My Medical Skills Give Me Experience Points

Director Shang was clearly aware of Zhou Can's deeds.

No wonder he had Zhou Can earmarked in advance.

"Hehe, rumors are not to be believed! I just happened to be there and lent a hand; I can't really talk about earning any great merits. The rescue of the patient with gastrointestinal bleeding today was also completed under the guidance of Dr. Xia, Director Jia of General Surgery, and others."

Zhou Can did not dare take all the credit for himself.

Being low-key and modest is his consistent style of conduct.

Empty fame and material gain truly don't matter to him.

Saving patients and earning medical experience points, that is what he values most.

"The young man is neither arrogant nor impatient, quite commendable," Director Shang praised, then turned to Xia Ping. "Old Xia, it's very fortunate that the patient was rescued today. You must take this incident as a warning, learn from it, and prevent similar safety incidents from happening again."

Director Shang gave a serious admonition.

That faint sense of authority directly intimidated Xia Ping, who didn't even dare to raise his head.

"I will reflect profoundly and ensure that this kind of incident doesn't happen again. Immediately after the surgery, I conducted a check among the patients under my responsibility."

When someone makes a mistake, they must have a correct attitude in acknowledging it.

Xia Ping sincerely accepted the criticism and immediately self-examined and self-corrected after the surgery.

This attitude towards acknowledging one's faults is indeed commendable.

Director Shang's expression eased quite a bit.

"This incident has also been a profound lesson for our department. Notify all the doctors in the department to have a morning meeting tomorrow. Vice Director Ye has been emphasizing medical safety recently; we cannot afford to act recklessly."

Being a good department head is not easy.

You must implement policies from above while also taking the opportunity to conduct cautionary education within the department. Moreover, you have to consider the department's performance.

There are too many things to worry about.

Therefore, many chief physicians are reluctant to serve as department heads, as it takes up a lot of their time and energy.

Having dealt with the safety incident, Director Shang's gaze returned to Zhou Can.

"Dr. Zhou, this is your first rotation in the Internal Medicine Department, right?"

"Yes!"

Zhou Can stood up to answer.

"Sit down, sit down. Once you're in our department, we're family. There's no need for such formality. We don't have many complicated rules here," Director Shang quickly gestured with his hand for Zhou Can to sit and not to stand while speaking.

Doctors in the Internal Medicine tend to have gentle personalities.

This might be related to the nature of their work.

"Do you know what is important in Internal Medicine?" Director Shang asked him calmly.

"Pharmacology and pathology," Zhou Can answered.

"More accurately, Internal Medicine values the stable functioning of body systems. The respiratory and digestive systems are the primary supports of human life. Many people liken blood to the gasoline of a car, which is not quite appropriate. Because it's the oxygen and food that truly provide the energy for human survival. They are the real 'gasoline.'"

Each doctor has different insights into the human body and life. Brought to you by the folks at MV|LEMPYR.

The Digestive Department values research in its own field.

They are also more inclined to emphasize the importance of the digestive system.

Director Shang's theory is quite unique.

At least, Zhou Can had never heard it before.

"To be more precise, during the combustion in a car's engine, oxygen exists separately in the air, not as part of the gasoline. Hence, food is the real 'gasoline' for the human body's operation."

After listening, Zhou Can pondered for a moment and then nodded in agreement.

What is medical rationale?

Something that makes sense and is supported by facts is medical rationale.

Director Shang told Zhou Can that food is the real 'gasoline' for the body's operation, and there was really no way to refute it.

Because it made sense.

"Internal Medicine is not truly about pharmacology or pathology, but about the operational mechanisms of the human body. When we detect issues with these mechanisms, we use drugs or surgical interventions to assist a failing system in resuming function, while simultaneously ensuring that we do not disrupt the functioning of other systems. This is the ultimate realm of medication use."

An expert's move reveals if they truly know their craft or not.

Zhou Can listened to Director Shang's words and deeply agreed.

