In the eyes of Director Jia, Old Liu, and others, he already held a very high status.
But, when it came to Director Shang, his treatment was only a bit better than that of an ordinary resident.
Rushing to bed 71, Zhou Can saw three family members gathered in front of the hospital bed. An elderly lady with white hair, a middle-aged woman who bore some resemblance to the elderly lady, and a plain-looking middle-aged man with an extraordinary presence.
The three family members were dressed in attire of quality and taste.
Which suggests that the patient’s family was probably well-off.
But once at the hospital, wealth is useless. In the face of disease, everyone is equal.
If it’s a malignant tumor, and it spreads, not even wealth can buy life.
"Hello, I’m the attending physician for bed 71, my surname is Zhou. If the patient encounters any issues during the hospital stay, you can always find me in the doctors’ office. Any needs or new developments in the patient’s condition can be reported to me at any time."
When Zhou Can had just started his internship, he would be somewhat nervous when meeting with family members.
Now that has changed; he’s confident and composed, indistinguishable from doctors with many years of experience.
The less confident you appear, the more timid and hesitant you are in speaking, the more family members will look down on you. This is unfavorable for the management and communication with patients during their hospital stay.
If the family members think you’re just an intern, they won’t discuss matters with you.
Because they think talking to an intern is useless.
So usually, they would bypass you and directly seek out the attending physicians during their rounds to report issues.
The attending physicians will then wonder, what is the resident physician responsible for the bed doing? Such small issues aren’t handled properly and have to be brought up during rounds for family members to report to me.
As a result, the attending physician’s impression of that particular resident or intern will become very poor.
Zhou Can had also learned this the hard way, gradually figuring it out, before he finally learned how to handle family members and patients.
"Dr. Zhou, when will your hospital arrange treatment for my dad?"
The woman asked politely.
"From the moment our hospital admitted the patient, we’ve already started treatment. The tests we do and the basic vital signs measurements during the hospital stay, as well as the selection of various medication regimens, are all preparations that must be done before treatment."
Zhou Can was answering the woman’s question while picking up the patient’s information to review.
So that he would be fully informed.
"He underwent total gastrectomy half a year ago, didn’t he?"
"Yes! Back then, it was discovered that my father unfortunately had gastric cancer and, after evaluation, it was necessary to cut out the entire stomach to save his life."
"Who would have known that after the surgery, when my dad ate, the food would turn into liquid and flow directly out of the abdominal drain? My dad couldn’t eat at all and could only rely on nutritional infusions to sustain life."
This patient was indeed rather unlucky.
The total gastrectomy itself would lead to some negative consequences. The presence of food flowing out from the abdomen’s drainage tube after the surgery usually indicates that there was a problem with the anastomosis between the esophagus and the jejunum.
"The patient suffered an esophagojejunostomy fistula post-operatively, right?"
Zhou Can deduced from his experience.
"Yes, yes, yes, after the doctor’s examination, they mentioned something about a fistula. We don’t understand these medical terminologies. Essentially, it means there was a problem with the connection between the esophagus and the jejunum. Initially, they asked us to observe for a while longer, but after two months, there was still no improvement. Actually, we were quite upset at the time, as this indicated the surgery was not well performed. We lost faith in that hospital’s capabilities, so we took my father to another well-known large hospital to undergo a second surgery."
The woman talked about this issue with considerable distress.
However, the fact that Zhou Can could immediately identify her father’s condition gave her additional confidence in the medical skills of Tuya Hospital.
If a young physician in charge of a patient bed could demonstrate such a high level of competence, could the medical standards of Tuya Hospital be poor?
What she didn’t know was that the physician in charge of her father’s bed was one of the top among all the resident physicians.
Normally, a physician with multiple surgical skills reaching the level of associate director and pathological diagnostics reaching Level 4 would not simply be confined to behind-the-scenes management work in a hospital ward.
Instead, they would be arranged to operate on the front lines, engaging in surgical work and outpatient consultations, etc.
Any hospital would be eager to push excellent physicians to the forefront, letting them directly face various diseases, through their hands, diagnosing causes and pathological mechanisms. Patients in need of surgery would then have their operations performed by surgeons with outstanding skills.
More average physicians and those with a shorter tenure, the rookies, would be tasked with ward management.
Making rounds, replacing dressings, assisting surgeries, writing medical records, and so on.
"Did the problem get resolved after the second surgery? This kind of esophagojejunostomy fistula is actually quite tricky. Even with a second surgery, it is difficult to fix."
Zhou Can had learned this surgical experience from Digestive Surgery.
Director Jia had told him that total gastrectomy was not difficult, but the key challenge was the esophagojejunostomy. Any problem could be very complicated.
Moreover, the more times open surgery is performed in the abdominal or thoracic cavity, the more severe the internal adhesions will be.
Such valuable surgical experience is hard to come by in textbooks.
After being guided, Zhou Can kept it in mind ever since.
Since then, he developed a new concept of surgery – to avoid surgery where possible, to decisively not open the thoracic or abdominal cavity unless necessary.