The Enhanced Doctor

Chapter 1201: Chapter 1201: Should I Meddle?

"Director Liu, it’s getting late. Next I’d like to invite you to visit our hospital’s emergency department and give us some guidance."

After chatting for a while, Chief Director Ning said.

"Chief Director Ning, you don’t have to be so formal with me." Liu Banxia said with a smile.

"In terms of age, you’re my elder. In terms of seniority, you were already saving lives when I was still playing in the mud. Under your leadership, our municipal hospital’s annual patient volume is very high, and patient satisfaction is quite good too."

"Back when I was in high school, one of my classmates fell off the parallel bars, and he was sent to your hospital’s emergency department for treatment. To be honest, it was because of that incident that I developed a real interest in studying medicine."

"As for ’guidance’, I wouldn’t dare think that far. The existence of our hospital is also about protecting the local people. Learning from each other and complementing each other’s strengths is what really matters."

"Hold on, let me interrupt. Was that a senior-year student from No. 2 High School?" Chief Director Ning suddenly became interested.

"Yes, you still remember?" Liu Banxia asked in surprise.

"Hahaha, of course I remember. I was the one who operated on him back then. A fracture of the fibula at the right ankle, wasn’t it? And it was right before the college entrance exam." Chief Director Ning said with a laugh.

"Well, this just keeps getting more and more interconnected." Liu Banxia was amused too.

"Looks like you really have ties with our municipal hospital. Let’s not waste time, we’ll first take a look at our emergency department. We’ve been putting a lot of investment into the ED lately, but I still feel we fall short in some ways." Chief Director Ning said.

"Alright, let’s go visit first. Then we’ll get those pieces of equipment calibrated properly, so tomorrow we can get on the table without any worries." Liu Banxia said.

"Oh right, I forgot to mention something. Would it be alright if we set tomorrow up as a teaching surgery? Even though no one in our hospital is yet capable of performing this kind of operation, at least everyone can broaden their horizons a bit." Chief Director Ning said.

"You go ahead and arrange that." Liu Banxia replied casually.

Chief Director Ning was very pleased; Liu Banxia was giving him plenty of face.

The people who usually came over didn’t have such a generous attitude; they’d just finish the surgery and be done, everything focused on saving time.

After all, if it’s a teaching surgery, you have to weave in explanations, and that takes up a lot of time.

As one of only two hospitals in the city, the municipal hospital is also quite large, and its patient volume really is much higher than that of Jinshui District.

This ties into the resource allocation issue Liu Banxia and the others had just been talking about: Jinshui District is simply too close to Binhai City, so a lot of resources get siphoned off to Binhai City.

"Chief Director Ning, if you happen to have any appendectomy cases tomorrow, you can let those two do a small-incision appendectomy." Liu Banxia said.

The two girls were a bit excited when they heard that. Although under the current consultation system they can’t earn much, it’s still something.

"That’s great. I’ll have them ask around later to see if any patients are interested. But are the related procedures easy to handle?" Chief Director Ning asked.

"No problem, I’ll take charge of that. But we do have to move quickly; we only have tomorrow." Liu Banxia said.

It’s not a major surgery anyway, and he counts as part of the leadership at the emergency center, plus he’s the person in charge on site, so this really isn’t an issue at all.

He did genuinely want to help these two girls earn a bit of money; he couldn’t just drag them all this way for nothing. And when it comes to securing benefits, you have to seize the opportunity whenever it appears.

For Chief Director Ning, he also wanted to see how good the two girls’ surgical skills were.

The aim was to let the doctors in the hospital see the gap.

Right now the doctors in the hospital are a bit lacking in "drive"; just because they’re in a small city doesn’t mean they should give up on the idea of improving.

Talking as they walked, they arrived at the emergency department.

The place now was completely different from the last time Liu Banxia had been here; the equipment and treatment-bed setup really were up to standard.

"At present, our emergency department mainly deals with trauma patients. When summer comes, we also have to be prepared for emergency treatment of patients with poisoning from medications and chemicals." Chief Director Ning said.

"Many people think that as long as they cover their mouth and nose, they can avoid poisoning. What they forget is that these organophosphorus agents are highly toxic, and they can cause poisoning through skin contact as well."

"Exactly, organophosphorus poisoning is a real pain to manage." Liu Banxia nodded.

"Not long ago we handled a case of organophosphorus poisoning at a barbecue restaurant. The amount ingested was relatively small, so there was still a chance to rescue them."

"I saw the news reports about that, and we also received the official notice that was circulated. Actually, it’s not that common in big cities, but here we see it all the time." Chief Director Ning said.

"Many people think that as long as they remove all the internal organs, there won’t be any problem. But they don’t realize that secondary poisoning is extremely common, because organophosphate pesticides leave very high residues."

