Although it was the Lantern Festival, it was not a legal holiday, and it was a Tuesday. Hospitals were open all year round.
At the Third People's Hospital of Nanxiang City, the emergency department was crowded. Patients and their families filled the waiting hall, and the electronic system kept ringing.
There was a superstition in the hospital that the medical staff should not raise flags at night, saying things like "I don't seem to be busy tonight" or "I'm quite free tonight". If someone in the department said that, something would happen soon and they would be busy.
There was once an experiment conducted by a foreign organization. They selected different departments in different hospitals and set up two groups. The workload was basically the same. One group raised flags, and the other group did not raise flags. The results showed that the group that raised flags did become busier, but it was not clear what kind of abnormal force caused it.
However, in the emergency department, even if they did not raise flags, the medical staff were still very busy.
It was especially so for the Pediatrics Department of the Emergency Department. They had not stopped since evening.
"We'll observe him after the injection." One of the attending doctors on duty, Liu Guolin, had just finished treating a seven-year-old boy with a fever of 38.3 degrees.
In fact, he did not recommend giving the patient an injection to reduce the fever. A child's fever of 38.3 degrees Celsius was just a low-grade fever. This patient did not have any symptoms such as coughing or spitting. His condition was very mild. In this case, if the patient were to use an ice pack to lower the temperature, take some antipyretic and analgesic drugs, and drink more water, the fever would usually go down very quickly. If the fever did not go down, and it worsened to medium to high fever, then it would not be too late to consider the injection.
The injection was not a treasure. There were too many side effects. Symptoms such as anaphylactic shock were mild, and in serious cases, it could even lead to death.
Although it was not a big problem to do a skin test first, any professional doctor would not recommend the injection.
However, the little boy's parents were more agitated and took the initiative to ask for the injection. They even urged him to hurry up and not delay the child's condition.
Due to the complicated doctor-patient relationship environment and the lessons learned in the past few years, Liu Guolin followed their wishes.
"Sigh." When the parents walked out of the emergency room with the child, Liu Guolin shook his head and sighed. "Xiong parents."
Doctors often had such complaints in private. Some Chinese patients and their family members were too opinionated. They would rather believe in their own unprofessional knowledge or search on the internet than believe in doctors. Some even treated doctors as enemies.
They said that medical treatment was expensive and that there were rebates, but they did not understand who was in charge of the pricing and procurement of drugs. Were those things doctors had the final say?
The most doctors with conscience could do was to prescribe a kind of medicine to the patient. The production process and effect of imported medicine and domestic medicine were exactly the same. It was not an advanced medicine, but the imported medicine cost 100 RMB, while the domestic medicine cost 30 RMB. At this time, they could prescribe domestic medicine to the patient.
However, this would reduce the department's income, and his own bonus would also be reduced. Some department directors would even be dissatisfied and say that they would hire imported doctors next time.
There were two reasons, and revenue was only one of them.
Another reason was that once something went wrong, the patient's family members would often scold him for not using imported medicine. What are you doing? Did you get a commission from the local medicine company?
Therefore, in the end, if anything happened, the doctor would still be the one to take the blame, regardless of whether he had a conscience or not.
In the pediatrics department, especially the pediatrics department, it was usually difficult for children to clearly describe their own illness. Every child was their parents' flesh and blood. When they were not crying, the parents could still be calm, but if they were wailing in pain, the parents could easily lose their minds … The pediatrics department was a very complicated environment.
Liu Guolin had been a doctor for five years after he graduated. In the beginning, he would still explain to his parents and even argue for what was right. Now, most of the time, he would just say, "Okay, if you want an injection, then let's do it …" He also knew that he was being socialized to become the kind of person he used to hate, but sometimes, there was really no other way …
He was not Gu Jun, nor was he a Phecda personnel. He was just a powerless, young doctor. He had to take care of himself first.
Ever since he was slapped by an agitated mother, Liu Guolin did not want to cause any more trouble …
Moreover, he was on the night shift, and he would get off work at midnight. He did not want to cause trouble at this time.
At this time, Liu Guolin had just taken off his mask and took a sip of water from his thermos flask when the next patient came in. A pair of parents in their early thirties walked into the emergency room worriedly with a little girl of about five or six years old.
"Hurry up and call Doctor Liu." The mother nudged the little girl, and the little girl greeted politely, "Hello, Doctor Niu."
"Good, good evening." Liu Guolin looked at the little girl's father's medical record. This child was six years old, and she did not have a history of major illnesses. This time, it was not a common pediatric emergency such as a cold, fever, or abdominal pain. Now, looking at the patient, she looked very normal. She did not cry, throw a tantrum, or complain of pain. Liu Guolin asked about the diagnosis, "What's wrong?"
The mother's face was bitter, and her tone was rather agitated. "Doctor Liu, I don't know what's wrong with my daughter tonight. She kept blinking her eyes, and sometimes she wrinkled her nose and mouth. Something doesn't seem right, but the strangest thing is, when I just coaxed her to sleep, she suddenly made a strange sound … I can't learn it, it was very strange …"
"We were all scared." The father was also very nervous. "That kind of sound can't be made by a naughty child. Doctor Liu, what's the problem?"
