Chapter 77: Ward Rounds

“Hello, I’m Doctor Ling, your surgeon. I would like to perform a checkup on you to see your rate of recovery.”

Ling Ran stood right in front of the hospital bed and gently roused the patient snoozing on Bed 1.

“Oh, Doctor Ling.”

Patients would never forget a face and person like Ling Ran, even after only a single meeting. The patient rubbed his eyes and looked at the sky outside. Surprised, he mumbled, “What time is it now?”

Ling Ran replied, “Five o’clock. We are performing our ward rounds a little earlier today.”

“Ward rounds at five? That’s too early, isn’t it? Those usually occur at around seven or eight in the morning, right?”

The patient could not help but grumble. His family members had been stirred awake as well. By the looks of it, they did not seem very pleased.

“I’m here to give you all a detailed physical checkup.”

Ling Ran used the polite, professional smile that he adopted when he was performing a physical checkup on a patient. He answered seriously.

He had now slightly familiarized himself with the physical examination technique. Naturally, he was eager to try his technique out on his patients.

Patients who received the M-Tang technique treatment were mostly patients who suffered external injuries. The circumstances of their families and the status of their insurance packages were different in each of their own. Due to that, not everyone had yet undergone a complete health checkup, and not everyone would do body check once a year, or once in every half a year. Due to the urgent nature of how many were rushed here in emergency cases, many patients only did the necessary checkups and some very basic checkups, and they were also against to the idea of more detailed checkups, especially patients and their family members who were very sensitive to the word “fees”. They were even averse to MRI scans, a necessity for surgeons to perform tendon repairs.

The physical examination skill that Ling Ran had mastered could not possibly replace medical imaging or chemical-based examinations. Those were the other two parts that made a diagnosis complete—auxiliary examinations and laboratory tests. However, different diagnostic methods might still lead to the doctor finding the results they wanted. If Ling Ran used the physical examination skill to detect traces of diseases, or perhaps some anomaly about the patients, he could coerce them into consenting to more detailed imaging or laboratory screening. That was why ward rounds existed.

Truth be told, great leaders or tycoons would also have to go through the same complete health checkup and professional consultation, even if they were positive they had appendicitis.

However, the scarcity of medical resources had inevitably led to this imbalance.

Currently, since Ling Ran wanted to perform physical examinations on more than a dozen people without pushing back his own surgeries in the morning, he had to begin ward rounds at five o’clock in the morning, and was also forced to interrupt his patients from their dreams. If patients had their very own healthcare teams, they were at full discretions of choosing their own time. They could even squeeze in an afternoon nap, and it would not be a problem at all.

“Please sit up.” Ling Ran stood at the side of the bed and started making observations.

The nurse drew open the curtains around the bed.

“Can I brush my teeth and wash my face first?” The patient muttered as he pushed away his blanket.

Ling Ran shook his head gently and said, “I’m not going to do a full body physical examination. According to your medical history, you spend long hours at a desk job and have chronic gastritis. I’m just going to check on your chest and abdomen, head and neck. I probably need about 10 minutes. You don’t have to brush your teeth and wash your face.”

Ling Ran had a blunt, straightforward manner of speaking. But it was precisely because of this bluntness that the patient considerably lightened up. The patient only sat up and complained in dissatisfaction, “Why me first… the last one to be examined gets an extra hour of shut-eye, right?”

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The nurse on duty who came with Ling Ran could not hold herself back any longer. She pursed her lips and said, “You only thought about yourself waking up at five in the morning. Did you know what time Doctor Ling has to wake up in the morning? He has to come to the hospital before dawn and can only head home after dark, all so that he can give you all examinations, one after another? He is not paid even a dime for his overtime. He even needs to cover the cost of travel himself. After your examination, you can get back to sleep. But Doctor Ling will continue to do other examinations, and once he is done with the examinations, he has to operate on other people…”

“Your head and neck are fine. I’m going to check your chest and abdomen now. Please take a deep breath.” Ling Ran had always been meticulous when he was performing tasks. He had not taken much notice of the nurse’s rant.

Ten minutes later, Ling Ran had completed the steps he deemed necessary. He nodded and said, “There are no problems with your physical condition. Just stick to your rehabilitation, and you’ll be fine.”

The nurse drew the curtains open.

The patient and his family members were filled with a mix of relief and uneasiness. They were relieved as Ling Ran had said there were no problems. They were uneasy as Ling Ran had also said there were no problems.

Ling Ran took no notice of their expressions. He moved on to the next patient in Bed 2, shaking her by the shoulders.

As the areas of concern was selected based on medical cases and the medical histories of the patients, Ling Ran had to be particularly careful with the female patients. He only performed auscultation[1] and percussion on the backs of the ladies. Unfortunately, it also left some of them disappointed and wanting something more.

Even the young, spry, and fit Ling Ran was worn out by the end of a single round of physical examinations around the wards.

The nurse on duty gazed at him in admiration, but her heart ached for him as well. She sighed.

“Doctor Ling, you’re too serious.”

“Before this, I did not have the requirements to perform checkups. Now that I have them, I should do it,” Ling Ran explained.

The nurse on duty could only assume that Ling Ran was talking about time and energy. She could not help but cover her mouth and smile gently. Then she said, “You have only rested for a day yesterday. You had even come over here a few hours earlier today. You’ll feel tired when it’s dinner time. You won’t have time to accompany your girlfriend.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Ling Ran replied without much thought.

The nurse on duty gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. She was so excited that she almost leaped into the air. Even after Ling Ran left, she did not dare to lower her hands and say goodbye. She had to prevent herself from shouting out loud, as that would make her look bad.

What a revelation!

“You look happy. What’s up?” A plain-looking, junior-ranked resident doctor who melded into the background more often than not greeted her with a chuckle, in the hope that he could build a healthy working relationship with the nurses.

The nurse put her hands down and straightened her uniform.

“It’s nothing.”

The thudding of shoes were getting faster by the second, and the corridor was suddenly filled with the presence of people.

“Glad that it’s nothing.” The ugly resident doctor consciously waved his hand, deliberately keeping it natural and unrestrained. His relationship with his colleagues should be getting better now.

Translator’s Notes:

1. Auscultation: Listening to the internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope.