The Enhanced Doctor

(Thanks to mangmangliu and Bufujuedui for the monthly ticket encouragement)

"Good guy, that’s got some guts."

Wang Chao gave a thumbs up.

"This is what they call driving ducks onto the perch. Such a simple surgery and I still took three and a half hours. Really gives you a headache." Liu Banxia said.

"Can you not be so tsundere? I see a lot of people’s surgery times are around four hours. You, old man, finished your first time on the table this neatly, just be content." Wang Chao said helplessly.

"I didn’t go home yesterday, and today I’m late again. Did Qiaoqiao call?" Liu Banxia asked.

Wang Chao shook his head blankly. "But you’ll have to wait a bit before going home. The director is probably going to praise you, he’s waiting for you in the office."

"And you didn’t say that earlier."

Liu Banxia tossed the line over his shoulder and trotted into Zhou Shuwen’s office.

"Looks like the surgery went very well. That puts my mind at ease. We can do more of these in the future." Zhou Shuwen said with a smile.

"Teacher, why didn’t you come over to take a look? I only thought of you after I finished, you must have been done long ago on your side." Liu Banxia said.

"What’s there to look at? You didn’t have anyone keep coming to find me, that means the surgery went smoothly. How do you feel?" Zhou Shuwen asked.

"To quote Xu Yino and Liu Yiqing, it was ’tiptoeing carefully, walking on thin ice.’" Liu Banxia said frankly.

"During the operation, I’d carefully size things up and only move my hands after I’d reconstructed the next steps in my head. So the whole surgery wasn’t smooth at all, and it took quite a lot of time."

"That’s already very good. After all, it’s your first time doing surgery on a neonate." Zhou Shuwen nodded with a smile.

"You can put more work into this area in the future. My schedule is pretty packed, I don’t have that much time. And a lot of neonatal surgeries really can’t be delayed. You need to pay extra attention to that."

"Teacher, I’m just afraid I won’t have enough time." Liu Banxia said, a bit guilty.

He knew that while he’d been upping the difficulty for the six little ones, Zhou Shuwen was also upping the difficulty for him. The next direction was pediatric general surgery.

Don’t look at the fact that he’d just done a neonatal surgery today—deep down he was still pretty intimidated.

Surgeries on children and neonates aren’t easy. Every step has to be done with extreme care. Take today’s case: even once he gets proficient, he doesn’t feel confident he can finish it within three hours.

After all, a neonate’s internal organs are too delicate; the slightest carelessness could cause harm.

"Time, well, if you squeeze it a bit there’ll always be some." Zhou Shuwen said casually.

"The Chief Director has already talked to Third Hospital. When you don’t have surgeries, you can go over there to observe. They’re basically similar, but there are some handling tricks."

"They won’t patiently teach you step by step how to do things. After all, you’re just tagging along for an observership. How much you learn—that’s up to you to grasp."

"Okay, don’t worry." Liu Banxia nodded vigorously.

To use a buzz phrase, this is called ’there’s no retreat.’

The Chief Director has already put his face on the line. Whether he’s willing or not, he has to conquer pediatric general surgery.

And don’t underestimate this observership opportunity. They’re not his own interns—why should they let him watch?

"Alright, pack up and hurry home. These two days have been exhausting enough." Zhou Shuwen said.

When Liu Banxia walked out, he felt a heavy weight in his heart.

"What’s up, what’s up?" Wang Chao leaned over.

"I’m going to be busy from now on. I still have to find time to go to Third Hospital and observe surgeries." Liu Banxia said.

"Awesome, and it’s even the PLUS version." Wang Chao gave a thumbs up.

Just from that one sentence, he knew exactly what it meant.

Even if Liu Banxia finds it exhausting, getting resources like this is not easy.

It means Liu Banxia is finally going to tackle pediatric general surgery, and with institutional support behind him.

"Sigh... enough talk, I need to hurry home." Liu Banxia waved his hand and rushed off to change clothes.

This time technically wasn’t an on-call shift, but it was basically the same; he’d been away from home quite a long time.

There was one upside, though—by the time he got out today, the roads weren’t so jammed anymore.

"Good guy, if you didn’t come back now we were going to start eating without you. You’ve starved Qing Kewa half to death."

When he rushed home, Qiaoqiao said with a laugh.

"I really am very hungry. Didn’t you say this is that famous pig’s trotter and smoked chicken? I want to eat." Qing Kewa said.

"You’ve got to eat when it’s time to eat. I did a neonatal surgery this afternoon, so it held me up a bit," Liu Banxia said.

"Oh my god, surgery right after the baby’s born? Can they even handle that?" Qiaoqiao asked in shock.

"Whether they can or not, they have to. Congenital jejunal atresia. If you don’t operate and cut out the blocked segment, the baby can’t be saved," Liu Banxia said.

