" Li Xu asked.

"He... he went to the restroom."

The woman’s gaze was evasive, filled with fear. "He gets diarrhea when he’s nervous..."

At this, tears welled up in her eyes, and her voice cracked. "The doctor just now... he said... he might have a tumor..."

"Doctor... it can’t... it can’t really be lung cancer, can it?"

Li Xu looked at the woman’s devastated expression and sighed helplessly.

Sometimes, a doctor doesn’t just treat illnesses; he must also learn how to deliver a verdict.

He truly didn’t want to deliver this cruel news to the patient.

But...

He was a doctor. He couldn’t hide the truth.

He thought for a moment, then patiently soothed her, "Don’t be nervous just yet."

"Right now, based on the lung CT, we can only ’consider’ it lung cancer, but... it can’t be diagnosed with one hundred percent certainty."

"There’s a possibility of other conditions, like a specific type of inflammation or tuberculosis."

"You don’t need to be anxious yet."

The woman clung to his words as if they were a lifeline, nodding desperately. "It’s definitely not, Doctor. It’s definitely not lung cancer."

"He’s only been coughing for a few days, it can’t be lung cancer..."

"How old is he? He just had his 28th birthday..."

"How could it possibly be lung cancer?"

"Doctor, the scan must have been a mistake."

Seeing the woman teetering on the verge of a breakdown, Li Xu handed her a tissue and said gently, "Listen to me."

"Right now, no one can say for sure that it’s lung cancer."

"To get a definitive diagnosis, we need to perform a lung biopsy for pathological analysis."

"Only when the biopsy results come back can we determine what this is and whether or not it’s cancer."

"Do you understand?"

Hearing this, the woman’s eyes widened. "Okay, okay."

"Okay, Doctor, we’ll do the test."

"Please order the test quickly."

"It’s definitely not that..."

Li Xu took out a pathology lab request form, a treatment consent form, and a condition disclosure form.

After all, a biopsy is an invasive procedure with risks, and it requires a family member’s signature.

"You’re his family, right? Please sign this first."

"Then I’ll make a call and get the test done as soon as possible."

"Try not to worry too much."

The woman nodded quickly, snatching the consent form with both hands and saying hurriedly,

"Okay, okay,"

"I’ll sign it right away."

"Thank you, Doctor."

At that moment...

Li Xu suddenly asked, "By the way, you are his family, right? His wife?"

The woman froze. "Family... family?"

"I’m his girlfriend. That counts as family, right?" she said.

Li Xu paused for a second as well. He frowned and said, "I’m sorry."

"That won’t work."

"Legally, a girlfriend is not considered next of kin. You can’t sign this."

"Does he have any other family? What about his parents?"

The woman stood there, her hands trembling helplessly. She gripped the pen in her hand so tightly it creaked.

"Doctor, I’m begging you, please let me sign."

"He... he... he doesn’t have parents."

"He was raised by his grandfather."

The woman spoke through her tears, which flowed down her face uncontrollably.

"His parents abandoned him when he was a child. His grandfather raised him."

"His grandfather is over eighty this year. He’s old, and... he lives very far away. There’s no way he can get here right now."

"I’m begging you."

"I can take responsibility."

"Really, can you just let me sign? Please?"

Hearing this, Li Xu felt a sense of helplessness.

If this were his own clinic, he might have agreed.

But this was the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and there were clear regulations.

Even if Li Xu allowed her to sign, the lab department wouldn’t accept it.

Those were the hospital’s rules...

Li Xu looked at the tear-streaked woman standing before him and was moved.

After a long silence, the woman suddenly took a deep breath.

Then she wiped the tears from her face, fixed her makeup, and composed herself to look as if nothing was wrong.

Then, she gave Li Xu a deep bow.

"I’m sorry to have bothered you, Doctor."

With that, the woman turned and walked out.

The incident left Li Xu with a heavy heart.

For the rest of the morning...

Li Xu saw many more patients. Thanks to Lu Ke’s videos, there were several more with cancer. They were all in the late stages, beyond the point of treatment, and every one of their faces was etched with heavy and sorrowful emotions.

This atmosphere inevitably weighed on Li Xu’s mood, leaving him feeling somewhat depressed.

He suddenly remembered something one of his professors said back when he was in school.

"If you want to know which medical specialty makes the most money, it has to be oncology."

"But..."

"You need to be prepared for one thing: you’ll spend your entire life surrounded by this tone of sadness, and it will be very hard to pull yourself out of it."

Li Xu hadn’t quite understood those words back then, but...

Now, in this moment, he was beginning to understand.

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