Chapter 104 - Cough! Cough! Cough! (1/2)

Zhang Fan and Shao Hua's family really enjoyed their vacation together. Shao Hua's parents indeed had fun, and Zhang Fan was really delighted because his relationship with Shao Hua had improved even further.

When he returned to the hospital, he was rotated to the respiratory department. Cough, cough, cough! He heard an endless amount of coughing the moment that he opened the door to the department.

...Actually, since the weather was turning warm, the respiratory department had much fewer patients in this season. If this had been late fall, winter, or early spring, the respiratory department would be absolutely filled to the brim with patients.

The respiratory department was a large department. Many older patients would often have to come stay here. The director of the respiratory department was named Jumabieke. He was a young man in his thirties, and was also the only doctor in all of Chasu City Hospital who had studied overseas before. Back when China had a SARS breakout, Jumabieke had been studying in Beijing. He risked his life together with other doctors there, traveling to the most seriously infected locations.

When the SARS outbreak ended, the border province rewarded Jumabieke by sending him to study abroad in England. When he returned, he could have easily gone to Bluebird City, but he refused, instead insisting on returning to his hometown: Chasu City.

At that time, he had been promoted to attending physician just before the SARS outbreak. Since he was still too young, it wouldn't have been appropriate to reward him with the position of superintendent. Thus, he was promoted to being the respiratory department's director. The previous director of the respiratory department could only aggrievedly be transferred to become the director of the geriatrics department.

Due to Jumabieke's personal experience, Chasu City Hospital's respiratory department was quite renowned in the border province. Not only that, since Jumabieke was of Kazakh ethnicity, many rich and powerful Kazakh people would also come visit to have Jumabieke treat them.

Director Jumabieke was young, experienced studying abroad in England, and had excellent future prospects in front of him. Thus, he managed his subordinate doctors extremely strictly. Not only was he strict about proper medical treatment for patients, he even managed doctors' attire quite strictly. All the male doctors of the department were required to wear dress shirts and ties, while the female doctors were forbidden from anything more than light makeup. Sweatpants, flip-flops, and all other casual attire were forbidden.

Older veteran doctors of the respiratory department truly didn't enjoy working here. Not only did the director manage everything really strictly, there was basically no hope for the veteran doctors of this department to get promoted. The two doctors with the second-highest level certification could only sit at their computers and type medical reports themselves.

But for the younger doctors, they considered the respiratory department excellent. Since Director Jumabieke was quite famous in the area, he received an incredibly high number of patients. Not only that, Jumabieke wasn't at all satisfied with only being a department director. He had his sights set on even higher positions. Thus, he was quite generous to the lower-ranking doctors. He didn't personally take most kickbacks in the department. Li Hui's current goal was to get assigned to the respiratory department after his rotations were finished. Even while working temporarily in other departments, he would often come visit the respiratory department in order to make Director Jumabieke remember him.

Zhang Fan joined the respiratory department one week later than the other rotation doctors because Superintendent Ouyang had especially given him a seven-day May 1st vacation free of being on call as a reward for his previous teaching. Hence, all of the veteran doctors of the department had already received student doctors, and there was only one veteran doctor left without a student doctor. Zhang Fan was assigned to Zhu Qianqian, a young female doctor who had only recently been promoted to attending physician herself. Zhu Qianqian had a wiry figure.

After the respiratory department's morning meeting were arterial blood gas tests for the patients. Here in the respiratory department, almost all the patients would have their arterial blood taken, and it was more than once for some patients. The nurses of this department were thus really busy. The head nurse of the respiratory department had mentioned this to Director Jumabieke, who thus commanded that the rotation doctors should take over the duty of drawing the patients' arterial blood.

There were quite a few rotation doctors who weren't skilled enough to draw arterial blood by themselves. They would have to ask the nurses for help. The nurses were willing to help the doctors who had better emotional intelligence and thus got along better with the nurses, but the doctors with lower emotional intelligence weren't well liked, so no nurse would help them. A few months ago, Wang Yanan had spent a rotation in the respiratory department. It was really easy for her to draw arterial blood. Several male rotation doctors were unable to perform this task, and they all asked her to do it for them. She was more than happy to do so under one condition. Every time that she helped draw blood for someone, that person would have to write a medical report for her.

Zhang Fan started getting accustomed to the daily routine of the respiratory department. He would have to inspect the color of patients' phlegm, ask patients about their symptoms, draw patients' blood, write medical reports, offer medical advice, and check up on patients staying in the department. Luckily for him, since he already had his medical license, the other doctors and nurses gave him face. At the very least, they wouldn't just order him about.

Although the weather was warmer now in early May, the respiratory department's patient rooms were still completely filled. Zhu Qianqian was in charge of slightly more than 20 patients. Checking up on all the patients would take more than an hour. Zhang Fan would need to record the wetness or dryness of their coughs, their wheezing rales, and respiratory sounds.

There were also tasks such as checking on the patients' antibiotic medication, sputum cultures, and so on. There really was a lot of different types of small tasks in the respiratory department. Not to mention, the patients' lungs weren't good, and they struggled with breathing difficulties, so it was common for the patients to have a bad temper. There were many elderly men and women hospitalized in the respiratory department who had hair-trigger tempers that would go off at the slightest provocation. It was common for them to curse at the nurses to the point of causing the latter to cry.

Patience would be required when dealing with such patients. Even the slightest hint of impatience or an improper explanation from the doctor would result in the patient's temper flaring up. Also, most of the older patients in the respiratory department were on the skinnier side. Why was it? They lacked the lung power to expel their phlegm. Chubbier people would have stronger lung power and more powerful coughs. Since respiratory diseases usually had a big toll on the body, most patients in the respiratory department were on the skinnier side.

Zhu Qianqian had a toddler who was just slightly older than one year old. Thus, she had significant child-rearing expenses, especially because she also had high requirements. She wanted to feed baby formula to her child until six years old. However, she distrusted the safety of Chinese baby formula, so she only purchased imported German baby formula, which she viewed as the safest for some reason. Zhu Qianqian was especially hardworking because of this. She actually had more patients than any other doctor in the respiratory department.