"Sigh... I’m really so grateful our two kids don’t have any problems. Think about that baby you operated on—how heartbroken must his parents be," Qiaoqiao said, moved.

"There’s really no way around it. The incidence of neonatal jejunal atresia is actually quite high; right now it’s roughly one case for every two thousand newborns," Liu Banxia said.

"Some newborns are in pretty poor condition; you have to do a stoma first and then wait for their bodies to grow a bit before you can do the second surgery."

"Right, it’s also because of this that the Chief Director and Teacher Zhou told me my next step should be to focus on pediatric general surgery. I’ll probably be even busier in the future, and my time will be hard to control."

"I thought it was something really serious, and it’s just that?" Qiaoqiao curled her lip.

"I’ve never counted on you coming home on time every day anyway. As long as it’s around this time, we’ll just eat. I actually think it’s great—doing surgery for little babies, helping them grow better."

"Just think about it: what can babies do? It’s not like their illness comes from bad lifestyle habits. These are diseases they’re born with in the womb, and they need to be treated properly."

"Okay, I’ll wash up first and then we can eat," Liu Banxia said with a smile, nodding.

He still felt pretty guilty inside, but just like before, Qiaoqiao was giving him full support this time too.

"Qiao, pediatric surgery is really difficult. Dr. Liu is amazing," Qing Kewa said, giving a thumbs-up.

But right after she finished talking, her eyes stayed fixed on the pig’s trotters on the table. Compared with Liu Banxia’s pediatric surgery, the trotters were clearly more attractive.

Qiaoqiao was pleased as well. She’d heard Liu Banxia talk about this before and knew he had these plans, he just hadn’t put them into action.

Back then, what she understood was doing surgery for older kids, not operating on newborn babies like she was hearing now.

Thinking about what her own two babies were like right after they were born, she knew this kind of operation had to be really impressive.

Just like she’d said, she would give Liu Banxia her full support on this. Life is hard for newborns—sick as soon as they come into the world, maybe even life-threatening—and someone has to step up to treat them.

When Liu Banxia finished washing up and came out, he wanted to go over and play with his daughter and son for a bit, but Qiaoqiao stopped him.

The two little ones were playing happily with Tang Dou’s family right now. If he went over, they’d just keep clinging to him and he wouldn’t even get to eat in peace.

"If you’re getting into this kind of surgery, who are you going to train to take over later?" Qiaoqiao asked.

Liu Banxia shook his head. "That’s really hard to say. When it comes to pediatric surgery, the whole bunch is a bit resistant. I had Liu Yiqing and Xu Yino try their hand at it today, and both of them were ridiculously nervous."

"If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll look among the new interns. Anyone who’s confident about working in pediatrics will have policy support anyway."

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Sigh... your hospital’s actually pretty complicated. Right now I’ve only got one wish: that these two little ones never get seriously ill. It’s fine if they kick up a fuss, as long as they don’t get sick. That’s the best," Qiaoqiao said with a sigh.

Before she became a mom, she never took any of this to heart. Even if she heard about some kid being sick and staying in the hospital for ages without getting better, she’d just listen and move on.

But now she cares a lot about these things.

It’s because once she became a mom, anything involving babies makes her think of their two at home.

"Our two can eat, can sleep, can make trouble; they’re sturdy as can be," Peng Xiuqin said with a smile.

"When Banxia was little he wasn’t as robust as they are, and he was a handful too. He even had whooping cough once—coughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath—and we had to treat it for a long time."

"Mom, I had a time like that?" Liu Banxia asked curiously.

"Of course you did. The medicine didn’t help much, and your dad and I were worried sick," Peng Xiuqin said.

"Back then it wasn’t like now, with so many vaccines. Babies today are actually pretty fortunate. As long as you’re careful in looking after them, generally nothing major happens."

"In the old days, lots of kids died young. A bit of illness or bad luck and the child was gone. That was real heartbreak—some people couldn’t handle it and went crazy."

"Looks like we really are living in good times. Qing Kewa, you eat like this and you’re really not afraid of getting fat?" Qiaoqiao asked, watching her gnaw on a pig’s trotter.

"I’m not. When I’m back home, I eat even more meat than this," Qing Kewa said quickly, then went right back to gnawing.

"I guess she’ll be fine, she won’t end up like a Russia auntie," Liu Banxia joked.

"No way, I have to keep an eye on her weight," Qiaoqiao said, waving her little fist.

"She’s the godmother of our two babies. When we get the chance, I’ll take the kids to visit her and play, and you can focus on your work at the hospital."

Liu Banxia could only nod, because he knew that the honeymoon trip he’d promised Qiaoqiao would probably be postponed yet again.

He was already busy, and now with pediatric general surgery research added in, busy was going to get even busier.

And this wasn’t the kind of busy that lasts a few months—it would take at least a year or two at the fastest.