Chapter 12: The First Step To Rebirth Through Destruction!
Tendon suturing is very difficult, and the surgery time is not short at all.
It took a full hour and a half for Lu Cheng to feel that the suturing was nearing completion. He then turned to the circulating nurse who was playing on her mobile phone and said, “Sister Xiao Min, could you please kindly get my phone and call Professor Chen to come to operating room 3 to assess and review the surgery quality?”
The circulating nurse, Wang Limin, was twenty-six years old, four years younger than Lu Cheng.
Wang Limin had a standard oval face, a slender neck, and a plump figure. Her voice was playful, “Doctor Lu, tell me your phone password. Aren’t you afraid I’ll see messages from your girlfriend?”
“Sister Xiao Min, where can I go to get a girlfriend these days? Does the country still issue them?” Lu Cheng replied casually while passively moving the patient’s tendon.
It could be seen that the gap between the sutured tendon ends was tight, and the multiple ends of the sutures were parallel and symmetrical, restoring the original anatomical structure perfectly without creating too much stepped twisting.
“Professor Chen, what Professor Chen?” The patient, who was only under nerve block anesthesia and conscious, immediately retorted sharply.
“Professor Chen Song from Xiangya Second Hospital, a professor who came to our hospital for rural support. He’s very skilled,” Zhang Tiesheng explained with a smile.
“No… since Professor Chen is here… why didn’t you let Professor Chen operate on me?”
“You two are joking a bit too much, aren’t you?” The youth instantly laughed out loud in anger.
Lu Cheng chuckled and explained, “Big Brother, Professor Chen is a professor at Xiangya Second Hospital. He’s here for rural support, not to work at our hospital.”
“Do you think we’d let him operate on you just because he’s here? Why don’t you ask an academician from Hand Surgery to perform your tendon suturing?”
“Professor Chen wouldn’t be interested in such a minor surgery and would be too lazy to do it.”
“He’s currently mainly responsible for surgeries that are life-threatening.”
Lu Cheng’s words were easy to understand, and the logic was sound.
After hearing this, the youth muttered, “Going to the countryside but not doing anything, then what the hell are you going to the countryside for.”
Lu Cheng took a deep breath and patiently explained, “Professor Chen is on standby in the department for life-threatening emergencies. For example, this morning, we had a patient with a ruptured liver. Or the aortic dissection and cardiac rupture we encountered the day before yesterday!”
“If he were to handle every minor emergency, he would expend his energy, and then how would he perform other surgeries well? If he delayed and couldn’t receive more urgent patients immediately, what if they died?”
“Professor Chen is the stabilizing force… not like us junior doctors.”
“Our time and energy are relatively worthless.”
The youth thought for a moment, then sighed lightly and jabbed, “The techniques at our county hospital are still too poor.”
Zhang Tiesheng rolled his eyes and replied bluntly, “Brother, this is just a county hospital, what more do you expect?”
“If you had the opportunity to earn a million yuan a month in Shashi City, would you still stay in Long County living on five thousand yuan a month?”
The patient fell completely silent…
Five minutes after Wang Limin finished her call, Chen Song arrived in the operating room.
He stood with his hands behind his back on a raised stool and said in a steady voice, “Your mastery of the modified Kessler suturing technique is quite proficient. This technique is best for treating tendon injuries in zone IV.”
“It’s better than the Tang method and the Jin Xia suturing technique.”
“The tendon slides smoothly, the suturing is firm. With temporary plaster cast fixation today, you can have the cast removed for functional rehabilitation tomorrow.”
“For the closing sutures, just leave a few glove pieces as drainage sheets…” Chen Song continued to give specific instructions on the follow-up details.
Hearing Chen Song’s voice, the youth immediately smiled, “Professor Chen, you’re so skilled, and they didn’t even notify you.”
“If you had operated on me, it would have been even better.”
Chen Song stepped off the stool and said calmly, shaking his head, “I won’t do this surgery for you.”
“I haven’t done surgeries like this at the Second Affiliated Hospital for four or five years. Only junior doctors and chief residents occasionally do them.”
“Your surgery quality is better, isn’t it?” the youth pressed.
“Heh…”
“Then I’ll do tendon suturing in the future? You can take my place and do other surgeries, okay?” Chen Song said, amused to the point of laughter, then turned and left the operating room without another second’s delay.
The operating room was silent for a full minute before the patient said, “Is Professor Chen that arrogant? I was just giving a suggestion.”
Lu Cheng softly explained, “You weren’t giving a suggestion; you were telling Professor Chen what to do.”