To forsake multiple offers from surgical departments and insist on joining Internal Medicine to complete his standardized training seemed to be a very wise decision.

Even more fortunately, he encountered an extremely talented teacher upon entering Digestive Internal Medicine.

Director Shang's theories provided him with an entirely new understanding of the human body's life mechanisms and the effects of drugs.

Previously, he thought drugs were simply for curing diseases, right?

He had never deeply contemplated the true role and significance of medication in treatment.

"How do you understand the term 'symptomatic treatment'?"

The first lesson Director Shang gave him would probably leave an extremely profound impression.

"It means treating patients according to their symptoms!"

In his mind, Zhou Can secretly wondered, could there be a deeper explanation?

It's said that Internal Medicine is the origin of medical science, and that internists are masters of medical theory and medication use. Through his brief exchange with Director Shang, he began to preliminarily accept this viewpoint.

In surgery, the most learned aspects are how to perform operations and how to locate lesions based on examination results.

Internal Medicine, it seems, is quite different from what he had imagined.

"So, for abdominal pain, you give painkillers to stop the pain. For respiratory failure, you use a ventilator to assist the patient's breathing. For constipation and dry stools, you administer an enema to help the patient expel feces?"

Director Shang continued to ask leisurely.

"Yes, just like that. Treating patients based on their symptoms."

Zhou Can nodded.

"Then I'll tell you, in Internal Medicine, symptomatic treatment is a mistake. Can you accept that?" Director Shang seemed to be prepared to thoroughly overturn Zhou Can's understanding of medicine.

Or rather, to shatter his previous definition of medical science and have him relearn it all over again.

Before, what he knew of medicine was just the surface; now he was being introduced to the essence of medicine.

"Haha, this is a bit hard to accept. In school, our teachers often taught us to treat symptoms. During clinical internships and standardized training, mentoring teachers and senior doctors also taught us to treat symptoms. You're telling me now that this is wrong, which I truly find hard to accept."

Zhou Can laughed and shook his head.

He was curious to see how Director Shang would flip his medical understanding on its head today.

Excitement began to surge within him instead.

The hall of medical science, it turns out, is not singular.

Beyond the outer hall, there is the inner sanctum.

"Symptomatic treatment is actually just addressing the symptoms, not the root cause, and is a set of practices praised by Western medicine. Our Chinese Internal Medicine, thanks to Chinese medicine and especially the Inner Canon of Huangdi, is somewhat different from foreign Internal Medicine. What I want to teach you today is that treating the disease symptomatically is both right and wrong."

Director Shang didn't care about Zhou Can's astonished expression and kept speaking.

"Internal Medicine advocates treatment based on the cause, first identifying the pathological mechanism to find the true cause of illness, and then correcting the malfunctioning system to restore normal function. Symptomatic treatment is like treating only the head when it hurts, or only the foot when it aches. But treating based on the cause may require treating the foot for a headache, aiming straight at the root of pathology. Internal Medicine emphasizes treating the root cause, or treating both symptoms and root causes."

This novel therapeutic theory seemed to Zhou Can as if he were opening a new door to the world of medicine.

The medical world he saw became different.

More accurately, it was as if he had been standing at a low point looking out, seeing only part of the scenery. Now, having encountered Internal Medicine, it's like climbing to the peak, where he can survey the entire landscape.

To see further and more comprehensively.

"What you're saying really overturns my understanding of medicine, but it also makes so much sense to me. Wow, Internal Medicine is so amazing."

Zhou Can said this, somewhat exaggerating.

He also meant to enliven the atmosphere.

"Haha, there's much more to the wonders of Internal Medicine! Digestive Internal Medicine is just one part of the many departments within Internal Medicine. The real heavyweights are departments like Neurology Department and Cardiovascular Internal Medicine; when you get there, you can learn even more."

Director Shang laughed heartily.

The other doctors in the office also smiled in amusement.