Chapter 138: Crisis in the Operating Room

Halfway through the group assignment, a doctor in his thirties appeared at the door and shouted.

“Trainee assigned to beds 21 to 31, follow me immediately!”

There aren’t many neurosurgery doctors around.

Staff is extremely short-handed.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t be rushing to call people before the grouping was even finished.

Zhou Can and a clean-cut young man hurried after the call.

Although they had never met before, they both turned to study each other briefly.

“Hello!”

Jiang Xiaohua shyly smiled at Zhou Can.

“Hello! I’m Zhou Can. I look forward to working with you.”

At a first meeting, such formalities are customary.

He noted that Jiang Xiaohua not only had fair skin but also delicate features, with slender, graceful fingers.

Her figure was impressively slim.

Plenty of girls adore this soft, refined type.

Yet Zhou Can felt Jiang Xiaohua was a bit effeminate, lacking typical masculine vigor—instead exuding a gentle, delicate charm.

However, one can often guess someone’s dexterity by looking at their hands.

By intuition, Zhou Can believed her hands were extraordinarily nimble.

Naturally dexterous hands give an edge in performing intricate surgeries.

For example, Dr. Shan, who had been with Zhou Can for over two months, was renowned for her deft hands.

When aligning blood vessels, nerves, and mesentery, her movements were tender, precise, and swift.

Zhou Can admitted he couldn’t match that skill.

“You two, take the patient in bed 24 straight to Operating Room 3 immediately.”

A young doctor leading ahead escorted them to bed 24, looking visibly anxious.

“I’m Cheng Gang. From now on, I’ll be your supervising doctor.”

His tone was icy.

His expression held no smile, exuding a cold aloofness.

Zhou Can glanced at the patient in bed 24—a middle-aged man in his fifties, notably obese—with a middle-aged woman, possibly a relative, fiddling with her phone beside him.

Just as Zhou Can lifted the male patient’s blanket, a stench of excrement hit him.

“It looks like the patient soiled himself,” he remarked.

Zhou Can reported this to Dr. Cheng.

At the mention of the patient soiling himself, Jiang Xiaohua’s face paled in shock.

“I—I’ll fetch the cart,” he stuttered.

That was rather cunning of him.

The middle-aged woman, upon hearing that the patient had soiled his underwear, frowned slightly, sneaked a glance at Zhou Can, pretended not to have heard, and continued playing on her phone.

Cheng Gang, meanwhile, remained cold and clearly impatient.

“Hey, aren’t you the patient’s relative? He’s about to be rushed into surgery. Help clean him up, will you!”

Zhou Can wasn’t sure of the woman’s relationship with the patient.

But it was unreasonable to force him to clean up the patient’s mess.

Unless it was an emergency with an incapacitated patient lacking proper attendants—in such cases, Zhou Can would normally grit his teeth and do the job himself.

With the relative right in front of him, expecting him, a doctor, to handle the cleaning was outrageous.

“Your hospital collects thousands daily; can’t you have someone help clean him up?”

The middle-aged woman shot Zhou Can a cool, indifferent look.

That comment set Zhou Can off.

This woman was being utterly unreasonable.

“Ma’am, the fees you paid cover only medication and treatment. We doctors and nurses do not handle cleaning up excrement. If needed, you should hire a caregiver.”

Zhou Can dared not scold her, even though he was itching to give her a piece of his mind.

After all, if she complained to the hospital, he’d undoubtedly be reprimanded—potentially even face severe penalties.

During his internship, he had once confronted a family member over a similar issue.

Chief Resident Dr. Fang had sternly rebuked him, making him write a self-criticism without any consideration.

She even warned that if he ever clashed with a patient’s family over minor matters again, his internship would be terminated immediately.

Since then, Zhou Can had learned his lesson the hard way.

When faced with troublesome patients or relatives, he would hold his tongue.

At the very least, he would never argue or exchange insults.

Much like his current handling of the middle-aged woman—keeping his language spotless yet leaving her thoroughly chastised.

“Hold on, I’m going to get water for cleaning,” he declared.

The middle-aged woman grumbled as she fished out a plastic basin from beneath the bed and fetched half a basin of water from the utility room.

“The patient is about to go into surgery. You two, hurry up. If you delay, Dr. Ou’s temper won’t hesitate to explode. Watch out for his scolding.”

After giving his instructions, Dr. Cheng turned and left.

The in-charge intern is extremely busy—especially when the patient has just undergone surgery or is in a high-risk state, requiring constant monitoring.

Postoperative patients need strict observation; any issues must be promptly analyzed and addressed until resolved. Complications only complicate matters further.

They require a significant amount of time and effort to manage.

Furthermore, some preoperative patients are in critical condition.

Take car accident victims; one moment they seem fine, and the next, they’re on the brink of death.

