Chapter 585: Confrontation in the Operating Room

It was out of consideration for many factors that Dr. Xu had always been patient with Tang Wangnian.

But now it seemed Tang Wangnian not only failed to appreciate it, he was becoming bolder and more reckless.

Bang! Bang!

“Tang Wangnian, you’d better fix that attitude!”

Dr. Xu slammed his hand on the desk, practically trembling with anger.

When it came to arguing, Dr. Xu was clearly no match for Tang Wangnian.

“I’m just stating the facts. Is picking apart every tiny flaw during surgery just to hold us down supposed to be fun? If you can get through every surgery without a single mistake, I’ll accept the penalty. Otherwise, isn’t it just like an official setting fires while forbidding the commoners even a candle?”

Tang Wangnian spoke with righteous indignation.

It seemed they weren’t alone in the office—other doctors were quietly agreeing under their breath.

Other doctors didn’t have Tang Wangnian’s backing, so none of them dared to openly challenge Dr. Xu. But Tang Wangnian didn’t care at all.

Never look down on any colleague in the department.

Even a janitor might have some hidden cards up their sleeve.

Management is always the hardest job.

Everyone has their own interests and will always put themselves first. The moment management touches someone’s interests, they’re bound to face opposition or attacks.

Even a cornered rabbit will bite.

Usually, Tang Wangnian was polite and never picked fights with Dr. Xu. If he was assigned a task, he tried his best to complete it well.

But now, this new surgery evaluation system left surgeons like him—those with bad habits and sloppy routines—completely out of their depth.

A lot of bad habits aren’t changed just because you want to.

Besides, what doctor in the operating room isn’t top of their class?

When Zhou Can passed by the office door and heard the commotion, he couldn’t help but shake his head.

Being a leader is no cakewalk.

Leaders have to think of the big picture but the people they manage just think about themselves. The big picture means nothing if it doesn’t help them.

The boss stays up worrying about whether the factory’s products will sell, whether costs are under control, if there’s enough cash on hand… The workers care about whether they have to do overtime tonight, or if last month’s pay will land on time.

As for whether the factory shuts down? Not my concern.

If this one closes, just move on to the next—easy as that.

Seeing Dr. Xu struggling on his own, unable to win out against Tang Wangnian, Zhou Can decided to step in and help.

Every new policy meets resistance at first.

If you can’t get the first wave to go along, the rest will never work.

That’s why laws need to be strict.

Zhou Can pushed the door open and set his eyes on Tang Wangnian, who was red-faced and fuming, looking nothing like his usual calm and scholarly self. Right now he was more like a crazed fighting rooster.

He radiated sheer intimidation.

“Dr. Tang, I heard every word of your argument with Dr. Xu just now. Frankly, all I heard was a lot of noise and twisted logic.”

Walking in, Zhou Can didn’t bother being polite—he called out Tang Wangnian directly.

As deputy team leader of the operating room, he really did have the authority to put a senior attending physician in his place.

“Hah, everyone here knows you and Dr. Xu are close—mentor and student, thick as thieves. Of course you’d say this!”

Tang Wangnian retorted with a cold laugh.

Pointing out the tight relationship between Zhou Can and Dr. Xu in public—a clever if ruthless move.

If the leaders of the operating room are all one big family, doesn’t that mean they’re all on the same side? To the rest, that’s just unfair.

No room left for a reasonable discussion.

“Yes, you’re right, Dr. Xu is my teacher and I deeply respect and admire him. But that doesn’t mean I lose my sense of justice or play favorites when managing the operating room. Likewise, when you make mistakes in surgery but insist Dr. Xu makes them too, and complain you’re penalized but he isn’t, you call that unfair to you?”

Zhou Can never cursed or used personal insults.

He wasn’t one for trash talk or lowbrow language.

After all, he was the well-raised son of a wealthy family, highly educated to boot.

He rarely ever lost a verbal battle.

When it came to reason, someone like him—sharp and logical—could always hold his own.

