Chapter 227: New, but not tender

It had actually been Superintendent Ouyang's decision to have Zhang Fan become the acting proctology director. She still hadn't given up on raising Zhang Fan to become the future superintendent of Chasu City Hospital.

What would count as successful for a doctor? Becoming the superintendent of a Class A hospital would already be considered incredible. Anything higher would be a national-level expert doctor. Superintendent Ouyang already had no chance to go any higher, due to her own limitations and outside factors. For a female doctor in the border province, she could already be considered extremely successful.

Inheritance was an important reason for why humans had been able to rule Earth for so long, no matter if it was genetic inheritance or inheritance of ideals. Superintendent Ouyang wanted to pass on her own medical ideals so that Chasu City Hospital would develop even better after her retirement. This was why she was currently searching for her ideal candidate to take her position after she retired.

Currently, the two people she had the best opinion of as her potential successor were the cardiology director and Zhang Fan.

The cardiology director had evident advantages and disadvantages. The advantage was that she was a veteran doctor who was highly skilled and had a master's degree. The disadvantage was that she would lack too much influence over the surgical departments. For any hospital, especially general hospitals, the internal medicine departments and surgical departments were always competing with each other for more influence and power. This was because power would represent benefits and resources. A department director could try their very best to develop their department, but a superintendent couldn't be seen as too obviously biased, as the superintendent was supposed to be neutral—at least in name.

Zhang Fan's disadvantage was really obvious. He was really young and still relatively inexperienced. However, he also had obvious advantages. He was an expert surgeon. Even the internal medicine departments that Zhang Fan had been rotated into had good opinions of him. Not to mention, he was a man. Even though gender equality was improving in China, men still had obvious advantages in society over women. Superintendent Ouyang knew this quite clearly, especially after having competed with former Superintendent Huang for half her life.

The director of a department couldn't only be highly skilled in one specific medical field. The director would also need to be highly intelligent, have good emotional intelligence, and be skilled at management. Without good emotional intelligence, it wouldn't be possible for the director to represent the department well in talking to the higher-ups as well as certain special patients. Without good intelligence, the director would be unable to suppress the lower-ranking doctors with their skills.

Without good management skills, the director wouldn't be able to unify the department's personnel. In such a scenario, the department would then become a battlefield. The doctors and nurses would fight over bonuses. The doctors would also fight amongst themselves for resources. Without being able to deal with such things, the department's work might stall if it was a small problem, or incidents might keep occurring if this was a major problem.

The proctology department was only a second-rate department in Chasu City Hospital rather than a large department. That was why Superintendent Ouyang felt reassured in letting Zhang Fan try and be the acting director. If this had been a large department instead, such as any of the three orthopedic departments, Superintendent Ouyang wouldn't have dared to let someone as young as Zhang Fan try to lead the department even though his medical skill level was already equivalent to Director Gao Shijun's.

Although the hospital administration director had left already, the proctology head nurse was actually his spy. She would immediately call the hospital administration department the moment that any problems appeared. Basically, this was a test that Superintendent Ouyang set up to determine Zhang Fan's management skills.

Zhang Fan was still too ridiculously young to be a director. Why was Superintendent Ouyang so willing to try him out? This was because of the generation issue. During Superintendent Ouyang's generation, the Cultural Revolution had created a lack of skilled doctors. Back when Ouyang Hong was young, something like a hierarchical medical system was nothing more than a joke. This was because many highly skilled doctors had been killed off. This was why Ouyang Hong and many others like her had to take management positions. This was also why she felt reassured in letting Zhang Fan try. She believed that Zhang Fan was truly outstanding but needed more experience. Without letting him try to experience management, it would be impossible to determine whether he would be capable of management or not.

Zhang Fan became the acting proctology director on his very first day in the proctology department. Although the lower-ranking doctors were all resident doctors, with no attending physicians, would they accept this? It would be ridiculous to think that they would easily accept this.

No matter what, even if you relied on connections to get into a local Class A hospital, the people here would still be the most skilled locals in their respective medical fields. Without enough skill to conquer these people, it would be difficult to make them even pay at least lip service to you. Making them truly obedient and respect you would of course be even more difficult.

Zhang Fan decided to start things off with a departmental meeting. Normally, for a new director, the best method would be to show off their own skills before having individual discussions with the doctors. That would be the most effective, but only for veteran directors, especially a director who had been promoted from within the department. That would be so since this director would already know a great deal about the department personnel, so individual discussions would thus be more effective.

Zhang Fan was completely new to the proctology department. He would only be acting director for the period of one month, which definitely wasn't enough time for him to slowly get to know all the doctors and conquer them that way. Thus, Zhang Fan could only use forceful means.

Luckily for him, there were no veteran doctors in the proctology department. It would have been more difficult for him if there had been even one attending physician. The hospital management ranking chain was similar to military command. In any special circumstances, all lower-ranking doctors had to obey the higher-ranking doctors. If they disobeyed, then the lower-ranking doctors could only hope that no incident occurred. If an incident occurred, the magnitude of the incident would determine if they could still remain in the field of medicine or not!

No nurses were present for the doctors' meeting in the proctology department office, not even the head nurse. Although she didn't feel reassured about this meeting, even she couldn't do anything about it. As long as Zhang Fan didn't invite her to the meeting, she didn't have the right to attend. However, the hospital administration director had told her countless times to keep an eye on how Zhang Fan was doing. She was worried that Zhang Fan wouldn't be able to suppress the other doctors, and that an argument would break out, so she secretly stood at the door to the department office and pressed her ear against the door to listen.

"Haha, everyone should know me already, so I won't introduce myself. If there's anyone who doesn't know met yet, we can get to know each other privately later. There's no need for us to talk about formal rules here, because there is no higher-ranking doctor in this department in the first place. We're all resident doctors here, so let's just temporarily set aside anything from before," Zhang Fan said with a smile.

