Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

  Director Jumabieke remained silent for quite a while. He checked the patient’s medical information and saw that the patient was in the respiratory department’s VIP patient room. Not to mention, the doctor was Zhu Qianqian, who he knew quite well to be rather greedy. Director Jumabieke was no idiot. Was Zhu Qianqian really so incapable that she couldn’t even diagnose tuberculosis in a patient correctly? He refused to believe that.

  “He’s already been treated here for three days. Some of the checkups were only completed this morning. Director, you see~” Zhu Qianqian pretended to act pitiful.

  “Since you’ve already accepted him as a patient, the patient will surely cause a ruckus if you kick him out now. However, Doctor Zhu, I can let it go this time, but there will be no more exceptions. Inform your patient that he’s not to go around anywhere. Hurry and drain his pleural effusion. Immediately have him leave the hospital when his treatment is finished.” Director Jumabieke tossed the patient’s medical information sheets onto his table.

  Zhu Qianqian hurriedly nodded and bowed while speaking in a tone that sounded like she was a spoiled child. “Rest assured, Director. This definitely won’t happen again. This was only an unexpected assurance. I know already that you’re the best.”


  She then left the director’s office, absolutely delighted.

  As long as she managed to persuade the director of the respiratory department, nobody else would care about what she was doing if she didn’t let anyone else know that she had a patient with tuberculosis. She indeed knew how to treat tuberculosis, anyways.

  The W Province southerner had been in the border province for seven to eight years already. He had made great profits each year, and would always return to his hometown province for the holidays. But, he somehow caught tuberculosis. He had already confirmed for certain in a smaller city hospital that he had tuberculosis. That hospital had given him the paperwork to transfer to a tuberculosis specialty infectious diseases hospital.

  However, he refused to go to an infectious diseases hospital! He felt that it would be such a joke! What if he got infected with something even worse there? For someone rich like him, it would be quite easy to get into a Class A hospital. It would just depend on whether the doctor he met knew what was good for them or not. In the end, the doctor he met was Zhu Qianqian. But, did she actually know what was good for her or not?

  The tuberculosis patient was extremely cooperative with all of Zhu Qianqian’s orders. He didn’t try to stir up any trouble. Zhu Qianqian had told him not to leave the VIP patient room at all, and so he hadn’t taken a single step out. Even all his food would be delivered to him from the hospital cafeteria.

  Tuberculosis was an illness that would abuse the weak and fear the strong. If a person who was infected with tuberculosis had a strong body and immune system, the tuberculosis would simply remain dormant without spreading. However, the moment that the host’s body started having problems and the immune system weakened, the tuberculosis would instantly start behaving arrogantly, revealing itself to be an annoyingly sticky chronic illness that was impossible to fully treat with medication alone. It was often that the tuberculosis would keep showing up with recurring attacks.

  Not only that, medicine’s effects on tuberculosis would only keep weakening as the tuberculosis bacterium was capable of evolving to become immune to the antibiotics! Many tuberculosis strains were already completely immune to or greatly resistant against medicines from just 10 to 20 years ago.

  Zhu Qianqian protected herself against tuberculosis quite meticulously. She wore two layers of heavy face masks, which made Zhang Fan wonder if she would feel suffocated, and every time that she finished treating the tuberculosis patient, she would always disinfect herself and wash up with great caution, making sure not to miss a single spot.

  For the morning patient checkups, Director Jumabieke personally led the department’s doctors and head nurse in checking up on all the patients himself.

  “Stop the antibiotics for patient #18. It’s been two weeks already. Any more antibiotics will probably lead to mold growth. I’ve emphasized so many times that antibiotics must be used reasonably, reasonably! You can’t just use antibiotics as much as you please. Antibiotics aren’t almighty.” Director Jumabieke would point out any incorrect treatments after checking up on each patient. However, he was the type who gave face to his subordinate doctors as he would only correct them after leaving the patient’s room, not letting the patients hear it.

  During the director’s patient checkup time, the patients weren’t allowed to have family members with them, as that would interfere with the checkup process. Only those patients in critical condition would be allowed a single family member, and even then, the family member would be restricted to only staying in that patient’s room.

  “Director Jumabieke, I understand about not overusing antibiotics. However, the patient still had a bit of a cough, which was why I hesitated and kept using them.”


  “Don’t be afraid of the coughing. You need to also rely on and trust your own diagnosis. This stethoscope is your best weapon. You must use it well. When I was studying in England, rather than MRIs or some other large medical equipment, the stethoscope was considered a pulmonologist’s best friend,” Director Jumabieke said as he lifted up his stethoscope to demonstrate to the lower-ranked doctors. This was another habit of Jumabieke’s. He often liked to talk about his experiences from studying abroad in England.

