Great Doctor Ling Ran

“Patient Five, please come in,” Zuo Cidian called out. The old man who was resting with his eyes closed and his family patients who came afterward immediately rose and entered the consultation room.

There was a pot of devil’s ivy hanging on the left side of the wall of the consultation room. On the right side, a pot of spider plants was hung. Such a lively sight was hard to come by in the hospital.

Ling Ran sat behind his office desk. He looked young and handsome as if he had just stepped out from a movie.

As his son had forgone sleep and queued up for him early in the morning, the old man treasured this opportunity very much. He quickly sat down and said, “Good morning, Doctor Ling. I’ve received consultation in a hospital near my home and was diagnosed with hepatolithiasis. I’ve also gone for a few follow-up visits and even got admitted to the hospital. But I’ve been busy, so I’ve not received surgery yet. I’m feeling sick again now, and I am not feeling better even after receiving a fluid transfusion. So, I decided to come and see you. If there’s really no other way, I’m thinking of just receiving surgery…”

The old man was speaking a little quickly, and this was normal among patients. As all the doctors nowadays were very busy, if patients spoke too slowly, the doctors would cut them off after they had only managed to utter a few sentences. Because of this, the doctors might not have a full understanding of their situation.

Ling Ran flipped open the scans that the old man brought along and started reading them.

As the Medical Imaging Departments in hospitals nowadays were perpetually crowded, many doctors of hospitals in the league of Yun Hua Hospital were not so willing to order auxiliary examinations. This was because the patients would have to spend a long time queueing up, and the waiting time was long. Hence, they preferred to read the scans that patients brought along first. Even though they were a little outdated, the doctors could also obtain relevant information from there.

Of course, in the end, they would have to order auxiliary examinations for two reasons. Firstly, the scans that patients brought along were updated. Secondly, doctors did not trust doctors from other hospitals.

On some level, there was not really any reason to trust doctors from other hospitals either. There was a whole heap of medical imaging specialists who often got things wrong or did not do their jobs well while doing scans.

Ling Ran liked to read scans by himself. As he possessed the Master Level MRI Scan skill, it was much more effective for him to read thousands of raw scans compared with a single processed scan. Of course, this was also because Ling Ran did not have trust in most medical imaging specialists. Surgeons never had much trust for anyone.

“Was this scan from a month ago?” Ling Ran put aside the processed scan and looked at the patient and his family members.

The old man nodded furiously. “We live near Huayang County, and I usually receive conservative treatment in the county hospital…”

“Your name’s Wang Zhong, isn’t it?” Ling Ran glanced at the name at the corner of the scan.

“Yes. Zhong as in Z-H-O-N-G.”

“Let’s take another CT scan. I’ll order one for you.” As Ling Ran spoke, Zuo Cidian who was standing beside him started typing away.

Wang Zhong the old man hesitated for a moment and asked in a low voice, “Haven’t I just received the scan?”

“It’s been a month, so the disease might have progressed into a new stage,” Ling Ran answered Wang Zhong’s question.

“Okay,” the old man said and did not say anything else. When Zuo Cidian heard this, he quietly opened the electronic medical record that Ling Ran had written and taken a look at it. As expected, there was a comment: Signs of CA.

“CA” was the abbreviation for cancer. It was used in medical records because not only was it short and simple enough, but the doctors could also prevent the patients from immediately figuring out what was going on.

In Chinese Hospitals, doctors never notified their patients immediately about terminal illnesses. Instead, they would first discuss things with the patients’ family members.

Zuo Cidian glanced at the patient’s son, who was sitting beside the patient. After Ling Ran was done examining the patient, he immediately followed Ling Ran.

“Please wait for a moment.” Zuo Cidian stood in the patient’s way and said, “Do take a quick rest. As for you, please come with me.”

Zuo Cidian did not speak much or give any extra explanation. He led Wang Zhong’s eldest son to Ling Ran’s office. He then glanced at Ling Ran and said, “Doctor Ling, I have brought the patient’s family member over.”

Ling Ran hummed in acknowledgment and said, “Go ahead and talk to him.”