In neurosurgery, hardly any patients are mild or moderate cases.

“Ugh!”

Jiang Xiaohua, standing at the end of the bed, must have caught the foul odor and couldn’t help but retch.

“You wait over there. Once we’re done here, I’ll call you back,” Zhou Can instructed while waving her off.

Jiang Xiaohua, relieved as if granted a reprieve, quickly moved away.

“I’ve never seen a doctor so delicate. You spend thousands on medical fees here while they make money off medications and injections, but I earn only two hundred a day and have to clean up after them—it’s outrageous!”

The middle-aged woman complained while cleaning the patient.

It turned out she wasn’t the patient’s relative at all. No wonder she reacted so coldly upon hearing about the mess.

Most likely, she was a caregiver or nanny hired by the patient.

Zhou Can noted that the patient hadn’t uttered a single word throughout, his gaze vacant.

Moreover, he was paralyzed.

What ailment did he have?

There were no signs of trauma either.

“Where is the medical record book?”

“Here, in the storage cabinet drawer. All reports and documents are inside.”

Zhou Can retrieved them.

After reviewing the files, he discovered that the patient was suffering from a spinal epidural hematoma.

It had already resulted in loss of sphincter control and lower limb paralysis, compounded by pre-existing senile dementia.

It was hard to fathom that a 56-year-old man could have developed dementia.

Spinal epidural hematomas are categorized into several grades based on severity.

Grade A involves complete spinal cord damage with total loss of sensation, movement, and sphincter control below the level of injury; Grade B still retains some sensation but no movement.

Both grades are extremely serious.

Generally speaking, the earlier the surgery, the better the outcome.

No wonder Dr. Cheng was urging them to rush the patient into the operating room.

Zhou Can didn’t know how the surgery or treatment would proceed, but wanted to see it for himself.

At last, the middle-aged woman finished cleaning the patient.

Zhou Can noticed that the surgical incision had already been marked and the skin prepped by the nurse.

Now, they just needed to re-disinfect the area.

For a paralyzed patient with loss of sphincter control, bouts of incontinence are all too common.

“Why didn’t anyone insert a urinary catheter?”

From a few details, Zhou Can realized that the management in the neurosurgery inpatient department was rather lax compared to other departments.

Being new, he dared not single anyone out.

Unless someone were utterly insane.

“Dr. Jiang, I’m off to fetch a nurse to re-disinfect the patient. Please wait a moment,” Zhou Can called out before heading straight to the nurse’s station.

Two nurses were busy at work.

“Hello, beautiful ladies, busy as always!” he greeted with a smile.

“Mm!” They glanced up at him briefly before returning to their tasks.

Were they genuinely busy or just playing it cool?

“Patient in bed 24 just soiled himself. He’s almost in surgery. Could you arrange for someone to re-disinfect him?”

After a few seconds, one nurse looked up from her computer.

“You’re new here, right?”

“Yes! I’m Zhou Can. I hope you’ll be kind to us newbies,” he said, lowering his tone.

Older nurses tend not to take new doctors seriously.

Trainees fare a bit better since they’re almost full-fledged doctors, but interns have no standing at all.

“You need the in-charge doctor to order it! How else are we supposed to manage?”

She rolled her eyes and answered irritably.

“No order before surgery? You really expect a new trainee to go back and re-order everything?”

Zhou Can wasn’t exactly clueless.

After a year of internship and another half-year on the job, he knew that they just needed to add the disinfectant supplies.

“Hmph!”

The nurse scoffed.

“Young man, are you questioning my methods? Do you know my rank? I’m the supervising nurse—a chief nurse, and I’ve been here far longer than you.”

Her expression was full of disdain.

Zhou Can gritted his teeth—truly, it was hard dealing with petty people, especially female ones.

If you can’t stand them, you might as well avoid them.

He had no choice but to seek out Dr. Cheng.

After a while, he finally found him.

“Dr. Cheng, the patient has been cleaned up. We need another round of disinfection, and they haven’t inserted a urinary catheter. I’ll inform the nurses that you need to reorder it,” Zhou Can said cautiously.

On his first day in neurosurgery, Zhou Can had already felt that the doctors and nurses here were difficult to deal with.

It was like people in Magic City treating everyone as if they were unsophisticated country folk.

This deep-seated arrogance and discrimination might be tolerated in society, but in a hospital, it was truly a pain.

“The patient hasn’t been sent to the operating room yet? This is ridiculous.”

Dr. Cheng’s face turned icy.

“Get the nurse to re-disinfect the patient immediately. I’m swamped here—just add the order later. What’s your name? Your efficiency needs work!”

He was indeed busy.

However, his barrage of criticism left Zhou Can boiling with anger.

Damn it—the nurses and doctors here were such divas.