"Oh, yes." Liu Guolin nodded and looked at the little girl's normal expression. He shone the flashlight into her eyes, and then looked at her mouth and throat.
There was no abnormality in her mouth, there was no inflammation of her tonsils, and the reaction of her eyes to light was normal. Everything was normal.
Liu Guolin had a preliminary judgment in his heart. This should be one of those cases where the parents were overly nervous. The child was fine, but she was just throwing a tantrum, or there was only a minor injury, and the parents were so anxious that they brought the child to the hospital for emergency treatment.
But of course, he would not say this out loud. Instead, he continued to ask the patient. The girl's mother said that the symptoms of blinking only appeared today, and it was especially frequent at night. She also made that strange sound, but for now, she had only made it once.
"Little girl, your mother said that you keep blinking today. What's wrong, are you not feeling well?"
Liu Guolin asked the six-year-old patient. He made his voice sound gentler, or some patients of this age would not cooperate.
"Hmm …" The little girl was a little shy, and she shook her head. "I just want to blink."
"Then you don't want to blink now?" Liu Guolin asked with a smile. It had been three minutes since they came in, and the little girl did not blink very much.
"I don't want to blink now." The little girl nodded.
"Then … is it like scratching an itch?" Liu Guolin thought about it. "When it's itchy, you want to scratch it, and when it's not itchy, you don't need to scratch it."
"Yes!" The little girl agreed with this statement. Her parents looked at each other, still very nervous, not understanding what this meant.
"Then the sound you make, is it like that?" Liu Guolin asked again. "Like sneezing, you want to sneeze, so you make a sound."
The little girl nodded again.
"Then can you resist it?" Liu Guolin asked. "When you want to blink and want to make a sound, can you resist it?"
"I don't know …" The little girl shook her head this time and looked at her parents. "I don't want that … I don't know."
After asking this question, Liu Guolin had basically confirmed his previous judgment. He picked up the pen and scribbled a few words on the medical record.
This child is fine, she's probably throwing a tantrum to scare her parents. He looked at the father and felt that the father was calmer, so he asked the mother to take the child out first, and then he organized his speech. He had to be careful not to provoke the other party while saying the diagnosis.
"The child should be fine." Liu Guolin said slowly, stopping at the first sign of something wrong. "At her age, children will use this kind of means to gain the attention of their parents. You should pay attention to her emotions, and let her rest well when you go back …"
"Doctor Liu!" The father suddenly became agitated, even more agitated than the mother just now. His square face was a little red. "It's not this kind of problem! My daughter is usually very obedient, and our family is very harmonious. She won't make such a fuss, and that sound is really very strange. It doesn't sound like a human at all … Doctor Liu, isn't there that supernatural power now? Could this be that kind of thing … "
Liu Guolin muttered in his heart, I'm not a doctor with Phecda, even if it's supernatural power, I can't see it.
But he really didn't think so. The little girl was so healthy, it was just the parents' concern that made them confused.
"Erm." Liu Guolin glanced at the patient's name, Guo Qinying.
"Mr. Guo, don't panic, I'm not saying that the child is making a fuss. She was probably just joking with you but seeing how anxious you are, she didn't dare to say it out loud lest she gets scolded. We'll observe her for now, please don't blame her. If she continues to show the same symptoms, we'll see what happens. "
"But …" Mr. Guo was still worried, "But that strange sound is really scary … It sounds like she's repeating two words, like she's calling for something."
Liu Guolin wanted to laugh. Some parents really had a wild imagination. Especially after the introduction of Phecda, some parents could even become scriptwriters. When a child coughed, they were afraid it was legionella pneumonia. When a child gritted their teeth in their sleep, they were afraid it was an evil spirit.
However, some children were especially cunning. To avoid going to school or to avoid scolding, they would sometimes make up stories like they were sick. Some of them were so fake that no parents would believe them but now, they had to come to the hospital to make a fuss.
The work of these basic doctors was getting more and more difficult.
"Mr. Guo, why don't you call the Phecda hotline? If it's really related to supernatural forces, then I can't do anything about it. "
Liu Guolin would not say that it had nothing to do with supernatural forces. He had been taught this by his seniors and he had experienced it himself. A doctor could not say things like that.
Every conclusion had to be preceded by a 'maybe', 'maybe', 'consider', 'should' … that was how doctors talked.
"Oh …" Mr. Guo scratched his head, he was hesitant.
Thankfully, this Mr. Guo was a reasonable person. He did not continue to make a fuss but left the room with the patient's record.
Liu Guolin's judgment of people was not wrong. After hearing what her husband said, Mrs. Guo walked into the emergency room again. She asked if he could prescribe some anti-inflammatory drugs or give her an injection. At the very least, he should do something. Liu Guolin was speechless. Why would he prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs?
In the end, Mrs. Guo was persuaded to leave by her husband.
The couple stayed at the waiting hall with their daughter to observe her condition. Little Qin Ying did not show any symptoms so they did not do anything.
At midnight, Liu Guolin handed over his work to his colleague. He removed his white coat and returned to the hospital hostel to sleep.
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