Great Doctor Ling Ran

“Contact the other hospitals and find some patients with Achilles tendon ruptures for Ling Ran.” Zhu Tongyi sat in the office and made some arrangements with Ji Tianlu.

Ji Tianlu rubbed his temple and asked, “How many?”

“Look for a few. Patients are not Chinese cabbage. We can’t find them by just digging them out from earth,” Zhu Tongyi sighed and said, “I’m going to Beijing for a meeting tomorrow. You have to keep Ling Ran here for me. Don’t wait until an injured athlete arrives. By then, Ling Ran will no longer be here.”

Ji Tianlu looked at Zhu Tongyi and said half-jokingly, “Are injured athletes Chinese cabbage now?”

“I know that the national badminton team has an athlete with an Achilles tendon rupture. I’ll go and see whether he wants to come to us. Xue Haochu is in contact with the provincial and municipal teams from the other places. He should be able to get the people with Achilles tendon ruptures to be transferred to us. If it is really not possible, look for retired athletes with old Achilles tendon ruptures.” Even Zhu Tongyi felt slightly troubled.

His plan A was designed for Liu Weichen. But Zhu Tongyi had not expected his plan to work this well. Based on the results from the checkups over the past few days, Liu Weichen’s Achilles tendon rupture recovered far better than what they expected.

Because of this, Zhu Tongyi also grew more interested in plan A. He wanted to take the time to do more surgery cases so that he could research the plan more thoroughly.

At that time, if he really managed to turn it into a proper surgical technique, he could name it Tongyi’s Achilles tendon repair technique, or Tong-Achilles tendon repair technique, or some other variation of it. Would that not be wonderful?

If it was necessary, in the future, he could write a book with a title that was something along the lines of: The perioperative treatment strategies and plan selection for Tongyi’s Achilles tendon repair technique. It was also a pleasure to give a few lectures in a few universities.

However, finding cases had always been the most troublesome part when it came to developing new surgical methods, especially for doctors at his level. The funds, equipment, and even imported devices were not a problem for him. He could easily procure a million dollar fund from any hospital of his choice should there be a need for him to do so.

However, patients did not pop up whenever he wished, and that was the biggest problem for surgeons. The more complex and rare the illness was, the more troublesome it was to find patients afflicted with the illness.

The situation for Zhu Tongyi was still a little better, since he was in the field of sports medicine. If he waited a little while, he would find that there would always be athletes who would have their Achilles’ tendons ruptured, and this was especially so for badminton and basketball players. The number of athletes who had their Achilles tendons ruptured because they played these sports was quite high.

However, the total number of athletes was a problem. No matter how high the rate of occurrence was, the number of athletes was always low, especially high-level athletes. They had to wait for a very long time if they wanted to wait for them to have their Achilles’ tendons ruptured.

Their actions were also limited by the limitations of plan A. Since they could not be certain whether there would be any postoperative complications or how the postoperative recovery would play out, Zhu Tongyi could not expand the scope of the experiment to his heart’s content. Finding the right patient without advanced preparation became a difficult task.

Zhu Tongyi looked at Ji Tianlu and said, “I am going out. I guess I can find at least two patients with these symptoms. So, keep your eye on Ling Ran in the near future and make sure he stays here. Don’t let him get back to Yun Hua too easily. Also, make sure he maintains in this condition. Give him surgeries to do, but don’t let him do too much. Young doctors don’t know how to do things in moderation, you must make sure to keep him in check.”

“He still wants to do finger replantation surgeries, so should I let him do some finger replantation surgeries?” Ji Tianlu asked tentatively. Compared to Achilles tendon ruptures, patients who needed finger replantations required a longer period of time for their surgery, so their numbers would go down. If many of their fingers were severed, one surgery alone would be equivalent to the time taken to perform five or ten Achilles tendon repair surgeries.

Ji Tianlu now had a glimpse of how much of a surgery maniac Ling Ran was. However, he did not know enough about him, so he thought that he could appease Ling Ran by just giving him a certain number of surgeries.

A light crease appeared between Zhu Tongyi’s eyebrows, and he slowly shook his head. He said, “Try to give him Achilles tendon rupture surgeries only. Ling Ran is obviously talented in Achilles tendon rupture surgeries. He might be good in finger replantations as well… Keep this between us, isn’t there a better development prospect for Achilles tendon repair surgeries?”

If plan A was proven an effective way to heal athletes’ Achilles tendon ruptures, then Ling Ran could make a lot of money by carrying out Achilles tendon repairs.

However, hard work was not the only thing needed for a doctor to achieve global fame.

