Chapter 382: Surgical Tension and Teamwork in the Emergency Room

“Dr. Zhou, is this the patient’s appendix? How do you tell if it needs to be removed?”

Luo Shishen continued with his endless stream of questions.

Honestly, you’d think this guy binged way too many educational shows or just picked up the habit of asking about everything.

Being curious isn’t a bad thing in itself.

But if you ignore your surroundings and ask whatever pops into your head, it just shows a lack of awareness.

Zhou Can pushed down his irritation. They were in the middle of surgery—one mistake because of a distraction, and the consequences could be serious.

With Dr. Xu’s strict standards, he’d have his operating qualifications revoked on the spot.

With a complex surgery like this, as long as nothing happens, it’s fine. But if anything does, Zhou Can wouldn’t be the one taking the heat—it’d be Dr. Xu.

Tertiary surgeries are strictly off limits for him right now. If something goes wrong, he can’t shoulder that blame.

Calling in an intern was just to help out, not to cause problems.

Definitely not to add to the chaos.

Being too nice and easygoing just doesn’t cut it.

So Zhou Can decided to give Luo Shishen a little reminder. He didn’t scold him but kept a cold face, ignored the question and acted like he didn’t hear anything.

He focused completely on checking the patient’s appendix.

Seeing Zhou Can stay silent, Luo Shishen didn’t keep pushing—though it was obvious from his face that he felt awkward.

Suddenly, the air felt a little tense.

“Dr. Zhou is performing surgery right now. Let’s try not to distract him. If you have questions, how about saving them for after the operation?” Qiao Yu cut in to smooth things over, giving Luo Shishen a way out.

“You’re right! Thanks!”

Luo Shishen flashed Qiao Yu a grateful smile.

For the rest of the surgery, Luo Shishen stayed quiet. But as soon as it was over, he launched into another round of questions.

“Who’s Dr. Luo’s mentor?”

Zhou Can asked in a calm tone.

“Our mentor is Dr. Xu, but he’s super busy and doesn’t really have time for us,” Luo Shishen answered.

There was a hint of complaint in his voice.

Rookies in the workplace often make rookie mistakes—like grumbling about their superiors in front of colleagues.

What they don’t realize is that those grumbles might get back to the higher-ups before the workday even ends.

“Actually, Dr. Xu isn’t the only one who’s busy. Every doctor and nurse in the Emergency Department has a heavy workload. Going forward, I suggest you organize your questions and jot down anything you don’t understand after surgery. Check if you can find the answers yourself, then bring any unresolved questions to your supervisor at the right time.”

Zhou Can offered his advice.

Take the last four questions he asked as an example—almost all could be answered just by looking things up.

To Zhou Can, these were all mindless questions.

It just made Zhou Can think the guy was lazy, not curious, and a bit annoying—definitely not a good impression.

He didn’t see it as eagerness to learn at all.

It just looked like laziness—someone who couldn’t be bothered to look things up and thought senior doctors were walking encyclopedias.

“Okay, I’ll try your method after my shift!”

Luo Shishen nodded in agreement.

If he got into med school, he’s definitely not lacking smarts. Almost all medical students are high IQ, except for the occasional one with connections.

Some people just buy their way in, trying to coast by with the bare minimum.

Even with money, it’s tough to earn a med school degree. Medicine’s at least a second-tier subject, a lot of clinical programs are first-tier—way tougher standards than third-rate colleges.

Though Zhou Can tried to be tactful, Luo Shishen had to pick up on what he really meant.

After the appendectomy was done, they brought in the next patient for surgery.

By now, Zhou Can’s surgical skills were top-tier, and Qiao Yu was just as impressive. As the instrument nurse, she was absolutely outstanding.

She wasn’t just hardworking—she was quick-thinking and her technical knowledge was first class.

Her prep work was always on point. She could usually anticipate what instrument or medication Zhou Can would need next, or even what the next step for the patient would be.

The two of them had such great chemistry that they barely needed to talk to keep the operation flowing smoothly.

