Great Doctor Ling Ran

“Ling Ran is going to perform the surgery as chief surgeon.”

“Isn’t that too aggressive? He became a chief surgeon in his early twenties?”

“As the saying goes: ‘Visiting monks give better sermons[1].’ Internal talents are not appreciated, whereas external ones become more valuable.”

The resident doctors of the same batch discussed among themselves vehemently in the resident doctors’ chat group.

The resident doctors in the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center came from multiple, complex origins. Although they were the best in their schools, there were not many who can seize the opportunity to get promoted in the center. Most of the resident doctors would end up becoming frustrated with a salary that was too low, being too slow in mastering their skills, or having too few chances to practice their skills, and so on. Because of these reasons, an endless stream of resident doctors left.

Zhu Tongyi’s research institute was different from large-scale tertiary grade A hospitals. There were few chances for a person to get promoted. If you could not push yourself up the ranks, you would sink to the bottom, and then you would continue to encounter challenges from the world outside. For example, a doctor like Ling Ran would very likely occupy a position that they vacated after much reluctance.

“I am going to take a look, anyone want to come along?” A resident doctor suggested in the small group.

“Let’s go together.” Several others tagged along.

In a short while, nearly twenty people rushed into the demonstration room. They were not just resident doctors, but also several attending physicians and associate chief physicians who were free.

Because Zhu Tongyi was in the front row, everyone did not talk and chatter. They each found a seat to sit on, and waited for the surgery to begin.

The demonstration room of the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center cost a lot of money. It also connected microscopes in various operating theaters and operating theaters together. The surgical field of an ordinary surgery and the surgical field of microsurgery could be seen. Moreover, switching between both displays was quite convenient, and it could also perform real-time voice communication. It was “display technology”, and an excellent way to have a teaching demonstration.

Inside the research institute, having the courage to perform surgery in the operating theater connected to a demonstration room was also a reference for everyone to evaluate a doctor’s level.

However, to the doctors, the most terrifying application of the demonstration room was actually when a patient’s family was asked to visit.

The operating theater of a general hospital was like a black box. The family sent the patient in, and a patient was pushed out of the black box after the operation. The family would only know the state before the patient entered the operating theater and the state after the patient left. They would not know about anything that occured in the operating theater.

It was obviously not proper to ask the patient’s family to enter the operating theater; it was easy to interfere with the operation of the surgeon. However, it would be relatively easier for the surgeon to continue controlling the surgeon if they used the demonstration room.

Of course, if one wanted to enter the demonstration room, it was not easy at the current research institute, and one would always need special ways to enter.

Doctor Qu gently pushed the door open, silently went to the corner of the demonstration room, touched the bald spot in the middle of his head, and sighed gently.

He cared more about this operation than the resident doctors. After all, he had also participated in Liu Weichen’s surgical plan design. Therefore, he was also most aware of Liu Weichen and the surgical plan itself, as well as the required level of skill for the operation.

Doctor Qu nodded to several doctors who saw him, and sat down in one of the chairs at the last row in the room. He stared blankly at the pitch black screen.

After an indefinite amount of time, the screen lit up, everyone stopped chatting and altogether looked at the screens in the middle where there was both the surgical field displayed by the surgical camera, and the operating theater scene displayed by the panoramic camera. The camera of the two-head microscope was still black, and there was a voice coming from it.

“Doctor Ling, let me help you wear the surgical gown.”

“Doctor Ling, look at the device list. Is there anything that needs to be added?”

“What surgical habits do you have? Do you want to drink water during the surgery?”

The first thing that came were the voices of circulating nurses and scrub nurses.

The doctors in the demonstration room looked at each other. A resident doctor could not help but say, “When did they become so well-mannered?”

“When they see a handsome guy,” groaned a 220 pound resident doctor. He said, “You haven’t see them talk about their Prince Charmings, have you?”

“It would not be to such an extent, right? What is the motive behind them being so proactive?”

“Why do you help a goddess take her bags then?”

As the demonstration room quieted down again, everyone looked at the screen again with an inexplicable feeling, as if they had a common enemy.

There were extremely few female doctors in the Orthopedics Department. In the operating theater of the professional Orthopedics Department, male nurses were an indispensable configuration. When they watched the female nurses, who were few and far in between, happily talking with Ling Ran, the group of resident doctors were unsatisfied and unhappy.

…..

In the operating theater.

Ling Ran stared at the patient’s foot for a long time.

It was his first time seeing this foot, but through the MRI scan, his familiarity with this foot was far beyond the understanding of the person himself.

Ji Tianlu looked at Ling Ran with great interest and asked, “Doctor Ling, what shall we do now?”

“Oh… I’m going to draw the surgical line.” Ling Ran came back to his senses, reached for the rollerball pen, and drew a few lines on the patient’s injured foot. Then, he asked for a pen of another color and drew another line.

“What’s the difference between them?” Lu Wenbin asked nervously. He was the second assistant today, but he did not know much about Achilles tendon repair. If there was something he did understand, most of it was knowledge from textbooks and videos. In the absence of a system helping him and a lack of handsomeness making others help him, like what Ling Ran had, Lu Wenbin’s understanding towards foot surgeries was practically zero.

