Doctor: Picking Up Attributes in the Hospital-Chapter 369 - 337: The Mast and Oars Reduced to Ashes?
Hearing the stifled and wretched screams, Zhao Heng finally understood why the emergency room decided to transfer this patient here.
Following the direction of the screams, Zhao Heng took a few steps and saw a young man who appeared to be in his twenties, lying on the gurney, clenching his hands tightly, trembling all over, and looking as if he were enduring some intense pain.
"What did the emergency department say?"
Zhao Heng asked Li Yang, who was standing by the gurney. It seemed that the emergency doctor who brought the patient had already left after handing over to Li Yang.
"The emergency department couldn’t diagnose it. They said this patient was transferred from a lower-level hospital and had already seen many hospitals without being diagnosed."
Li Yang said. Currently, the patients in the ward mainly came from the emergency department. For Li Yang, who had spent such a long time in emergency, taking over patients that the emergency department couldn’t handle gave him a very different feeling.
Especially the inpatient doctors who transferred the patients over from emergency, the look in their eyes towards Li Yang was full of envy.
Now, Zhao Heng’s ward was considered the best in treatment and prospects in Eastern Hospital.
Take Ma Xiaochen’s hospitalization, for instance, although none of the ward’s doctors or nurses ever took money from Liu Qing, and of course, Liu Qing wouldn’t give money.
But lunch, midnight snacks, and various exquisite small gifts were certainly everyday occurrences. To Liu Qing, these gifts were nothing, hardly even a drop in the bucket.
However, for the doctors and nurses in the ward, these were very nice gifts.
After all, what Liu Qing could provide, even if just small gifts, were surely top-notch in their category.
Take, for instance, the chocolates for the nurses. Zhao Heng initially thought they weren’t worth much, but Tian Zhen told him that each small box of chocolate was imported from Valrhona in France, and a 500g box cost over two thousand.
Although the official nurses at Eastern Hospital earned more than ten thousand a month, chocolate that cost two thousand yuan a box still felt a bit extravagant.
Of course, Liu Qing could give something more expensive, but considering that a 500g box costs over two thousand, per pound it was already more than four thousand, which was very pricey for edibles.
Anything more expensive would purely rely on packaging and hype and wouldn’t actually be meant for consumption.
From this, you could tell that wealthy people have their own standards.
"No diagnosis, not even a suspected cause?"
Zhao Heng frowned and said.
Some diseases are very rare, and naturally hard to diagnose if unseen and untreated, but if there isn’t even a suspected direction, then diagnosing the illness becomes extremely challenging.
In clinical settings, two situations are particularly tricky: one is terminal illness, like cancer and genetic diseases, as there’s no cure or specific medication, you can only treat the symptoms, and frankly, patients are just waiting to die.
The other is when all possible tests have been done, yet the cause cannot be determined. This situation is more despairing, as the disease itself remains unclear; how can it be treated?
"They only mentioned it might be a neurosis."
Li Yang said.
If it hadn’t been impossible to diagnose, it wouldn’t have been transferred here. This happens frequently.
Therefore, while the treatment and prospects in this ward are good, dealing daily with patients whom other hospitals are helpless with, and even can’t diagnose, is very stressful. Without skills, high standards, and rich experience, a doctor couldn’t last a day in this ward.
"Can neurosis cause this kind of pain?..."
Zhao Heng said.
"Let’s first inquire about the illness."
After a pause, Zhao Heng added.
"Okay."
Li Yang nodded.
"Where does it hurt?"
Zhao Heng asked the young man lying on the hospital bed who seemed now to be looking vacant, as if devoid of all hope.
Logically, this person seemed to be not even twenty-five years old, and such a look of hopeless despair, as if suffering from a terminal illness, shouldn’t appear on him.
This highlight how much torment this person has suffered from an illness that no hospital could diagnose.
"Doctor... it’s that kind of feeling... it’s always there..."
The young man stammered, speaking of this feeling, despite his face full of pain, he even showed a slight embarrassment and sense of shame.
"That kind of feeling? Which kind?"
Zhao Heng asked.
This young man’s demeanor is rare, especially where does the shame come from?
"Just say it, this is a hospital, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about."
After a pause, Zhao Heng advised the young man again.
It seemed this young man really had something unspeakable.
Maybe in other hospitals before, an undiagnosed condition was due to issues with symptom description?
In clinical practice, sometimes describing symptoms itself can also be a very challenging task.
Because human descriptive vocabulary about sensations is either too limited or too rich, making it hard to comprehend what is being said.
Once, for example, Zhao Heng got a middle school student with a fever, and during questioning, the student told Zhao Heng he felt like he was hovering between ice and fire, experiencing a sensation of seawater and flames intertwining.
Upon hearing that, Zhao Heng was completely baffled.
In the end, after much inquiry, Zhao Heng learned that the student meant he felt hot and cold intermittently.
Another time, Zhao Heng encountered a worker with back pain, unclear where he came from. When Zhao Heng asked where it hurt, he said it felt like a big hammer continuously pounding his back, as if it were about to break.