No mistakes, either—none at all.

Working alongside her was honestly a pleasure.

After staring at bloody, gaping wounds for so long, anyone would feel uncomfortable or start to go blurry-eyed. Looking up at a beautiful nurse like her lightened the mood and took the edge off his fatigue.

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Their silent teamwork during surgery saved tons of wait time and kept every operation running extra smoothly.

Imagine Zhou Can asking for a standard scalpel and the instrument nurse hands over the electrocautery knife instead.

During surgery, a doctor’s eyes can’t leave the wound. Usually, you reach out and the instrument nurse places the tool right in your hand—no looking needed.

But if you ask for a scalpel and end up with a device for cauterizing, you can imagine how frustrated a surgeon would be.

It’d interrupt the flow of the surgery for sure.

Sometimes it could even break the chief surgeon’s concentration.

That could seriously drag out the procedure and even lead to accidents.

“Bring in the next surgical patient!”

Zhou Can gave the order.

“Alright!”

Qiao Yu was about to head out to fetch the patient.

“Qiao Yu, from now on, just focus on your role as instrument nurse. Your hands need to stay sterile! Running in and out of the operating room only adds to your workload and creates a bigger risk of instrument contamination.”

Now Zhou Can was handling not just minor surgeries but some major tertiary procedures, too.

That raised the bar for everything.

Conditions in the Emergency Department operating room were never great to start with. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy for a patient to develop an infection during surgery—which hikes up the risk of postoperative complications.

“Luo Shishen, going forward, you’ll be in charge of transferring patients out after surgery and bringing new ones in.”

Zhou Can’s arrangement was all about safety and efficiency.

“Uh… alright!”

Luo Shishen agreed, though he was obviously reluctant.

A lot of doctors—especially newcomers or interns just starting out—tend to have an unearned sense of superiority. They think they’re above menial tasks like transferring patients, which should be done by nurses.

Being told to do a nurse’s job feels like a waste of their talents and a step down.

It’s no wonder he wasn’t thrilled about it.

But since he agreed, Zhou Can didn’t press further.

Ever since he returned to the Emergency Department to build a surgical team, Zhou Can had held himself to a dual standard: team leader for the specialty and manager of the surgical crew.

That meant not just excelling in medical skills, but also acting as the team’s supervisor.

It was a new role he needed to get used to.

The next patient they brought in had suffered a head injury—his scalp was split open, and there was a strong smell of alcohol.

Most likely, it was a bar fight and someone smashed a bottle over his head.

“Did someone attack you?”

As Zhou Can examined the wound, he asked about what happened.

“No, I did it myself. My girlfriend refused to break up with me, and I got so angry I took half a bottle of red wine and smashed it over my head.”

The man looked about twenty-five or twenty-six.

How much must you hate your girlfriend to do something this extreme?

“We may need to shave your head a bit to clean and suture the wound properly.”

After examining him, Zhou Can found a long, bleeding cut that definitely needed stitches.

“Go ahead, shave it!”

The patient’s mind was clear. The scans showed no skull fractures or internal bleeding—his skull had taken the bottle like a champ.

Or maybe the guy was just skilled at breaking bottles without causing real damage.

“Dr. Luo, don’t just stand there—get his hair shaved! Be careful, try not to touch the wound.”

Shaving the patient’s hair is usually a job for junior doctors.

Getting the chief surgeon to trim a patient’s hair would be ridiculous.

“Oh, right!”

Luo Shishen worked slowly, like he was chauffeuring royalty.

He claimed he’d been an intern for almost half a year—which made you wonder what departments he’d actually been training with. Hasn’t he figured out what interns are supposed to do by now?

If everything needs to be pushed by supervisors, they’d spend all day babysitting interns.

Some highly skilled and ranking physicians look after a dozen interns and barely need to lift a finger themselves.

When Luo Shishen finally finished shaving the patient’s head, Zhou Can noted his sluggish pace and just cleared the stray hair himself before starting to clean and disinfect the wound.