“Alright.” This was not out of Zuo Cidian’s expectations. He turned and said to Wang Zhong’s eldest son, who was standing opposite him and wearing a confused expression, “According to the CT scan that you guys brought along, there is a space-occupying lesion in your father’s liver.”

“Space-occupying lesion?” Wang Zhong’s eldest son hesitated for a moment. He seemed to have an idea of what was going on but was too afraid to hear more about it.

Zuo Cidian studied the other party’s expression closely and knew that he understood what was being said. He could not help but sigh internally and continued, “We can try to see things positively now, as it might be benign. But before the surgery, everything is up in the air.”

“What happens if it isn’t benign?”

“There would be a high chance that it’s a malignant tumor, which means that he has cancer.” Zuo Cidian had been beating around the bush for more than ten seconds, and he decided to stop doing so.

The man opposite him trembled visibly. He repeated, “Cancer?”

Zuo Cidian nodded solemnly.

“Can… Can…” His lips trembled a few times, but in the end, he swallowed his words.

Both Ling Ran and Zuo Cidian did not press on.

This was a matter of life and death. In hospitals, this was the kind of news that doctors relayed to patients and their family members with the most patience.

Not a single doctor in the world was confident enough that he could cure a patient’s cancer. Because of this, their attitudes softened.

In comparison, while diseases like appendicitis could also cause death, perhaps even kill the patient even faster than cancer, as doctors could easily cure those diseases, they adopted a much more nonchalant attitude when communicating with patients suffering from those diseases.

“What… what do we do now?” The man asked in a soft voice.

Zuo Cidian said in a soft voice, “We’ll wait for the CT scan to see if the volume of the space-occupying lesion has increased. If it is confirmed that the space-occupying lesion had grown bigger, we suggest that your father receives surgery as soon as possible…”

“Can I ask Doctor Ling to operate on my father?” The man suddenly raised his head.

Zuo Cidian shook his head. “Doctor Ling basically doesn’t operate on patients with cancer.”

“Why?”

“We can recommend another doctor for you…”

“I want Doctor Ling to operate on me!” Someone opened the door. It turned out that Wang Zhong the old man had been eavesdropping behind the door all along. Right now, his voice was loud and clear, and his gaze was sharp.

Zuo Cidian sort of regretted not bringing the patient’s son to the meeting room designated for such conversations. However, due to the situation at hand, he had no time to blame himself. First of all, Zuo Cidian walked over to the office desk and stood beside Ling Ran to protect him. He then said, “Sir, you’re not really in the pink of health now, and it is not a question of who is going to operate on you. There are also certain cancer patients who don’t need surgery or are not suited to receive surgery. Let’s get all the necessary examinations done first before we decide on a treatment plan.”

“I know that Doctor Ling operates on patients with liver cancer.” Wang Zhong, though, ignored what Zuo Cidian said. He looked at Ling Ran and said, “I’ve read a news report about you before. You have even operated on an academician with liver cancer…”

“Surgery is not a guaranteed solution for cancer.” When Ling Ran heard this, he decided not to hide things anymore. He said, “From what I see from the CT scan you brought, the space-occupying lesion on your liver is not located in a good position, so removal via surgery would be difficult. Even if we succeed at completely removing it, there would still be a very high chance of recurrence…”

Wang Zhong gazed at Ling Ran, and there was hope in his eyes. However, he did not manage to utter a single word, as if every single ounce of energy had been sucked out of his body.

Ling Ran thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Alright, then. If you guys are sure of your decision, we’ll get you admitted to the hospital in preparation for the surgery.”

Ling Ran was capable of operating on patients with liver cancer, as hepatectomy can be applied to both normal tissues and cancerous tissues. Ling Ran also knew how to perform lymphadenectomy, which was the most important skill a cancer surgeon needed to possess.

However, Master Level or even Perfect Level skills could not guarantee the survival rate of a cancer patient.

Ling Ran merely hated this kind of surgery as a whole. But Ling Ran was not strongly against operating on individual cancer patients.

Zuo Cidian had a rough idea of what was on Ling Ran’s mind right now. He merely added, “There are many kinds of liver cancer, and the locations of the tumor also differ. You guys will have to go through some examinations first before the next step can be decided.”

Wang Zhong and his son nodded quietly. At that very moment, both of them lost their desire to speak.