Chapter 415: Surgical Grind: Building a Stronger Team

Inside the operating room, Zhou Can threw himself into one surgery after another, giving it his all.

To others, churning out endless level-one and level-two surgeries might get tedious over time. The thrill fades, and the urge to tackle tougher cases starts to grow.

But for most general surgeons, by the time they’ve mastered every basic procedure in their field, they’ve probably already advanced to attending physician. That’s when they’re finally qualified to learn higher-level, level-three surgeries, maybe even take the lead on tough level-two procedures.

Zhou Can wasn’t like the others.

When it came to surgical skill, he could easily handle most level-three surgeries on his own. He was even capable of giving some level-four surgeries a shot if he wanted.

But with his current experience, he was still at the bottom rung—a junior resident.

With only a bachelor’s degree, he’d have to grind for years before getting promoted to attending.

A low educational background—that was a real stumbling block.

Given the chance, he’d do whatever it took to climb the academic ladder as fast as possible.

After all, you can’t afford to fall behind before the race even starts.

Right now, his focus was crystal clear: rack up as many basic surgeries as he could in the Emergency Department, pushing every surgical skill he had to at least deputy chief level. And if things went perfectly, maybe he could get all four core surgical disciplines up to chief level.

By then, his surgical team would be strong enough to take on the toughest challenges.

And once you have real strength, status follows.

With both skill and recognition, advancing academically gets easier—and more doors start to open.

……

It was close to 1 p.m. when Zhou Can and his team finally made it to the cafeteria for lunch. No wonder—they’d just wrapped up a level-three surgery that dragged on for eighty-two minutes.

Almost an hour and a half.

With cases that tricky, Zhou Can never dared let his guard down.

No matter how busy Dr. Xu was, if Zhou Can was operating at level three, he’d always stay by his side.

Of course—he was probably worried something might go wrong.

If anything happened, Dr. Xu was already in a tough spot. One slip, and he might not be able to weather the fallout.

“Dr. Zhou, our hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department just went viral!”

Ma Xiaolan scrolled through her phone while eating.

“How did we get famous this time?”

Zhou Can asked, curiosity piqued.

On the way here, he’d overheard some staff whispering about a commotion in Tuyu Hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department involving family members.

“Look—here’s a video someone posted online. The family claims our hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery unit killed someone, so they’re parading the body at the inpatient wing, demanding answers.”

Zhou Can leaned in for a look—and sure enough!

The video showed the inpatient wing of Tuyu Hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department.

Hospital security and the Medical Department were both on the scene.

Footage even captured Director Xin Wanshan, belly sticking out, leading the effort to calm the family down.

But Director Xueyan was nowhere to be seen.

Makes sense, Zhou Can thought. With this kind of negative press, the hospital would definitely shield her, keeping her away from any direct confrontation with the family.

Any hospital facing bad publicity would take extra care—always.

Sometimes they’d sacrifice a doctor’s interests, apologize, maybe even throw a hefty compensation at the family to keep the peace. Other times, the hospital would go all out to protect the doctor involved.

Doctors worth that much trouble usually had massive potential—at the very least, they were attending physicians or higher.

Like the department’s future successor, or directors like Xueyan who ran high-stakes departments.

As long as the top management at Tuyu Hospital had any sense, they’d back her all the way.

Otherwise, Cardiothoracic Surgery could collapse like a house of cards.

One misstep could drag down the whole hospital—operations, reputation, even its very future.

It wasn’t just alarmist talk.

Nowadays, a single botched incident, mishandled, could destroy the hospital’s reputation and business. There were plenty of real examples.

So Zhou Can wasn’t the least bit worried about Director Xueyan’s personal safety.

What he really had to watch out for were rival hospitals waiting to kick them while they were down.

Even between individuals, self-interest leads everything. When it comes to big organizations like hospitals, that’s doubly true.

That video Ma Xiaolan found? Zhou Can could see someone was manipulating things behind the scenes.

The patient had died on the operating table yesterday, but there was no drama then. It was only today, when the family paraded the body through the hospital to demand justice, that things exploded.

News broke in the morning, and by noon it was blowing up online.

If there wasn’t a mastermind pulling strings, how could it escalate so fast?

Deaths in hospitals happen all the time—only a tiny handful make the trending lists. It’s rare even to get any real waves of public attention, let alone go viral.

Zhou Can pulled out his phone and sent Director Xueyan a message.

