The newly-opened ward still seemed to carry the bleakness of the storeroom it once was. Even the light that shone inside through the glass window seemed to carry around the air of a weak patient after it was reflected off the window.
But the arrival of more and more doctors unexpectedly chased away the chill shrouding the patient's family members.
The skinny old doctor whom they crowded around especially gave them a long-awaited feeling of relaxation.
"Department Director Huo, please print the hand function assessment form. Let us do it on-site. You can find the form on the intranet in the Hand Surgery Department's folder." Wang Haiyang did that out of curiosity more than anything.
He had worked in the Hand Surgery Department for a very long time. Barely ten years ago, the M-Tang technique sent tidal waves through the field of hand surgery when it first emerged, especially among the hand surgeons in China.
After all, it was a Chinese person's world-class achievement. He even won the 'National Science and Technology Progress Award' for it.
Nowadays, the M-Tang technique would definitely be mentioned whenever the PowerPoint slides in hand surgery lectures talked about the development of hand surgery in the nineties.
However, understanding and mastery were two different things.
Wang Haiyang did not choose to learn the M-Tang technique at that time, and had even lesser motivation to do so after that.
Of course, even if he wanted to learn the M-Tang technique at that time, he might not even had been capable of it. You would know it just by looking at Department Associate Director Pan who prospered in the Hand Surgery Department. At least twenty or thirty percent of the fact that he became associate department director at such a young age could be credited to his mastery of the M-Tang technique.
When he thought about this, Wang Haiyang became even more interested in Ling Ran and his skills.
A resident doctor was sent out to print the hand function assessment forms.
Not long after that, he came back with a stack of assessment forms and gave everyone a copy.
"We'll just take this as a test." Wang Haiyang chuckled. He gave each of the patient's family members a copy of the assessment form too and said, "Just do it according to the form, and I'll give you a score. The patient has already done the first item just now—pushing his fingers together. Let's start from the easiest one, press the tips of your forefinger and thumb together... Try to draw away your fingers, then bring your fingers together... Next, rotate your wrist…"
Wang Haiyang scored everyone item by item. It could be seen from the form that the patient did not score highly for any of the items.
For example, the patient could not even reach the fifty-degree benchmark when it came to wrist rotation, and only got one mark as consolation.
But even so, Wang Haiyang was already extremely shocked.
Tendons needed time to heal. Usually, a patient could only be discharged sixteen weeks after the surgery. The first postoperative stage itself took between three to four weeks.
This was the best result a patient who just finished his surgery three weeks ago could achieve in this test.
"It's very rare that patients get to retain their hand function after such a serious injury." Wang Haiyang had made countless ward rounds and talked many times to the patients' families in his life. He comforted the patient's family members again and gave them a few words of advise. "The next few days will be very important. The tasks can be allocated among the family members. Please make sure that not all of you are here constantly; arrange the time among yourselves, only one person needs to be here at one time."
"Alright."
"No problem."
The fact that they had something to do put the family members a little at ease.
Wang Haiyang shifted his attention away from the patient. He turned slightly and said, "Doctor Ling, from what I remember, the M-Tang technique requires the surgeon to do some repairs to the tendon?"
"Yes," Ling Ran said. "Slicing the tendon would stimulate the tendon's growth and enhance its ability to recover instead."
"The recovery is going very well indeed."
"The patient is still young after all."
"Is the recovery going better than what you expected?"
"I don't really have an accurate judgement in this regard. After all, I have not done many such surgeries."
"Doctor Ling, you have done it very well." As Wang Haiyang spoke, he naturally used the term 'Doctor Ling'.
Even though Ling Ran and Wang Haiyang did not really feel anything, the few resident doctors and many attending physicians beside them could not help but cast them a sidelong glance.
For surgeons, all the senior doctors were very fierce and domineering beings.
In short, higher ranking doctors who did not hurl all kinds of abuse were already considered good doctors. Most of the time, first-grade chief physicians would not formally address someone by the term 'doctor'. At least, they would not address medical interns this way.
"Chief Physician Wang, let's sit in the office." Huo Congjun felt that they no longer needed to talk in front of the patient and his family.
Wang Haiyang readily followed that good advice. He tapped Ling Ran's shoulder softly and asked Ling Ran to walk beside him to make it easier for them to talk.
The group of young doctors quietly walked behind them.
*Buzz…*
A notification appeared in Ling Ran's mind again.
[Achievement: Praise]
[Achievement Description: A colleague's praise is the greatest reward to a doctor.]
[Reward: Basic Treasure Chest]
The first thing Ling Ran did was remember the description of the previous achievement he received. He asked in his mind, 'When I obtained my previous Sincere Gratitude achievement, it was said that a patient's sincere gratitude is the greatest reward to a doctor. Now, a colleague's praise is also the greatest reward?'
"Yes," the system answered quickly.
'There can't be two greatest rewards, right?' Ling Ran felt slightly uneasy.
The system said, "It is allowed in the context of the Chinese language."
For a while, Ling Ran actually had nothing to say in response.
After sending Chief Physician Wang Haiyang off, the resuscitation room returned to a state where people were either busy working, or pretending to be busy working. There were people who teased Ling Ran, but no one deliberately looked for Ling Ran to chat or ordered him to do any work again.
The doctors were probably still digesting the new points of knowledge they obtained during the past few days.
Ling Ran felt very comfortable, though. He had never got on well with others since he was young. Even after entering university, there were more girls than guys among those who always spoke with him.
Ling Ran even found the peace he had lost for many days rather enjoyable. He went to a corner, took out his mobile phone and tapped on the game icon on the screen. He then selected the Basic Treasure Chest floating at the corner of his eye while he was at it.
'Ah, it's an Energy Serum again.' Ling Ran raised his eyes and saw that the box emitted a familiar green light.
But Ling Ran was rather looking forward to obtaining Energy Serums nowadays. Contrary to his expectations, the system neither issued missions frequently nor gave frequent rewards.
It had been a while since the last time he got a Basic Treasure Chest. Together with the Energy Serum he had obtained that time, he only got eight bottles of Energy Serum in total. He used one bottle and had seven bottles left.
Seven bottles of Energy Serum was considered very precious for a doctor who might need to stay up late up to ten times a month.
Ling Ran quietly tucked away the little green bottle which other people could not see. Before his game started, he asked in his mind, 'System, who's the best in Yun Hua when it comes to the M-Tang technique?'
"It's you," the system answered.
Ling Ran nodded in satisfaction and began his journey as a Bronze player in the game again.