Next up was debridement—mainly to remove any glass shards, hair, or other debris from the injury.

If the wound wasn’t cleaned thoroughly, stitches would easily lead to infection and pus.

Anyone who’s studied the body’s three major circulatory systems knows infections on the scalp are a much bigger risk than on the limbs.

Especially with deep wounds like this.

Debridement done, Zhou Can earned one experience point in Debridement Technique.

[Debridement Technique Level 4 — Current EXP: 9998/. Attending Physician: Excellent Level.]

Just two more debridements and his skill would be upgraded to Associate Chief Physician level.

He once dreamed of wrapping up his three-year residency with all surgical skills at the associate chief level. But reality disappointed.

Spending nearly a year and a half training in internal medicine meant fewer chances at the operating table. In the end, several surgical skills never reached level five.

Time to suture.

“Dr. Zhou, could I try suturing the wound?”

Luo Shishen asked hopefully.

“Head wounds are high risk. Watch and learn for now. I’ll let you try on a lower-risk case next time.”

Zhou Can turned down his request.

Judging by how he shaved the head just now, he was clearly inexperienced. Suturing the face and scalp demands real skill.

You might think a few stitches aren’t a big deal, but needle placement, suture thickness, knots, tension, and depth—all require expert judgment.

A rookie stitching a head wound doesn’t always mean disaster, but the risk is much higher.

That’s a responsibility Zhou Can can’t carry.

And he wasn’t about to gamble with a patient’s safety.

“Alright, then.”

Luo Shishen muttered, lips pursed—not quite sulking like a child, but still clearly unhappy.

Zhou Can ignored him—it wasn’t worth addressing just then.

He focused instead on working with Qiao Yu to quickly stop the bleeding and suture the wound.

“Dr. Luo, you take care of the bandaging, alright?”

Zhou Can tossed Luo Shishen a simple task—partly to give him something to do.

“Okay!”

Luo Shishen replied, though he seemed a little disdainful of the job.

Zhou Can caught every bit of his attitude.

No one’s perfect. Every professional starts as a novice. As long as Luo Shishen could do the work, even if he grumbled and had an active inner life, Zhou Can was willing to be patient.

Patience, after all, is one of the most valuable traits for a leader.

If the water’s too clear, there’ll be no fish.

Just look at how upright officials in ancient times fared—most ended up lonely, isolated, and even if a friend was found by chance, they lived as outcasts among their peers.

Corrupt officials, though, always had plenty of people ready to defend them when trouble hit.

But when an upright official slipped up, even slightly, others seized on it, sometimes even demanding execution.

Why did corrupt officials have so many friends? Not just because of wealth, but because they were highly tolerant. As long as subordinates got the job done, minor faults and mistakes were forgiven.

A blind eye here, a blind eye there—and things moved on.

By contrast, upright officials were strict with themselves and everyone around them. One little mistake, and they’d jump to the harshest punishment.

So, when those upright officials fell out of favor, nobody spoke up for them.

If you spend your life correcting others, you’ll earn plenty of enemies.

People might not speak out loud, but they never forget.

Watching you get stripped of everything, some might even feel a twisted joy. No one wants to risk being labeled an accomplice.

So even if Luo Shishen had lots of flaws, Zhou Can wasn’t about to write him off.

At the very least, Zhou Can would give him a fair trial run. If he turned out reliable, he’d help him grow.

If he really couldn’t be taught, then he’d just leave him to fade out on his own.

After the patient was bandaged, Zhou Can glanced at the wall clock—just three minutes to midnight left.

“Dr. Luo, after you take this patient out, bring in the next one.”

Zhou Can had genuine compassion—he didn’t want any patient left untreated for long. He worked hard because every life saved was one more victory.

That’s the greatness of doctors: burning themselves out to save others.

“It’s almost midnight and you’re still doing surgeries?” Luo Shishen muttered under his breath.

Zhou Can pretended not to hear.

Give it time—eventually, the rookie would figure out how things worked around here.