“Sis Yan, stay calm. Let the family vent. As long as we’ve done everything by the book, the hospital will win any lawsuit. To me, it’s just our competitors stirring up some trouble for us. Don’t let it get to you.”

At the end of the day, she was still a woman. No matter how tough you looked at forty-plus, situations like this could push anyone into acting impulsively.

It was a pretty common weakness, honestly.

Whether in politics or business, where nerves and ability are always tested, women are much rarer than men.

Most big bosses are men; most politicians too.

There are women, but they’re the exception.

“Got it! I’m just scheduling tomorrow’s surgeries for our department.”

Her reply felt like a weight off Zhou Can’s shoulders.

If she could calmly plan out tomorrow’s schedule in the thick of things, it showed she wasn’t rattled.

Someone who gets knocked down and then stands up again is always stronger than before.

It’s a kind of growth.

He’d patiently encouraged her that morning, offering support until she found her footing again. Now, it seemed, she was steady as a rock.

No outside force could topple her easily anymore.

If your body doesn’t toil, you won’t have real blessings. If your heart never aches, wisdom won’t open up.

That hard night of despair, regret, and self-blame must’ve given her a lot to think about, but that was how she grew.

If the heart doesn’t die, a new path can’t begin.

She was someone whose heart had already been broken and rebuilt once.

She might not have figured everything out yet, but she was already knocking at the door.

“Things sure are lively in the world of Cardiothoracic Surgery lately. Hey, here’s another new headline: Third Hospital’s Japanese expert, Zoho Sangki, led his team to complete a successful Senning operation…”

Qiao Yu had also come across a news flash.

Everyone clicked on different stories, so the news that appeared in their feeds was never quite the same.

Like Douyin, which uses big data to feed everyone their own personalized updates.

Qiao Yu was laser-focused on going abroad for further studies, so she tracked foreign medical breakthroughs like a hawk. She was the first in the group to spot this story about the Japanese expert at Third Hospital.

“Total anomalous pulmonary venous connection surgery—we’ve done lots of those before. Even the toughest cases were a success with Dr. Hu Kan leading us. Third Hospital only made headlines because they’re a big fish in a small pond. Their operation was hard, sure, but it’s nothing compared to what Dr. Hu has done. Looks like that Japanese expert wasn’t such a superstar after all!”

After reading, Zhou Can actually found himself less impressed by the so-called Japanese cardiac expert.

He’d thought Third Hospital had headhunted an absolute legend, but it looked like they’d only landed a middling pro at best.

They say the more someone lacks, the prouder they act about what little they have.

All those surgeries that expert boasted about weren’t nearly as high-level as people made them out to be. It was clear Zoho Sangki didn’t have any miraculous abilities.

That said, it’s too early to judge for sure.

Maybe the guy had other talents.

But from where Zhou Can stood, give him two years and he’d be able to match this Japanese expert, no question.

Another year? He’d be miles ahead.

After lunch, back in the OR, Zhou Can grew even more focused. He cared a lot about steady progress. Truly, he believed that if he just committed to doing thousands—even tens of thousands—of basic surgeries, one day he’d be an absolute master of surgery.

……

By the time the workday ended, it was already past eight.

Today, his team had finished twenty-three level-one and level-two surgeries, plus three more at level three.

When six o’clock rolled around and people were packing up, he chose not to take it easy. Instead, after a short break, the team powered through another difficult level-three procedure.

And it really was a challenging one.

Took them over two hours.

Afterward, as usual, Zhou Can ordered dinner for everyone—a team tradition.

Thanks to a solid financial backing, he had the flexibility to use small perks like this to build a tighter-knit surgical team.

That last surgery of the day made Zhou Can realize he had two problems to solve.

First, the operating room was too basic and outdated. With high-level surgeries, he hit a wall. If they could upgrade to a top-grade laminar flow OR, that headache would vanish.

So for now, all he could do was rack up routine cases, boost the Emergency Department’s standing, and hope Director Lou could win the push for a new OR soon.

Second, under his training, Luo Shishen now pitched in more around the OR.

But he was still green—his experience, skill, and medical knowledge were at best intern level. He could prep the skin, hold retractors, suction pus or blood—anything simple.

But when it came to more advanced work like hemostasis, emergency rescue during surgery, or wound closure…he could only watch from the sidelines.

If you let him suture a wound, it’d take him half an hour—and end up looking like a dog’s breakfast.