“Let’s just compare one surgery you did versus one Dr. Xu did. That way you’ll see why, despite both of you having complications in your procedures, Dr. Xu doesn’t deserve punishment but you absolutely do.”

With Zhou Can and Dr. Xu on one side, and Tang Wangnian flanked by several other doctors on the other, the office felt split.

To make people follow new rules, you have to win their trust first.

“Go ahead, let’s hear it. Let everyone decide who’s really twisting the facts here,” Tang Wangnian said with confidence.

Anyone who makes it through graduate school is rarely mediocre.

According to statistics, not even one in ten thousand people earns a master’s degree. The national average is just 0.82 per ten thousand. Doctorates are even rarer.

Don’t be fooled by hospitals and top tech firms always demanding master’s degrees as a minimum; it just seems like there are tons of them.

During ward rounds, even master’s and doctoral grads get chewed out by the chief like kids—nobody dares talk back.

It may look like every hallway is crawling with graduate students, but that’s just not the case.

People rush to hospitals and big companies because there’s a future and good pay there. Tell a PhD to haul bricks on a construction site, and there’s no way they’d say yes.

So many years of studying, all those tough exams—every step has been a test of survival.

Investing all that time and money, their degrees are anything but worthless.

It all pays off in the job market.

Tang Wangnian, a master’s grad, was top notch—both smart and eloquent.

He was sure he could take down both Zhou Can and Dr. Xu in this argument.

Plenty of other master’s grads stood beside him. They kept quiet, but none of them were pushovers.

If it came to debating, every one of them could go toe to toe.

But Zhou Can was unfazed by this crowd of intellectuals.

“Here, this surgery was Dr. Xu’s. Afterward, the patient developed severe complications—an infected, festering wound that needed a second operation. The other surgery was yours—a debridement for a subcutaneous abscess. That patient ended up with swelling in the lower left leg. Comparing the severity of post-op complications, Dr. Xu’s case was obviously worse.”

“But as both deputy team leader and evaluator, my view is clear: Dr. Xu is not at fault here, whereas Dr. Tang deserves a harsh penalty.”

Zhou Can casually picked two cases for comparison.

The difference was stark.

“And why’s that? Just because Dr. Xu is your teacher? Who can accept management like this?”

Tang Wangnian snapped back with visible frustration.

“Don’t rush. Listen to my reasoning and you’ll see I’m right.”

Zhou Can kept his cool, signaling for Tang Wangnian not to get worked up.

“In Dr. Xu’s case, everything from tumor removal to suturing and post-op care was handled perfectly. The wound infection and suppuration happened because the patient, in a hurry to reunite with his wife, had sex too soon after discharge. His movements were too vigorous, causing the wound to tear open a bit. Sweat soaked the wound and led to infection. Even after noticing it had split a bit and gotten sweaty, the patient tried to save money by not returning to the hospital—instead, he just wiped it lightly with a damp towel at home.”

“Almost a week passed before the wound got so bad that he finally came back to the hospital. In this case, the blame is not on the doctors or nurses but entirely on the patient. The medical staff did nothing wrong, so they shouldn’t be punished for it.”

After Zhou Can’s analysis, everyone looked convinced—even if they stayed silent.

Even Tang Wangnian found himself agreeing with that outcome.

For all his fussing and shouting, he wasn’t unreasonable.

“So why am I facing harsh punishment for my abscess debridement surgery?”

Quick-thinking as always, Tang Wangnian realized Zhou Can had won everyone over with his analysis of Dr. Xu’s case, so he quickly tried to steer things toward a point more favorable to himself.

“Good question! In your debridement surgery, you accidentally ruptured an important vein and used electrocoagulation to stop the bleeding. Surely, back in your anatomy courses, you learned that some major arteries and veins shouldn’t be treated with ligatures or electrocoagulation—doing so disturbs blood supply and circulation, seriously harming the patient.”

“You’re a master’s grad and a senior attending physician. Even if you forgot some details from anatomy class, with your surgical experience you should know better than to treat a major vein that way. Ignoring the patient’s safety for your own convenience—tell me, don’t you deserve a heavy penalty?”

