Practicing Medical Skills in a Small Clinic-Chapter 77: Taking the Road Less Traveled

But then again, pharmacies rarely hire doctors, at most they collaborate with a doctor to hold free clinics on weekends to draw in crowds.

The man just now, judging by his demeanor, really didn’t seem like someone from a small clinic or hospital.

Li Jingsheng couldn’t help but wonder, what exactly did this person come for?

To cause trouble? To gather information?

Or perhaps a fellow professional here to "learn" successful experiences?

The Old Street of South City was already a place where the shallow water harbored many turtles and the small temple was filled with demons. With Li Jingsheng and Sunshine Clinic making it to the newspapers, the demon wind in the Old Street of South City blew even stronger.

If he couldn’t figure it out, he decided to leave it be and just watch how things unfolded.

Right now, his main focus had to be on running the clinic and improving his medical skills. He wouldn’t feel at ease until he raised enough for the rent.

Improving medical skills involved both internal and external development.

Internally, the focus was on improving diagnosis for Pulmonary Medicine, internal medicine of the digestive tract, pharmacokinetics, and the doctor’s grade.

Externally, it was currently all about various technical skills.

Then there’s the goal of mastering the bone-setting techniques in Orthopedics.

Mastering orthopedic bone-setting techniques not only could bring additional income to the clinic, but also quickly raise its reputation.

So, he was determined to acquire this skill.

He understood very well that the vast majority of clinics pursued internal medicine development. Many claim to treat everything, while some retired or renowned doctors open their own clinics with specific treatment slogans.

For instance, specializing in treating hemorrhoids, rheumatic arthritis, snake and insect bites, etc.

Li Jingsheng chose to develop surgery because he saw this market was almost blank, and also due to the powerful "attribute panel" he possessed, making it suitable for the "place".

According to the law of natural competition, a niche is either because it’s too difficult or there’s no market for it.

There are multiple reasons why other clinics don’t develop surgery.

Surgery is high risk, prone to incidents.

The construction cost of surgery is high, requiring large investments.

The training period for surgical doctors is long and difficult, but once trained, they can live successfully in hospitals without needing to take such risks to open a clinic for surgeries.

Lastly, there are no patients.

Even though major hospitals have high volumes of surgical outpatient and emergency visits, with plenty of patients, small clinics, and community hospitals barely receive any.

Patients needing surgery, even for a simple external hemorrhoid removal, would choose tertiary hospitals.

Some robust secondary hospitals might get some surgical patients too.

But for small clinics, stitching up three minor injury patients in a month would be sheer luck.

Therefore, the path chosen by Li Jingsheng was destined to be full of thorns and extremely challenging.

However, if he could forge this path, he could stand out and rise above many clinics and grassroots hospitals.

The start of everything is always difficult.

The hardest part is the initial phase.

Making it to the newspapers was an unexpected move that laid a good foundation for him.

Every clinic desires this kind of positive publicity, to establish a decent image.

Unfortunately, such opportunities are rare and hard to come by.

From this perspective, Li Jingsheng should be grateful to that female reporter and photographer.

Such opportunities are hard to come by, even at a cost.

Moreover, they even had the leader from the health administration department speak and summarize, essentially endorsing his small clinic indirectly.

The benefits from this were immense, beyond imagination.

Perhaps even he didn’t fully realize it.

Around 1:20 PM, Li Jingsheng was meticulously compiling medical records for every patient treated that day.

Though writing medical records was laborious, it had many benefits: refining his diagnostic thinking, correcting mistakes in time, and checking for any omissions, facilitating follow-ups.

For instance, Master Liu’s vertical mattress suture needed timely removal; a memo in the medical record ensures it’s remembered during daily checks.

Even though Li Jingsheng’s clinic had been open for over nine months and almost got squeezed to closure by Boss Zhao and other peers, many of his management experiences and advanced thinking were unparalleled by Boss Zhao.

For a private clinic, even keeping a ledger is commendable.

Spending so much time and energy diligently writing medical records, most would call him foolishly overzealous.

"Dr. Li, busy, huh!"

Xie Guiqiu had come again.

"Wow, Brother Qiu is here! Please sit, please sit!"

Seeing this influential figure, Li Jingsheng immediately got up excitedly to greet him.

As he was about to pour water for Xie Guiqiu, Xie Guiqiu waved his hand, "No need to fuss. Didn’t I ask you yesterday to prepare a file of the clinic and your personal details? Is it ready?"

Xie Guiqiu was that kind of genuine person.

He gave the impression that he would do what he said and keep his promises.

If he promised Li Jingsheng something, he’d keep it in mind.

"I prepared it yesterday. If my small clinic can really enter collective procurement, as funny as it sounds to Brother Qiu, then my ancestors’ graves must be smoking!"

Li Jingsheng was very hopeful about this but dared not hold too high expectations.

The difficulty was beyond imagination.

It’s natural for public hospitals to enter collective procurement. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

But for small clinics, private pharmacies, hospitals, entering the collective procurement platform was quite challenging.

Only some developed cities were gradually trialing it, and openness was minimal.

Without some connections, without a certain volume, there’s no point thinking about it.

"Haha, not necessarily, not necessarily. The policy for integrating outpatient coordination pharmacies into the collective procurement platform is in trial; you’re lucky and have caught this bus just in time. Whether you can get on, I can’t guarantee, but let’s submit your details and give it a try. Your small clinic got into the Urban Daily, and Secretary Ye from the health bureau praised this matter, so I think you can at least give it a shot, there’s a slight chance."

Xie Guiqiu had connections and insights far beyond Li Jingsheng’s imagination.

Judging by his tone, it wasn’t just a slight chance but a rather significant one.

Li Jingsheng handed over the prepared documents to Xie Guiqiu.

He opened them to check one by one.

"Not bad, clearly and thoroughly prepared, very good."

Xie Guiqiu couldn’t help but praise his careful and thorough work.

"Remember, you must adhere to medical ethics and law. Don’t make trouble just after I’ve submitted your documents, or it’ll be my face that’s slapped!"

When saying this, Xie Guiqiu’s tone and expression were quite serious.

The effort he was putting into helping Li Jingsheng wasn’t just because of the life-saving assistance Li Jingsheng gave his mother but also because through interactions, he found Li Jingsheng to be upright and worth supporting.

The necessary warnings had to be given in advance.

It wouldn’t do to wait until something happened to address it, as it would be too late by then.

"I can’t promise anything else, but for medical ethics and legal boundaries, even without your instructions, I would never cross them."

Li Jingsheng solemnly made a commitment.

"Work hard. If you can get into collective procurement, that’s ideal because many medicines are unavailable to clinics. If your Sunshine Clinic gets into collective procurement, you’ll have a pharmaceutical advantage over other clinics. Not to mention the prices. If it doesn’t go through, don’t be discouraged. If the trial goes well, entry standards will gradually relax."

After speaking, Xie Guiqiu hurried off with the documents.

Li Jingsheng intended to thank him for the medicine procurement account at Best Medicine but ended up just keeping the gratitude inside.

He wondered what exactly this Brother Qiu did?

With more interactions in the future, he would surely learn what Brother Qiu was up to.