He then put on a more serious expression as he glanced at the other doctors as he continued to speak. "Now that the director is on vacation, this is an opportunity for everyone. What opportunity is that? I think that everyone should understand even if I don't say it directly. I'm only here to help out for the time being. There's almost no chance that I'll be permanently assigned to this department in the future. I won't be managing most things, nor will I care about some rules from before. For this one month, we're all brothers that are fighting for the same cause. There will be no higher or lower rank among us. All of our profits (illicit income) will be split equally according to the number of surgeries. The most important thing is, the hospital will definitely ask me some questions before I finish my rotation in this department since the director here isn't that young anymore. Anyone who has any thoughts or problems can come talk to me individually after this meeting. I'll also be working together with everyone as normal for the work shifts. I'll be putting up the work schedule in a bit. Let's all start work!"

Zhang Fan really didn't have any other methods available to him. For any medical field, it would be impossible to work alone, especially in the surgical departments. No matter how amazingly skilled you were as an individual, you still wouldn't be able to accomplish a single thing without a surgical assistant who was willing to hold the surgical retractors for you. Actually, it would have been quite simple for Zhang Fan to simply make do for his one month here, but Zhang Fan wasn't willing to do that. That was why he first wanted to motivate all the doctors in this department. As for what happened after one month? He wouldn't worry about that anymore once the proctology director returned from vacation.

Not many doctors were willing to work in the proctology department to begin with. This department was one of the few that didn't have a vice director. By opportunity, Zhang Fan was referring to the position of vice director. The resident doctors in the proctology department were all similarly experienced. If one of them managed to be the first to claim the position of vice director, the other doctors probably wouldn't have many opportunities left. That was why Zhang Fan was using money and authority to motivate these doctors.

That was his carrot. Meanwhile, he was also using his future report to the hospital at the end of his rotation as a big stick. If the hospital learned that certain doctors were unmotivated, that would really make things difficult for the doctors in question. This way, Zhang Fan had both parts of the stick and carrot motivational method. He wasn't worried one bit about the proctology surgeries. He was waiting for his first chance to perform surgery here. Once he performed his first surgery here, he figured that everything else would be no problem.

Zhang Fan suddenly opened the door to the proctology department when he finished his speech since he wanted to give himself a mighty aura of wind blowing around him. However, he instantly saw the proctology head nurse smiling awkwardly at him behind the door, along with her seemingly innocent eyes blinking at him.

"Head nurse, come with me." Zhang Fan immediately broke the awkward tension. He didn't want to have his image ruined immediately right after establishing an aura of leadership.

In the director's office, the head nurse gave Zhang Fan a big thumbs-up. "You're quite young, but you're such a schemer. Old Li from the respiratory department was praising you so much, saying that you're so honest. In my opinion, she'd probably help you count the money even if you betrayed and sold her off!"

The Old Li that the proctology head nurse referred to was the head nurse of the respiratory department. The nurses were different from doctors. Compared to doctors, as long as the nurses weren't competing over the position of head nurse or nursing director, they were highly unified as a group. This was because nurses were relatively weaker than doctors in rank in the medical system. Doctors had plenty of room for future promotions. Meanwhile, nurses had far fewer promotion opportunities available to them.

That was why nurses who joined the hospital in the same year would always be in the same social circle. They would look out for and help each other. This was quite simple for them. Meanwhile, doctors from different departments would rarely interact with each other unless they were good friends. The nurses were different in that nurses of the same age would almost always have a good relationship with each other. Most of the time, when a patient was in urgent trouble, it would be better to find a nurse that you knew rather than a doctor from another department.

"Sister, there's no helping it. I was forced into this. What else can I do? I'll be relying on you for this month. Please take good care of me, especially if there's anything that I don't do well enough!" Zhang Fan exclaimed as he had the head nurse sit down on the sofa in the director's office, which temporarily belonged to him.

"Relax, I learned about you coming to proctology long ago. Old Li even made sure to tell me to take good care of you the last time that we met up. She said that you're like a younger brother to her. It's hard to tell that you're so well-liked."

"Ah! I'm embarrassed! It's all thanks to the head nurses taking good care of me." Zhang Fan was really grateful to the head nurse of the respiratory department now. Thanks to this connection, he felt that the proctology head nurse would definitely help him far more than she would have otherwise.

"Alright, you go ahead and work now. If there's anything that you don't know, feel free to ask me. I'll be leaving now," the head nurse said.

"No need, head nurse, have a seat first. Let me make some tea for you. Have a taste of the tea, and then we can talk a little."

Although the head nurse refused as it was polite to do so in Chinese etiquette, Zhang Fan still personally made some tea, and brought it to the head nurse with both hands.

"Have some tea, head nurse." He was really being polite to her now, so the head nurse hurriedly got up and took the tea.

"Oh my, Zhang Fan, I really couldn't tell. You know so much. You're making me so nervous. Honestly, you're quite young, but have so many schemes in you."

"Please don't joke with me like that. I truly am asking you to teach me. This is a matter of etiquette. Please enjoy your tea. Are the doctors in this department married yet?"

"Two of them are married, while three of them are still unmarried and single."

"Who's relatively more skilled?"

"Hmm, let me think about it. Little Wang is slightly more skilled, since he joined this department one year earlier than all the others. The other doctors should all be on about the same level."

"Oh! How are the doctors' relationships with each other?"

"Heh! Our department really is a laughingstock because of this. Before, everyone fought so much, trying to steal patients. Nobody would listen to anyone else. But ever since the director started taking more money for his marriage, nobody wanted any patients at all. Just look. Our department is so empty. The doctors and nurses have so much free time."