Most of the world-renowned doctors had to have more than twenty years of medical experience. This window of time was not really for them to polish their skills, but to publicize themselves and build their reputation.

At the same time, it could also be considered the very waiting period that made many senior doctors give up on the idea of fame.

Ji Tianlu did not want to make empty promises to Ling Ran, that would make him sound too insincere.

Ji Tianlu did not respond directly to Zhu Tongyi’s words and said, “There are still some reporters who want to interview Ling Ran. Some of them are from media companies that have cooperated with us for many years. After seeing the two reporters, Ling Ran doesn’t want to meet more of them…”

“Ling Ran doesn’t want to meet more reporters? Aren’t the youngsters nowadays desperate to spread every single information about themselves among their Circle of Friends?”

“He said that too much exposure will affect his life,” Ji Tianlu then whispered, “Youngsters nowadays usually play TikTok.”

“Other people’s TikTok videos are not as interesting as your own, right?”

“I never really looked into this…”

“He has to have more exposure to the media, and he has to meet them while the iron is hot,” Zhu Tongyi said this with the tone of an experienced person, “Didn’t he want surgeries? You talk to him about this. Hmm… tell him that if the media publicized us, isn’t it easier for us to find the right patients?”

“Yes. Based on Ling Ran’s train of thought, this method should be feasible.” When Ji Tianlu thought of this, he felt that the problem was solved, and he felt relaxed.

…..

The next day, Ji Tianlu reiterated the benefits of exposure to hospitals and doctors, and put forward to Ling Ran the idea of receiving interviews in exchange for surgeries. He said, “Ling Ran, doctors do indeed hope to live a more relaxing life and not to be bothered by many things occurring outside operating theatres. That’s what I thought when I was younger, and later…”

“How many surgeries will I get in exchange for one interview?” Ling Ran did not want to interrupt Ji Tianlu, but Ji Tianlu was a little too long-winded, and he could not grasp the point.

Ji Tianlu did not even carefully consider how many surgeries Ling Ran could get in exchange for one interview. But of course, normal people would have not thought about such a problem.

Ji Tianlu replied casually, “Five interviews should be good enough. If you accept an interview, I will find five surgeries for you. The surgery fees will be paid according to a chief physician’s standard, which is the same as what you receive in Yun Hua Hospital.

Compared to the former, Ji Tianlu was much more believable when he said the latter sentence. Usually, doctors would be afraid to sign the surgery completion form when the surgery was completed by another doctor.

Of course, the department directors of large general hospitals had to do this. They often had to sign other people’s surgery completion forms, especially the department directors of hospitals that often invited freelance surgeons over. Someone had to sign the surgery completion form, so it had to be them. As Yun Hua’s doctor, Ling Ran, regardless of whether or not he had a medical license, needed to be paid by the research institute.

If Ji Tianlu was willing to sign his forms for him, that in itself showed that he trusted him to a certain extent.

Ling Ran did not think much about it before. After he heard this, he immediately expressed his gratitude and said, “I’ll let them interview me one extra time as well. With every interview I receive, I will do four surgeries…”

“Deal.” Ji Tianlu was very happy. He said, “Then, I will arrange two interviews now. You can do some preparations for it.”

“Okay. Please make some preparations on your part as well,” Ling Ran said in a concerned manner, “If there are eight surgeries, we must have a good transition in the middle. I only need one anesthetist in every surgery, but he must be replaced somewhere down the line. We must have at least two groups of nurses, or have five nurses working in rotation. They must be specialty nurses, and their duties cannot be mixed. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time. Also, for the assistants, Lu Wenbin is counted as one. The other one should be skilled in closing incisions, and understands preoperative as well as postoperative preparations.”

Ji Tianlu was stunned as he stared at Ling Ran. He smiled. “This is the first time I hear you speak so much.”

“It’s just some of the experience I have to improve efficiency,” Ling Ran answered bashfully.

“Well, in this case, shall I schedule the eight surgeries over a period of two days?” Ji Tianlu felt that it was reasonable to have four surgeries a day if two teams of specialty nurses were to be arranged.

Ling Ran looked at Ji Tianlu skeptically before he said, “Chief Physician Ji, I should be the one arranging the surgeries I received as an exchange for the interviews, right?”

“Yes… that should be the case.”

“Then, let’s arrange them all in one day.”

Ji Tianlu laughed, “Eight surgeries from morning till night? Do you want to die of exhaustion?”

“I won’t be tired, trust me,” Ling Ran replied earnestly.

Ji Tianlu looked at Ling Ran seriously and said, “Even if you are not tired, I can’t arrange eight surgeries in one day. This is a dereliction of my duty towards the patients, towards you, and the research center.”

