People who knew her well were familiar with her fixed breakfast routine: eat one egg, drink about half a carton of milk through a straw, then peel the second egg, without exception.
But this morning, there was one less step.
"Dr. Xu, why did you only bring one egg today?"
Fang Yu had known Xu Qinghe for seven or eight years. Whenever she caught her having breakfast, it was always the standard two eggs.
Bringing only one was so rare that it piqued her curiosity.
Xu Qinghe teased her, "This one is a double-yolk egg."
Fang Yu actually believed her. "No wonder."
Xu Qinghe couldn't help but laugh.
As she was eating the egg, the director walked in.
She wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but she felt that after entering, the director's gaze lingered on her for a while, as if he had something to say to her.
But in the end, he seemed to hold back.
She secretly speculated: the director had originally intended to warn her, to remind her not to argue with the surgery department during the procedure. But considering she had just been publicly praised by a patient's family, bringing honor to the department, he was too embarrassed to dampen her spirits in front of others, so he swallowed his words.
Little did she know, Zhao Mingde had no such intention.
He just wanted to ask her how many surgeries she had scheduled and roughly what time she could get off work.
On second thought, asking her was less reliable than checking with the resident in charge of surgery scheduling.
Xu Qinghe had three hepatobiliary anesthesia cases scheduled today, plus one cardiac valve repair anesthesia.
Seeing it was these two departments, Zhao Mingde finally felt relieved. Xu Qinghe had worked with all the cardiac surgery teams for years, and Director Yin Zhengqian of hepatobiliary surgery was always steady. He no longer had to worry about her getting into an argument today.
Ever since Xu Qinghe started rotating through various departments to make up her surgery quota, he hadn't had a single peaceful day.
After all, being called out by Dean Jiang at meetings was embarrassing.
In her earlier years, when she specialized in cardiac and neurosurgery anesthesia, everything was peaceful.
The surgeries in these two top-tier departments were not only difficult but also long, demanding high physical tolerance from patients.
In other words, if a patient's blood pressure wasn't well controlled, whether in cardiac or neurosurgery, they would proactively stop the surgery without waiting for Xu Qinghe to do it.
That was why she had never had conflicts with these two departments.
But it was entirely different when she moved to basic departments, especially orthopedics, which had a huge volume of surgeries and a very high proportion of emergency procedures.
From the surgeons' perspective, a minor surgery that would be done in an hour or two, or even half an hour—what was there to anesthetize?
But in the anesthesiologists' eyes, there was no such thing as a "minor" anesthesia; the risks were the same.
Thus, the conflict between anesthesia and surgery arose.
Today, he was just waiting for Xu Qinghe to finish her surgeries smoothly, so he could introduce Shi Wenli to her.
Xu Qinghe finished her first anesthesia case without even a moment to drink water. She sent the patient to the recovery room and immediately plunged into the preoperative anesthesia preparation for the second case.
When she pulled up the patient's medical records, she frowned deeply and immediately called the patient's attending physician.
The other party might have been busy; it took a while before answering.
Xu Qinghe tried to speak calmly. "Wasn't it discussed yesterday that the patient's blood pressure is too high and won't go down, so the surgery should be postponed to lower the pressure?"
During the preoperative visit, she had clearly stated that the patient's anesthesia risk was too high.
They had clearly agreed to prioritize other patients first, yet this one was still sent over.
The other party replied, "The patient has been sent over. Director Yin said this patient's surgery can't be delayed any longer; the condition is progressing too fast."
Director Yin was the lead surgeon for this operation.
He was not only the academic leader of hepatobiliary surgery but also the chief of general surgery, with deep seniority.
Since the patient was already in the operating room, Xu Qinghe had no choice but to arrange for a blood pressure recheck first.
Once the monitor was connected, Zhang Xun thought he was seeing things, but he confirmed it.
"Senior, blood pressure is 220/120."
It hadn't been this high before entering the OR.
The patient was a 67-year-old male undergoing biliary surgery.
It was already a high-risk surgery, compounded by a long history of refractory hypertension and multiple underlying cardiopulmonary conditions.
Xu Qinghe didn't dare delay. She immediately administered medication to lower the blood pressure and signaled Zhang Xun to closely monitor the vitals.
She contacted the patient's attending physician again.
The other party said bluntly, "Director Yin just instructed that this surgery must be done today. The condition is severe; the patient and family can't afford to wait. Dr. Xu, can you consider things from the patient's perspective?"
Xu Qinghe replied, "I am considering the patient's perspective. If we force anesthesia in this state, not only might they not survive the surgery, they might not even survive the induction."
The other party said, "Dr. Xu, you anesthesiologists always tend to think of the worst-case scenario."
Xu Qinghe didn't want to argue.
The other party softened their tone. "Give them medication to lower the blood pressure first."