Ling Ran looked at Lu Wenbin with a somewhat puzzled gaze. “Differentiate what?”

“The surgical lines. There are two colors.”

“Oh, the black is the incision line, the white one… the tendons here are ruptured.” Ling Ran pointed to the surgical line and twisted his body a little so that Lu Wenbin can see clearly.

Ji Tianlu, who initially did not have much care, was also stunned. He instantly realized that he did not read the instructions of the Medical Imaging Department, so he forgot to confirm the position of the Achilles tendon rupture. He now only recalled it. Ling Ran really did not rely on the Medical Imaging Department and was actually able to read the film himself.

Ji Tianlu gave Ling Ran a concentrated look before he bowed his head. The child who scored eighty-five marks knew how capable a child who scored a hundred marks was, just like how a doctor like Ji Tianlu would know how capable Ling Ran’s skills were.

When an MRI scan was used for the diagnosis of the Achilles tendon rupture, it could not only distinguish the severity of the rupture, but also the condition of the two fractured ends, and the distance between the fractures.

This was very meaningful clinical information, and also the strength of an MRI scan.

Ji Tianlu could not help but feel extremely jealous. Ling Ran had such capability in his twenties. He was extremely talented.

Ji Tianlu examined himself and found that even if he was given half a year of free time, he still could not raise his magnetic resonance reading ability from eighty-five marks to a hundred marks. Never mind half a year, he might still not be able to improve even after two years, unless he did not do anything and devote everything towards just reading MRI films. In that case, he might just be able to within half a year’s time.

However, was it possible?

As of right now, Ji Tianlu’s skill tree in orthopedics spanned in two directions—joints and sports medicine. He already had his hands tied, he could no longer divide any more of his time.

Ling Ran noticed the expressions of Lu Wenbin and Ji Tianlu and decided to explain it more clearly to his assistants. He said, “From the magnetic resonance imaging, I saw a high signal intensity limited to the tendon area on the T1-weighted and T2-weighted images. The tendon bundle is rougher and more irregular. This is a characteristic of partial injury. The position can be seen from the T2-weighted image. When its signal is significantly higher, that would be the most obvious part of the tear.”

Ling Ran directly pointed out the position to Ji Tianlu and Lu Wenbin. Then, he asked the anesthetist about the situation and requested for the scalpel to begin the surgery.

This time, Ling Ran’s speed was much faster. After the incision was made, Ling Ran ordered for the skin to be “pulled open” as he placed the scalpel in the tray. Ji Tianlu hesitated for a few more seconds before he realized that the surgery had begun.

Compared to him, Lu Wenbin, who was the second assistant, was more familiar with Ling Ran’s style. Ling Ran had always disliked talking. He was not like the surgeons who were not confident enough and needed to ask confirmation from their assistant. He always did what needed to be done.

Moreover, Ling Ran was a typical “soloist” doctor. He already had a detailed strategy for most of the procedures in the surgery. Occasionally, when the assistants could not manage or when they were distracted, Ling Ran would not say a word and pick up the work.

This kind of concentration had gradually affected Lu Wenbin, Ma Yanlin, and Yu Yuan. It had inevitably caused a great impact to the trio’s lives as surgeons, but especially so for the former two.

At this time, Lu Wenbin automatically reached out and said, “Retractor.”

The nurse looked at Ji Tianlu and gave the retractor to Lu Wenbin. Lu Wenbin carefully and laboriously pulled the muscles around the Achilles tendon, exposing it. This step was almost the same as in the M-Tang technique, only that the tendon was thicker, and the muscle tissue was larger.

After a slight rinse with saline, the ruptured tendon was indeed exposed at the center. Ji Tianlu raised his head slightly and somewhat regretted that he did not listen to the descriptions from the Medical Imaging Department. Otherwise, he could also judge the correct position and would not be controlled by Ling Ran.

“End-to-end suturing,” Ling Ran reminded. There was nothing much to say; they only had to use the modified Kessler method used by Doctor Qu the previous day to quickly stitch it up.

The mesentery, small blind nerve, and sural nerve, which Doctor Qu had spent a long time to smooth out in the previous surgery, was easily dealt with by Ling Ran before they were cast to the side.

End-to-end suturing was the simplest suture form. They used it to debride the two severed Achilles tendons, join them together, and then tightly suture them back together.

Since the Achilles tendon was strong and thick enough, there was no room to perform delicate sutures like the M-Tang technique. The modified Kessler method or the ordinary Kessler suture technique were used by novice doctors, attending physicians, and experts alike, but the effects were different.

Ling Ran changed his posture and sutured quickly. Ji Tianlu did his best to cooperate with Ling Ran. His speed was barely enough to keep up with Ling Ran.

In the demonstration room, the spectating Doctor Qu had long been baffled. He had always been suturing with the modified Kessler method, and before this, he had even wanted to use the technique to awe Ling Ran.

In Doctor Qu’s heart, he thought that he performed well in front of Ling Ran. However, now that he watched Ling Ran, who was his first assistant in the previous surgery, become the chief surgeon in this surgery, and also watched how Ling Ran performed the Kessler suture technique, Doctor Qu fell into deep shock.

‘This is too much! Old Tie, this is too much!’