Ling Ran had to admit that Ji Tianlu’s words were very logical, and Ling Ran always showed basic respect to logical people.

“Then I will go to the interviews now. Please arrange the surgeries,” Ling Ran did not continue arguing. He had never been someone good with words.

Ji Tianlu nodded with some satisfaction and thought, ‘Ling Ran is quite cute like this.’

Ji Tianlu automatically stood up. He sent Ling Ran out of his office and called Xue Haochu to let him inform the media to arrange interviews with Ling Ran. He then casually opened his WeChat to procure patients with Achilles tendon ruptures from his group.

In general, Ji Tianlu was quite satisfied with his work in the first half of the day. He finished many tasks, his efficiency was very high, and his work went smoothly. Ji Tianlu had already begun to consider getting off work earlier to have fun.

Doctors were busy the whole day. It was only when they were promoted to chief physicians would they enjoy some me-time.

Ji Tianlu worked overtime every past few days. Today, he could finally relax. So, he decided to do something more relaxing. He went around the department and greeted the people who worked under him. Then, he checked the condition of several key patients and examined the resident doctors’ medical records. After that, he made a small ward round, fulfilled several patients’ demands, and gave directions to some junior doctors. He scolded an attending physician for five minutes before he went on a stroll in the Operating Area. He took some time to read medical records of patients sent by several of his old friends, and he declined the invitations from several pharmaceutical sales representatives…

Before five o’clock in the afternoon, Ji Tianlu packed up his things and was ready to leave the hospital.

“Chief Physician Ji,” Ling Ran appeared outside his office with a warm smile.

“Oh, Ling Ran… Is the interview done?” Ji Tianlu smiled.

Ling Ran smiled. “They are done. I was interviewed by four media corporations. Xue Haochu made the arrangements.”

Ji Tianlu was happy. “Aren’t you obedient?”

“Xue Haochu said that arrangements were easier if I was interviewed by all of them at the same time.”

Ji Tianlu nodded in satisfaction and said, “Two patients with Achilles tendon rupture should have arrived. I saw them just now. Peking University Third Hospital has transferred one over here, and the emergency medical center…”

“I’m done with them.” Ling Ran continued to smile.

Ji Tianlu had a stiff smile as he said, “So, did Peking University Third Hospital send their patient over here first?”

“A total of three Achilles tendon rupture patients were sent in,” Ling Ran paused and said, “I don’t know where they came from, but I’m done with them.”

Without Academician Zhu Tongyi’s plan A, a normal Achilles tendon rupture patient could have his surgery finished under two hours in the hands of a normal doctor. In Ling Ran’s hand, the surgery did not even exceed one hour. It was impossible for him to fill up his entire afternoon with only three patients.

Ji Tianlu looked at Ling Ran’s face and said very gingerly, “So, you…”

Ling Ran stared at the part connecting Chief Physician Ji Tianlu’s ankle and his calf while he said, “I feel that I am in good shape, and I can do more surgeries…”

Ji Tianlu’s eyes widened.

“I’ll prove it to you,” Ling Ran took out a stack of papers and unfolded them. It was a set of Sudoku questions.

Ling Ran chose a random page and completed the Sudoko question in front of Ji Tianlu. Then, he said, “I can do five more surgeries without any problems.”

“Wait a minute, let me ask.” What could Ji Tianlu say? When he saw that Ling Ran had complete the Sudoku questions, Ji Tianlu was really worried about that Ling Ran would bring a leg over to him later and show him that he could grab its tendon with his bare hands.

Ling Ran politely retreated a step to avoid eavesdropping on Ji Tianlu’s conversation on the phone.

Ji Tianlu made a few phone calls before he looked at Ling Ran and said, “I guess we’ll have to wait a while. Why don’t I treat you to a meal.”

“I’ll treat you,” Ling Ran said as he pulled out his cell phone. “Doctor Lu had his stew from Yun Hua Hospital delivered here. There’re stewed pork trotters, elbows, mushrooms, and corn, and a piece of beef shank.”

“You can send… stew through delivery?”

“Yes, after freezing them into blocks, they performed vacuum dehydration on the stew, put them in heat-insulating bags, and put ice both inside and outside the bag. SF Express [1] will then send them over on the same day. It’s very simple.”

Ji Tianlu stared at Ling Ran’s expression while he talked earnestly about stew and braised food. He then solemnly picked up the phone and said, “Dinner can wait. I’ll try to get you more patients.”

Translator’s note:

[1] SF Express: A delivery services company