Chapter 7: For anything regarding orthopedic surgery, contact Little Zhang Fan first

After the surgery, Director Nuar offered to record this patient under Zhang Fan's name. However, Zhang Fan rejected this offer. Although he really lacked money right now, he lacked practical surgical experience even more. Zhang Fan figured that Chen Qifa would be delighted to learn that he was only interested in performing surgeries without receiving any credit. All three of them would split the surgery fees equally, but the head doctor recorded for the patient would receive commission on all additional medical fees. Since Zhang Fan still needed Chen Qifa to act as his assistant for future surgeries, he wanted to keep Chen Qifa happy. It seemed quite obvious that Zhang Fan would be completely unable to count on Director Nuar to be of any use as an assistant during surgeries.

When it came to orthopedic surgeries, it was quite common that their department wouldn't receive a single patient for many days in a row. It was also common for there to sometimes be orthopedic surgeries every day on a daily basis. Zhang Fan had now carved out a position for himself in the orthopedic department. Director Nuar felt quite reassured about leaving everything to Zhang Fan—Nuar started completely skipping out on work every day and not even coming. Since Nuar was almost about to retire, Superintendent Batu didn't really care too much about what he did or didn't do. Whenever Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa finished a surgery, they would simply fake and sign Director Nuar's signature for him. Although Zhang Fan had performed orthopedic surgeries for several days in a row now, he was still quite far off from being able to access the next level of courses. Still, Zhang Fan obtained much knowledge and experience from all the traumatic injury surgeries and surgical rehabilitation that he did.

Before he got the chance to perform any surgeries, Zhang Fan had to practically beg for work from the other departments. But now, everything was different. Everyone was basically treating Zhang Fan like a head surgeon. But after several days of having a surgery every day, another quiet period arrived, with no patients for many days in a row. Kuake City was a city with an extremely low population for a Chinese city, only having approximately 100,000 residents. Not only that, the people in this city weren't confident in the city hospital's medical level. They would all go to a larger city hospital to treat any of the more serious illnesses or problems.

There was no helping things. Since Zhang Fan was unable to perform any surgeries, he could only grind experience for surgical rehabilitation since that also required him to gain practical experience. Zhang Fan almost acted as if he was selling illegal drugs with how often he asked all the nurses and doctors that he saw about anything he could do. "Any patients with a slipped disc? Any patients that need a massage?" Actually, this was because the practical goals set for him in his System included massage techniques for slipped discs, lumbar prolapse, or even just simple muscle fatigue and so on.

Many of the older nurses had bad backs as a common problem in their profession. Guli, the head nurse in Zhang Fan's surgical department #2, became his first patient that he practiced massage techniques on. "Doctor Zhang, my back and legs have been so sore recently. I can't get up once I sit down, and I can't sit down once I get up. Could you take a look for me?"

"Head Nurse, this is because one of your discs has slipped slightly, which is affecting your nervous system. It's not that severe. Let me help you with a rehabilitation massage which should improve things for you. In the future, you need to take care not to sit down for too long at a time, and you also need to avoid lifting heavy objects. Otherwise, this problem will reoccur," Zhang Fan told her after taking a look at Guli's CT scan.

"Sure, I'll be quite grateful if the pain can be alleviated slightly." It was rather obvious that Guli didn't really believe that Zhang Fan could do much about her pain. She had already visited the provincial hospital in this border province's capital already. The doctor there recommended that she undergo surgery, but Guli didn't dare to. She only underwent a more conservative treatment for a few days before returning to Kuake City. Typically, she just gritted her teeth and tolerated the pain, which would pass soon enough. But over the past few days, she had more work than usual, so her back and legs were in much greater pain. Since Zhang Fan was asking everywhere, offering to perform massages, she decided to allow Zhang Fan to try giving her a massage.

There were obvious differences in the massages used between western and Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine focused on acupuncture points and meridians, while western medicine was far simpler and more direct. For instance, if someone had a herniated disc, western medicine would simply use outside force and one's own body to forcibly return the disc to its proper position. Zhang Fan had Guli lay down on her side with both hands clutching her head. With his left hand, he slowly pushed on Guli's pelvis, while he slowly pulled on Guli's shoulder joints with his right hand. This would make Guli's spine twist slightly; using this twisting force, he'd slowly restore the slipped disc to its proper position.

After slightly more than an hour of rehabilitative massaging, Zhang Fan had Guli get off the bed to check if her condition had improved. Guli slowly got off the bed and lightly stretched her back. She then turned around with eyes wide in surprise as she grabbed on to Zhang Fan's hand. "My dear, the pain is obviously much lighter than before!" She even kissed Zhang Fan as she said this. Guli was more than forty years old, and in her ethnicity, it was common for close friends to kiss each other on the face. Her back pain had been torturous recently, so it was tremendously good news to her that her back pain had been lessened so much. Her kiss instantly caused Zhang Fan's face to completely become red.

