Chapter 187: 【187】Making ward rounds with senior apprentice
The patient was over seventy years old, and it was estimated that his life was nearly at its end. The patient’s family considered the situation and then decided against further action.
“Does he have any other diseases?” Director Chen asked again.
“Yes. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and his toes have rotted away,” Doctor Wang said.
After listening, Director Lv blinked and asked, “With such conditions, did the emergency department persuade them to be admitted?”
This kind of situation was all too familiar to the doctors; admitting such a patient would be futile. The patient’s family wouldn’t pursue treatment. And a patient with a cerebral hemorrhage couldn’t make clear decisions on their own.
The subtext of Director Lv’s words was: Hospital beds were already scarce, and they should admit those who wished to be treated. Many who wanted treatment couldn’t even get in.
Of course, what probably irritated Director Lv more was that the patient’s family agreed to hospitalization, but then refused any treatment from the doctors, only preparing for the doctors to deal with the corpse.
Doctor Wang shrugged, with nothing to say.
Director Chen and the two Deputy Directors huddled together and whispered. They might make a call to the emergency department later to inquire about the situation and find out who suggested the admission. The doctor who admitted the patient in the emergency department was about to be lectured.
While the directors spoke, the handover meeting was effectively over, and a group of doctors headed out to make their rounds.
Rounding worked : besides Monday, when the director led the entire department’s doctors to check every bed from the first to the last, on other days, to save the doctors’ precious time, each team checked their own assigned patients’ beds.
Due to the New Year holidays, a comprehensive round was changed to the eighth day of the first lunar month. Today, each team checked their own.
Xie Wanying, who followed behind Senior Brother Huang, realized that today Senior Brother Huang had enough time to go back to work in his own department.
Starting today, because of the end of the Spring Festival shifts, Huang Zhilei was no longer responsible for the entire hospital. He only needed to serve as the chief resident for general surgery, with two other doctors transferred from other departments to take turns with him, greatly reducing his workload.
Walking to the ward, most of Guoxie’s wards were standard three-patient rooms, with two-person rooms being less common, and single-person rooms—considered VIP wards—numbering only one or two in the entire department. The third group, which her Senior Brother was responsible for, delegated ward physicians for each patient. This wasn’t something a Deputy Director did; it was usually carried out by those below the level of attending physician. The patients normally found the attending or lower-level doctors since Deputy Directors had more important matters to attend to and didn’t do miscellaneous tasks.
All members of the third group followed Deputy Director Cao. At this moment, Cao Yong was like a battalion commander, leading a team that included both experienced and novice doctors.
Following behind, Xie Wanying looked up and saw Senior Cao’s commanding figure in front of her. He was as striking and handsome as ever.
The patients knew his reputation, and those who were able to speak and move greeted him respectfully with “Dr. Cao” upon seeing him enter.
Neurosurgical patients, unless they had an excellent recovery, were mostly confined to their beds, unable to move normally again. The reality was that life was preserved, but a long period of rehabilitation lay ahead.
Patients always hoped for an instant return to normalcy, which in neurosurgery was often impossible.
In China, the common people didn’t emphasize early examinations, usually seeking doctors after the onset of illness, which typically meant it was already too late.
One could imagine, doesn’t a neurosurgeon need to be very patient? Even more so than a psychiatrist?
First reaching the last bed in the ward, Cao Yong shook hands with patient number twenty-two, who was able to stand and move around.
“Dr. Cao, how do you think my hand is recovering?”
“Not bad, you could become a boxer in the future,” he replied.