“Hospitals have levels, and diseases and referrals also have levels. Tiered healthcare is meant for better allocation of medical resources. You insist on saying Professor Chen is better at tendon suturing.”
“Professor Chen’s physique could even be used for manual labor.”
“We don’t dare to dictate what role Professor Chen should play, what surgeries he should do, or what his position is.”
“Of course, he’s angry.”
“By analogy, if someone forced you to sweep the streets, you’d be angry too.”
The youth continued, “Doctor Lu, will my tendon have problems in the future?”
Lu Cheng said, “Currently, the surgical process is very smooth. If you follow the medical orders postoperatively and actively rehabilitate without overdoing it, the postoperative outcome is worth anticipating.”
“Didn’t Professor Chen just say the suturing was done well?” Lu Cheng wasn’t bragging but also wasn’t being self-deprecating.
Although Director Peng of Orthopedics was slightly more skilled than him, he was so frightened by the pitfalls of tendon suturing that he completely stopped doing that kind of technique, so others were even more hesitant.
Now that he was just beginning in this field and had confirmed with Professor Chen Song that he could perform it, Lu Cheng wouldn’t be so proud as to refuse to operate unless his technique was world-class.
Zhang Tiesheng took a deep breath at the right moment and chimed in, “Brother, let me put it this way: currently, in our hospital, the only one who can and is willing to perform tendon suturing is Doctor Lu.”
“If you want surgery, you can only go to him. If you don’t want it, you can only be referred elsewhere.”
“You can’t do it either?” the youth asked Zhang Tiesheng, clearly quite talkative, even gossipy.
“If I could, I wouldn’t say only Doctor Lu can do it. To tell you the truth, suturing a ruptured tendon to a standard quality requires quite high skill.”
“That’s why they say Doctor Lu is a top student; his learning efficiency is fast, and his technique is excellent.”
“Stop overthinking. Once you’ve made a choice, don’t regret it. Actively rehabilitate after surgery! You’ll achieve good function too.” Zhang Tiesheng also helped to persuade him.
Lu Cheng was, after all, from this hospital.
He didn’t envy Lu Cheng’s ability to perform tendon suturing; the only thing he ‘envied’ was that Lu Cheng could ‘please’ Chen Song more.
As for the patient’s current nagging, everything was explained clearly before the surgery, and you signed the consent form. The surgery is done, so what more do you want?
If the surgery had gone wrong, it would be understandable, but now that everything is proceeding smoothly, you’re making demands. Do you really think the hospital is your backyard, and you’re the director’s son?
Twenty minutes later, the garrulous patient was sent out of the operating room.
After Zhang Tiesheng took off his sterile surgical gown and removed his sterile surgical gloves, he looked Lu Cheng up and down with a slightly astonished tone, “Xiao Lu, you’re really hiding your skills.”
“Professor Chen said you could suture tendons in about two months, but I didn’t expect you to shorten the time to a week.”
Chen Song had not told Lu Cheng the two-month timeframe.
However, Lu Cheng could roughly estimate that mastering tendon suturing, the modified Kessler suturing technique, required 20 skill points from beginner to proficient. Reaching mastery from proficient in basic suturing skills would require a little over 20 skill points.
Over 40 skill points, analogous to a professional doctorate at Xiangya Second Hospital, would require over 400 hours of dedicated practice and study.
A month only has 720 hours. Excluding shifts, even if Lu Cheng was sufficiently dedicated, it would take about two months.
Professor Chen Song’s calculation was traceable, but Lu Cheng had no such constraints, so he couldn’t be judged by these common standards.
“At this rate, in a few more months, I’ll have to call you my older brother,” Zhang Tiesheng said jokingly, but his eyes subtly harbored a sense of urgency.
A hospital is a special “unit.” Human resources can give you more opportunities, such as hiring or more surgical opportunities, but they cannot place you above others in terms of skill.
Patients don’t care about social graces, and neither does skill.
Besides Zeng Huanqi, there’s a formidable new opponent, and Lu Cheng can overtake on a curve, making him even more threatening!!
As Lu Cheng walked out, he chuckled, “Brother Zhang, your excessive praise is a bit unfair. What is this little skill of mine?”
“Brother Zhang, you’ll always be Brother Zhang.”
Lu Cheng was not arrogant or smug; he calmly took this first step of breaking down the old to establish the new.
He had finally completed his “exclusive” surgery.
【 Independently completed professional tendon suturing, alleviated the patient’s pain, secured better functional recovery for the patient, and gained 1.5 skill points…】