The wound edges never lined up and the stitches were sloppy.

With skills like that, how could Zhou Can possibly trust him to close?

Even if the surgery itself went fine, a poorly sutured wound meant slow healing, ugly scars, and even infections or abscesses.

That left patients sorely disappointed.

And scared away future business at the same time.

Besides, Zhou Can was clocking more than twenty surgeries per day. If each closure took an hour, when would he ever finish?

In emergencies, Luo Shishen simply wasn’t able to give any useful input.

He didn’t even have someone to talk things through with—a one-man band wasn’t the team Zhou Can wanted.

If the other doctors on his team were more capable, he could run things like the other Chief Physicians: the lead surgeon would handle the key steps, while the team took care of the rest, each in their place. Sometimes, they’d even offer advice that could help the surgeon.

That was the kind of team Zhou Can was determined to build.

The toughest part is always the beginning.

Right now, the team was just getting started. No other way but to take it slow, one step at a time.

Thankfully, Dr. Xu was filling in as his first assistant for now.

When things got serious, Dr. Xu was always the first to step up and help.

It was enough to keep things afloat for the moment.

After work and dinner, Zhou Can, true to routine, headed to the inpatient ward for rounds. With him there, Dr. Xu could breathe easy and get home early.

In a way, it was Zhou Can’s way of showing respect to his mentor.

The patient who’d had debridement for gangrene yesterday was already showing clear signs of improvement. His family of three was now happily eating free meals in the cafeteria.

That made Zhou Can happy.

He’d keep watching the patient until tomorrow. If things continued improving, phase-two debridement could happen by afternoon.

As long as nothing went downhill, he could save the guy’s leg.

And he’d be saving an entire family along the way.

Back in the parking garage, sitting in his car, the exhaustion washed over him.

Work was tiring, no doubt, but Zhou Can felt it was all worth it.

He pulled out his phone and called Director Xueyan on WeChat.

“Zhou Can, just finished for the day?”

After picking up, Director Xueyan sounded genuinely caring.

Their bond had deepened. She was clearly warmer in the way she spoke to him now.

“Yeah, just got off. Did twenty-five surgeries today. My bones are about ready to fall apart. Lucky for me, everything went smooth. No disasters.”

Zhou Can laughed as he spoke.

“Only you and Dr. Xu can move through surgeries that quickly. For the rest of us, five or six is our max for a day.”

Xueyan was especially admiring.

She’d basically watched Zhou Can grow up at Tuyu Hospital. No one could match his talent or surgical ability.

Even across Tuyu Hospital, very few people could knock out twenty or thirty cases in a single day.

Even Jin Mingxi, back during training, could do upwards of a dozen surgeries in a day, but he was still way behind Zhou Can.

First, Jin Mingxi’s cases were all basic level-ones.

Zhou Can, on the other hand, never shied away from tough procedures—whether it was basic wound care, removing foreign bodies, or complex vascular repairs, you name it, he’d do it.

These days, that was even more true.

A lot of his level-two cases were tough enough for most people to need two or three hours. He could handle them in under twenty minutes.

As for quick level-one jobs like debridement, suturing, or simple wound dressings, he could finish one up in less than eight minutes.

And he always made sure it was done well, too.

“Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. For me, being quick on the job is the one thing I can flaunt. Sis Yan, did today’s incident seriously affect the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department?”

Zhou Can switched gears—it was time to talk business.

“There was some impact, but it’s manageable. By the way, could you come help with two surgeries tomorrow night? Both are level-four and really tough. I’d feel more secure with you there.”

Director Xueyan sent him an invitation.

Ever since Dr. Hu passed away, she’d rarely asked Zhou Can for help with operations.

She probably didn’t want to burden him since he already had so much on his plate during the day.

That hesitation—being afraid to ask for help—was a sign there was still some distance in their relationship.

When borrowing money, you always think of your closest friends and family first. It’s only when they’re tapped out that you turn to those you’re less close with.

This time was different—it was the first time she officially asked for his help.

It meant a real shift in their relationship—they’d never been this close before.

As they chatted, she dropped any formality; it really felt like siblings just talking to each other.

“Sure, count me in. Just let me know when, and I’ll show up on time.”

Zhou Can agreed gladly.

Level four cases still gave him a bit of a thrill. The more he got to help on those, the faster his skills would grow.

After all, it was in those surgeries that you could rack up more than a hundred experience points at a shot.