"Chief Director Ning, how’s the utilization rate of your resuscitation room?" Liu Banxia asked.

"So far it’s fairly decent." Chief Director Ning said.

"Actually, the busiest department in our hospital right now is the emergency department, and on the internal medicine side we see more cardiovascular disease patients. As for level III and IV surgeries in surgery, we only have a few each year, no more than ten."

Liu Banxia nodded; in fact, the situation here fit the trend of local hospitals.

Most inpatients are mainly chronic cases, and patients who need surgical intervention will all be somewhat selective. Then there are those who need catheter-lab interventions; that group is relatively larger.

The people from the city hospital saw that the Chief Director was personally leading the tour, and many of them were quite curious.

They truly hadn’t expected Liu Banxia to be this young, and they were even more surprised that the two doctors who came along with him were just as young.

Although Liu Banxia had already become somewhat well-known, he still hadn’t reached the point where everyone knew his name. If you even knew there was such a person, that was already pretty good.

Now that they saw him in the flesh, it made everyone reevaluate him.

As they were touring, Xu Yino quietly tugged on the sleeve of Liu Banxia’s coat and gave him a subtle look.

Following her gaze over, he saw a female patient lying on a nearby exam bed, clutching her belly, groaning in pain.

Liu Banxia was a bit puzzled; he didn’t quite understand why this patient had caught Xu Yino’s attention.

"Chief Director Ning, why don’t we watch how you handle admissions here? We should learn from each other; we’re all basically rookies anyway." Liu Banxia said.

"Of course, that’s no problem, as long as you don’t mind the time. You can even give us some guidance. How about we pick a patient?" Chief Director Ning said with a smile.

He’d also noticed the little episode just now, but to him it was easier to just pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

"We’re fine just observing." Liu Banxia said.

"That one’s an acute abdominal pain patient, right? Among the emergency patients we see, acute abdominal pain accounts for a high proportion. Once we’re done, we’ll put the equipment back in order and then go eat."

"Honestly, food is all pretty similar, but home-cooked food has that home flavor. Not going to lie, I was already getting a bit hungry on the way over."

Chief Director Ning smiled and nodded, then led them over to the female patient.

"Hello, Chief Director." The admitting doctor hurriedly greeted him.

"What’s the patient’s situation exactly?" Chief Director Ning asked.

"Admitted for acute abdominal pain, had barbecue at noon. After going home she developed diarrhea and vomiting. She took norfloxacin and a GI antispasmodic, but didn’t improve, so she came here." the admitting doctor said.

"On physical exam her heart and lung sounds are normal, but because of the diarrhea she’s somewhat dehydrated. We’re planning to start IV fluids and then give some medication to inhibit gastric acid secretion and protect the stomach."

"Doctor, so just an IV drip will be enough?" the patient’s husband asked.

"Right now the IV is only an emergency measure. With this kind of abdominal pain and diarrhea, we still need to run targeted tests to rule out acute pancreatitis, cholecystitis, appendicitis, and so on." the admitting doctor said.

"Doctor, this really hurts. It’s not that tearing, heart-rending kind of pain, but it feels like someone’s yanking on my intestines." the patient on the bed spoke up.

"That’s likely intestinal colic. In acute gastroenteritis, this kind of symptom is quite common." the admitting doctor said.

"Because under the stimulus of inflammation, the GI tract muscles can go into spasm. We’ll give meds for that shortly to ease it. Next we’ll draw blood, then do an ultrasound to look at the abdominal cavity, and finally an ECG, and that’ll be it."

Liu Banxia’s face stayed neutral, but inside he felt a bit uneasy.

From the admitting doctor’s description, he’d already made a diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis. The subsequent ultrasound and ECG were routine tests for emergency admissions.

But one detail caught his attention: the patient’s complexion was very poor, and she was breaking out in a cold sweat.

She’d just said that the pain wasn’t that ripping, unbearable kind, but more of a pulling pain, which did fit the colicky pain seen with acute gastroenteritis.

However, that degree of pain shouldn’t make a patient look this exhausted.

If it were a child, maybe, but she was an adult. Even with a period of diarrhea, it still shouldn’t be like this.

Ding! Task issued: Intervene or mind your own business?

Open task: During the tour of emergency admissions, the patient’s symptom presentation has piqued the host’s interest. Is it time to meddle? Task reward: to be determined based on how events unfold.

"Director Liu, any thoughts?" Chief Director Ning asked.

"The admission work is very thorough, nicely done." Liu Banxia replied with a smile.

"And you didn’t let the apparent history of acute gastroenteritis make you overlook screening the other intra-abdominal organs, and you’re also considering cardiac issues."

Listening in, Xu Yino blinked but stayed silent, focusing instead on the upcoming ECG.

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