“If it had been an honest mistake, harsh punishment would be questionable. But your action was willful disregard for protocol. If I don’t punish this, people will complain. If patients get angry and I don’t address it, what’s the point of fairness? You keep demanding justice, so here’s the fairest thing I can do: give you a severe penalty. If I don’t, now that would be truly unfair—that’s when the rules break down and order falls apart.”

Zhou Can’s words struck like thunder, leaving Tang Wangnian speechless.

A flush rose to Tang Wangnian’s cheeks.

“I performed electrocoagulation with the patient’s consent. It saved him money and shortened surgery time. I didn’t do anything that terrible.”

Tang Wangnian finally regained his composure, trying to defend himself.

“But should patients be the ones making those decisions? Who’s more professional—you or them? Imagine if I told a cardiac patient during surgery that all we had to do was clear the blockage, no need for a stent. Simpler, and saves tens of thousands! Of course they’d agree.”

“But without a vascular stent, there’s a segment of artery still too narrow. Not long after, the patient’s back with another blockage. Whose fault is that?”

Zhou Can mercilessly shattered Tang Wangnian’s argument.

“Every medical professional takes an oath on entering university—did you just forget those vows? Patients put their lives in your hands and trust you to do right by them. If you betray that trust just to make things easier for yourself, can you really say you did your duty? If the department spots this mistake and doesn’t punish you, then where’s the justice?”

If Tang Wangnian had stopped arguing, things might have been different. Instead, Zhou Can only hit harder.

Treating a major vein with electrocoagulation? That’s inexcusable.

“If you’re still not convinced, it’s simple. I’ll submit this case to the Medical Department and Quality Control. Let’s see if you’re being wronged, or if we’re upholding fairness here.”

Zhou Can dropped another bombshell.

Handled in the department, even the harshest penalty would be relatively gentle.

If it goes to the Medical Department and Quality Control, that’s like sending Tang Wangnian straight to the gallows.

Tang Wangnian went pale, fear flickering across his face.

“I accept the department’s punishment and promise to learn my lesson. There’s no reason to air our dirty laundry in front of the higher-ups.”

Tang Wangnian quickly admitted fault and accepted the penalty.

Seeing the biggest troublemaker finally submit, Dr. Xu let out a silent sigh of relief.

He felt prouder than ever of his student Zhou Can.

This kid really had it all—slick with his hands, sharp with diagnoses, and now showing real smarts and leadership.

He had to admit, maybe he was getting old.

Handing over the Emergency Department Operating Room to Zhou Can someday? He’d have nothing to worry about.

Maybe his student would do even better than he ever could.

It was Zhou Can who first noticed how far surgical quality in the operating room had slipped.

The other doctors had all followed Tang Wangnian’s lead in resisting, but now that he’d surrendered, their alliance fell apart. No one else dared question the scoring system or penalties.

If it went to the Medical Department for judgment, things would only get uglier—and somebody could end up much worse off.

“Due to serious negligence and protocol violations in multiple surgeries, Tang Wangnian will have all monthly bonuses deducted, be suspended from performing surgery for two weeks, and assigned to manage the inpatient ward. Repeat offenses mean permanent expulsion from the operating room—no exceptions.”

With the outcome decided, Dr. Xu seized the chance to announce Tang Wangnian’s punishment on the spot.

The penalty was no small matter.

Losing surgical rights for two weeks meant at least half his income was gone.

Being sent to the inpatient ward also meant Dr. Xu would promote an outstanding ward doctor to take his place in surgeries—a clear demotion for Tang Wangnian.

Thankfully, the penalty was only for two weeks—otherwise, a senior attending like him could be finished.

His shot at promotion would take a major hit.

Even two weeks off would still hurt his chances for a higher title.

But there was another side to it.

With the department lacking both vice-chief and chief-level surgeons, level four surgeries were off the table. Tang Wangnian had been the department’s best chance at such a promotion, so of course they’d try to help him along.