Over something so trivial, everyone was passing the buck, using the newbie doctor as their punching bag.

“Zhou Can!”

This time, Zhou Can no longer exchanged the usual polite greetings.

In any department, respect is earned through competence.

He would bottle up his anger—sooner or later, Dr. Cheng would get his comeuppance.

After all, wasn’t it Dr. Lu in the Emergency Department who got taken down by Zhou Can once?

Even though later Dr. Lu tried to make amends by inviting him for meals and various acts of goodwill, it was only because he couldn’t hold back anymore.

Zhou Can’s status in the Emergency Department had long surpassed his.

For survival, he had to play along.

It wasn’t that Dr. Lu had changed.

The saying goes: a leopard can’t change its spots.

Dr. Lu’s work attitude had become diligent and earnest not from a kind heart, but simply to avoid being replaced.

As for Dr. Cheng’s abilities, they remained unclear for now.

At thirty-two or three, he should have some skills by now.

Anyone who hasn’t been promoted to Attending must be mediocre at best.

In the inpatient department, eight out of ten doctors were subpar—just average types given the duty of managing wards.

Yet, there were a few truly capable ones.

After all, managing a ward was a necessary experience in a doctor’s career.

The truly outstanding ones mostly ended up in the Operating Room or Outpatient Department later on.

That’s what real class looks like.

Zhou Can returned to the nurse’s station only to find one of the two nurses had already left.

Only the unsmiling supervising nurse remained.

“Hello. I told the in-charge Dr. Cheng earlier. He said he’d complete the orders once he was done with his tasks. For now, the operating room is pressing us to quickly re-disinfect the patient and insert a catheter.”

This time, Zhou Can decided to mention Dr. Cheng directly.

If this nurse named Hu Shuiling tried to stall again, it would be a direct disregard of Dr. Cheng’s orders.

After a brief pause, she stopped tapping on her computer, rose from her seat, and walked straight to the medication room behind her.

Disinfectant and urinary catheters were standard supplies, always in stock.

She soon returned with a tray packed with disinfectant cotton, clamps, disinfectant, and a urinary catheter.

Zhou Can exhaled in relief—at last, he had managed to get this notoriously stubborn nurse into action.

Cleaning the patient turned into an ordeal with so many extra steps.

“Hold on a minute!”

She halted Zhou Can by placing the tray on the partition at the nurse’s station.

“I’m tied up here. You handle it.”

“Isn’t that a nurse’s job?” Zhou Can scoffed.

Normally, given her earlier good mood, it wouldn’t have mattered if she did it.

But now, the supervising nurse was acting high and mighty—why should she be the one to do their work?

Prepping the skin, disinfecting, and inserting a catheter were tasks clearly meant for the nurses.

After all, he was earning only three thousand a month.

Meanwhile, she, a supervising nurse, earned no less than eight thousand.

With that kind of salary, she sat comfortably, typing on her computer and managing the ward.

Living the high life indeed.

“So, are you doing it or not? Let me be clear—if you delay and the patient misses his surgery, the chief surgeon isn’t going to scold me; it’ll be on you,” she threatened harshly.

Her tone was icy.

Zhou Can grinned, flashing his bright white teeth.

“Heh, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Zhou Can. Threats don’t scare me. If you won’t do it, so be it—I really don’t care!”

That supervising nurse had the audacity to threaten him directly.

Was he now dealing with someone truly intimidating?

Even when facing the pressure from Deputy Director Bai, Zhou Can had the nerve to stand his ground—he wouldn’t be cowed by a mere supervising nurse.

Frankly, no matter how impressive she was, she was still just a nurse.

Senior supervising nurses and head nurses were in a whole different league.

The status of a supervising nurse paled in comparison.

Every task—skin prepping, disinfection, and catheter insertion—was clearly in the nurses’ purview.

He earned only three thousand a month, after all.

Meanwhile, a supervising nurse’s salary easily topped eight thousand.

With her high pay, she lounged around comfortably, tapping away on her computer and managing things from behind the scenes.

Living the life of luxury, indeed.

“Are you going to do it or not? Remember, as a new trainee, you’d better be diligent. If the patient is delayed and sent to surgery late, it won’t be me getting the scolding—it’ll be you,” she snarled.

Her tone was downright hostile.

Zhou Can smiled broadly, baring his pristine teeth.

“Heh, I’m not afraid of threats. If you can’t do it, then that’s that—I really couldn’t care less!”

How could a supervising nurse dare to threaten him?

Was he this bold now?

Even when facing pressure from Deputy Director Bai, Zhou Can’s defiance was unshaken. Would he be intimidated by a mere supervising nurse?

In the end, no matter how imposing she appeared, she was still just a nurse.

Senior chief nurses and head nurses were in a different league altogether.

A supervising nurse’s authority was simply no match for them.