  At the end of the patient checkups, only the special VIP room remained. Director Jumabieke said, “Alright, everyone can go do their own work now. Change the medical reports that need to be changed, and proactively modify the medical advice you give to the patients while using medicine reasonably.” He then turned around to leave.

  However, this confused the respiratory department’s head nurse. Wasn’t there still the VIP patient room to check up on? She hurriedly chased after Director Jumabieke, and said, “Director, there’s still one more patient. Doctor Zhu accepted this patient on Friday night.”


  “I know. She decided on her own to accept that patient, and has already been treating him for three days. What else am I supposed to say by now? Tell all your nurses to protect themselves well. It’s not convenient for me to go check on that patient, either,” Director Jumabieke told the head nurse.

  “Is it tuberculosis?” the head nurse asked in a tiny whisper.

  “Yeah.”


  “Okay, understood!”


  “Also, don’t let others know about what Doctor Zhu did. We’re all coworkers in the same department. Gossip would be bad. I’ll have to trouble you nurses after work for a while. Try to maintain ultraviolet disinfection every day until that special patient leaves.”


  The head nurse was filled with worries for her staff as she returned to nurses’ working area. She stood at the doorway, clapped her hands, and announced, “Everyone, come over for a moment. Stop what you’re currently doing even if you have work right now. There’s something I need to tell you all.”


  Zhang Fan was somewhat confused. He felt that Zhu Qianqian really had to be quite sly as she dared to brazenly break hospital regulations right in front of the director. Actually, Director Jumabieke was mostly helpless, unable to do anything about this. Normally, Zhu Qianqian was a serious and obedient surbordinate. Her only fault was that she was really greedy. However, he needed hardworking subordinates like her, so to him, something like this was only a minor issue.

  Zhang Fan shook his head as he felt that it wasn’t his role to worry about the tuberculosis patient’s matter. Neither could he say anything, as anything he said would be useless!

  The W province southerner had a large amount of pleural effusion buildup. After chest X-rays and ultrasounds were taken, it was now time for thoracentesis in order to remove the pleural effusion.

  “Doctor Zhang, you surgeons should be better at a procedure like thoracentesis. We doctors of internal medicine are worse with our hands than you surgeons. Not to mention, you men have better physical strength and stamina than us women.” Although Zhu Qianqian was capable of performing thoracentesis, she really didn’t want to do it for the patient. She wanted to try and see if she could force Zhang Fan to perform the thoracentesis for the tuberculosis patient instead.

  Zhang Fan could only smile helplessly. This Doctor Zhu was really so direct! She didn’t participate in any gossip in the respiratory department at all. As long as nobody tried to steal her patients or affect her income, she would be as quiet as a robot in the department. All she would do was write her medical reports. She also rarely conversed or gossiped with the other doctors.

  But, if someone tried to steal one of her patients, then she would erupt like a volcano. She could be incredibly vicious. She was incredibly domineering towards the other rotation doctors, especially as most of them didn’t have medical licenses. When dealing with Zhang Fan, she instead tried to manipulate him with her words. She felt that Zhang Fan probably wouldn’t lower himself to argue with a woman.

  Still, it was doubtful if Zhang Fan could even win an argument against her. There was this incident where a patient’s family member came to see her in order to obtain a copy of his relative’s medical report. Zhu Qianqian was quite busy at the time, and told the family member to wait a while. This made the man really unhappy, and he pointed at Zhu Qianqian while cussing at her. Zhu Qianqian responded with a furious eruption.

  Although Zhu Qianqian was rather skinny, she contained the power of a nuclear bomb in her body. She angrily cussed at the man all the way from her office to the hallways of the respiratory department. The man got even angrier as well, and was about to hit her, but he was prevented from doing so by the presence of hospital security guards. Thus, he could only take Zhu Qianqian’s cussing helplessly.

  As for the thoracentesis procedure for removing pleural effusion, it couldn’t be done too quickly. The pleural effusion could only be drained slowly because draining it too quickly would cause low blood pressure and hypovolemia, easily leading to shock.

  “Doctor Zhang, are you busy? If you have time, we should have a meal together. A doctor as young as you probably has a bright future ahead of him.” The tuberculosis patient chatted with Zhang Fan who was only half paying attention.

  It wasn’t that Zhang Fan actually wanted to chat with him. Zhang Fan just wanted to understand more about the patient’s condition through the latter’s tone because it would be impossible to observe the patient’s expression only from behind.