Qiu Hong's beautiful eyes were fixed on Zhou Can.
She felt that consulting with Zhou Can, their thinking was on completely different levels. She couldn't even grasp a hint of his thoughts.
She had no clue what Zhou Can's line of reasoning was.
The greater the disparity, the more she admired him, her junior colleague—her admiration could even be described as worshipful.
"Could we monitor the patient's brain waves for twenty-four hours? I suspect he may have a psychiatric illness that is causing his digestive system dysfunction," Zhou Can offered his diagnosis.
The family did not understand these professional medical terms and could only stare blankly as they listened.
However, hope gleamed in their eyes.
It was the boundless hope they had upon finally seeing a glimmer of light in the endless darkness.
They were looking forward to the exciting moment when the cause of the illness would be diagnosed.
"Neurogenic digestive dysfunction? But his symptoms don't quite fit! I have diagnosed many such cases, and I haven't seen one ," Director Jia, with decades of diagnostic experience, certainly had encountered cases of neurogenic digestive dysfunction before.
He had already carried out differential diagnoses for similar diseases.
"Let's hear about your diagnostic evidence and thought process."
Director Jia did not immediately agree to Zhou Can's request for brain wave monitoring.
He wanted to see first if this young man's diagnostic evidence and systematic diagnosis were reasonable.
"My basis is quite simple; it starts with the patient's bowel sounds, and then integrates various test data, medical history, and symptoms to make an inference," Zhou Can explained straightforwardly.
"The patient's mother reported that at meal times, he would make 'gurgling' sounds from hunger. This shows that his intestines can normally signal hunger to the body when no nutrients are detected. About half an hour after eating, his intestines would make 'splashing' noises, a precursor to diarrhea."
"I think that just two tests are needed to confirm if it's neurogenic digestive dysfunction. The first is the twenty-four-hour brain wave monitoring, aimed at looking for peak brain wave values at different times of day, to deduce the patient's mental condition during various periods. The second is listening for the specific locations of the bowel sounds about half an hour after eating. This can indirectly infer the movement speed and state of the intestinal contents in the colon before diarrhea occurs."
Zhou Can briefly explained his diagnostic approach.
Since the patient inevitably had diarrhea after eating, it indicated that the food was still liquid when exiting into the colon.
Judging the speed of colonic motility based on bowel sounds, one can only say that Zhou Can lived up to his reputation as a genius.
"Director Jia, please agree to do these tests for our son! We don't care about the cost—even if the cause isn't found, we are willing to accept it, and we won't blame Dr. Zhou."
The patient's family was the first to strongly request that Director Jia agree to the brain wave monitoring.
They didn't understand the treatment, but Zhou Can's analysis seemed logical and compelling.
In any case, it was worth a try for them.
Tests aren't like surgery; the risk for brain wave monitoring is almost zero.
They really didn't care about spending the money.
What they feared the most was the absence of hope.
Now that there was hope, there wasn't much else to discuss.
"Take it easy, I'll arrange it for you!"
Hearing Zhou Can's analysis, Director Jia thought this novel diagnostic approach was innovative and unconventional—very interesting.
He was even more expectant of the diagnosis outcome.
If this cause was diagnosed and it really was neurogenic digestive dysfunction, he could probably write a paper on it.