"Haha, my dear, you're all shy! How about I introduce a nice girl to you!"

Married women were all the same, no matter what ethnicity they belonged to. They would always become spicier. Zhang Fan was unable to handle her, so he immediately ran away from the treatment room to his doctor's office. Guli laughed even more loudly after seeing Zhang Fan panickily run away.

After Guli's excellent experience, several more of the older nurses started coming to Zhang Fan about their back pains. Although Zhang Fan was rather fatigued every day from performing so many massages, he was absolutely delighted every day when he returned to his hospital dorm, since all these massages had given him plenty of experience to the point where he could almost access the next course.

"Oh my, our friend to middle-aged married women has finally returned. I thought that one of them had captured and taken you away to her home," Li Hui joked while smoking when he saw Zhang Fan returning to their shared room. News was all over the hospital that many of the older nurses were visiting Zhang Fan for his massages, so Li Hui was teasing Zhang Fan.

"Psh, whatever. How come you're not visiting your girlfriend Wang Sha tonight?" Zhang Fan didn't really care. He knew that Li Hui was only teasing him with no vicious intentions.

"I was waiting for you."

"Why would you wait for me? You want me to loan you money? My pocket is even cleaner than my face. Don't even think about trying to borrow money from me."

"Do I seem like someone who lacks money?" Li Hui stated condescendingly.

"You were previously smoking a 10 yuan brand of cigarette, but you're now smoking a cheaper 5 yuan brand. Of course you lack money."

"Sigh! That's not it. My girlfriend made a rule that I'm only allowed to spend 50 yuan per month on cigarettes. I'm forbidden from spending even a single cent more on smoking. There's no helping it. Still, rest assured. I would never try to borrow money from you. A few days ago, Wang Sha and I discovered an excellent restaurant run by someone of Han ethnicity. His barbequed meat tastes so authentically Chinese and wonderful! I'm so tired of all the goat meat that our hospital cafeteria serves. It just so happens that Wang Sha and I are both off tonight, and we'd be bored just eating by ourselves, so we wanted to invite you to come along with us."

Zhang Fan instantly refused. "Hey, the two of you should go out on a date together without a third wheel like me coming along. I'll only be heartbroken because I'm the only one who's single." Zhang Fan was unwilling to get in the way of a couple's romantic time. Also, he didn't want to go, because he was really poor. The hospital's cafeteria had excellent discounts for employees, so the meals were really cheap. If he went out to eat, maybe Li Hui would treat him this time, but he would be obligated to treat Li Hui the next time. Zhang Fan wanted to save more money for his younger sister's tuition, so he didn't want to eat out at a restaurant.

"Hey, stop acting so reserved. We're definitely going." Li Hui didn't allow Zhang Fan to be reserved as he pulled the latter outside. Li Hui also had his own intentions in inviting Zhang Fan to dinner. First was that everyone in the hospital already knew about Zhang Fan's skills. Li Hui felt like he would really benefit if he became even closer friends with his roommate. Second was that Li Hui and his girlfriend Wang Sha had arrived at this city hospital for almost two months already, yet they hadn't gotten a single opportunity to have sex all this time. Zhang Fan was single, and didn't seem like the gossipy type. Li Hui figured that if he got on friendlier terms with Zhang Fan, he would be able to have sex with his girlfriend in their dorm room in the future and that Zhang Fan would be understanding enough to leave them alone.

Zhang Fan, Li Hui, and Wang Sha had a friendly atmosphere about them as they chatted together and ate dinner. Li Hui and Wang Sha didn't act all lovey-dovey with any actions like feeding each other dinner, which would have given Zhang Fan a significant amount of pressure.

While they were eating dinner, a patient arrived at the orthopedic surgery department. The patient was a 15-year old wrestler, who was of the Kazakh minority, as well as a shepherd. Since this youth had very little contact with the world, he had never received treatment at a hospital before. He had finally come to a hospital for the first time because a relative finally convinced him to go.

Brain surgeon Tu Xun was in charge today at surgery department #2. Right after he received this patient, he immediately phoned Vice Director Shi Lei. For any patient to be seen by a doctor not in the assigned department would require the department director as well as the superintendent's approval. Since this patient wasn't here to see a brain surgeon like him, Tu Xun didn't want any trouble, and directly called the vice director for instructions. Director Nuar was well known to be completely unreliable, and it was well within expectations that Nuar was now completely drunk to the point of being unconscious.

When Shi Lei heard about this patient from Tu Xun, he immediately responded, "For anything regarding orthopedic surgery, contact Little Zhang Fan first."