After sterilization and draping, Zhang Xun remained silent, afraid of distracting his senior sister during the puncture.
Xu Qinghe repeatedly pressed on the old man's back, searching for the gap.
After precise localization, the needle tip pierced the skin and met obvious resistance.
Relying on feel, she slightly adjusted the angle.
"Uncle, do you feel an electric shock in your legs?" she asked.
The old man replied, "No. Doctor, go ahead and stick it in; it doesn't hurt!"
Zhang Xun kept his eyes on the monitor, tracking the patient's blood pressure and heart rate.
When he looked back at his senior sister, cerebrospinal fluid was already flowing out smoothly. The puncture succeeded on the first attempt, and the blood pressure and heart rate fluctuated only slightly.
The entire surgery lasted just over an hour.
After the operation, thinking about how the old man had been worried that anesthesia would make him stupid, Xu Qinghe asked with a slight smile, "Uncle, do you still recognize me?"
The old man nodded slowly.
Once the patient was sent to the recovery room, Xu Qinghe immediately prepared for the next surgery.
By the time the second surgery ended, it was already noon.
Since it was a continuous surgery schedule with no break, Zhang Xun went to eat first. After hastily finishing his lunch, he rushed back to relieve her for her meal.
It was right at the peak of lunchtime, and the cafeteria was full of people.
The surgical center had over eighty operating rooms, with at least four to five hundred medical staff on duty every day.
Even with staggered meal times, a quick glance showed most tables were nearly full.
Xu Qinghe had grown numb to the cafeteria food and grabbed two random dishes.
Everyone wore the same scrubs—green or blue—and identical surgical caps. Spotting acquaintances at a glance was hard, and she had limited time to eat anyway. She didn't bother looking for someone to sit with and found the nearest empty seat.
Shortly after she sat down, Shi Wenli also came down from surgery to the cafeteria.
He could pick her out from the sea of green scrubs thanks to her surgical cap—today it was dark blue with little bears.
Xu Qinghe was looking down at her phone, reading group messages while eating, and didn't notice Shi Wenli.
In the work group, several senior attending physicians were discussing the assignments for anesthesia teams.
Over the past few years, they had participated in various types of anesthesia and completed systematic rotations through all subspecialties. After the Spring Festival, they would be assigned to a fixed anesthesia team.
In this top-tier tertiary general hospital, there were over a dozen anesthesia subspecialties: cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, hepatobiliary surgery, orthopedics, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatric surgery, and so on.
Among the popular ones were cardiac anesthesia, neurosurgery anesthesia, orthopedic anesthesia, and critical care anesthesia.
Of course, popularity meant fierce competition.
She was the only one in the department who, early in her attending career, had voluntarily applied to specialize in both neurosurgery and cardiac anesthesia simultaneously.
There was a barrier between these two directions, making them difficult to master simultaneously. Few could be proficient in both.
Because of this, she had sacrificed almost all her personal time over the past few years, wishing she had forty-eight hours a day.
Back when the department head had told her, "You have talent and you work hard. You have the potential to become a compound anesthesia talent whom our department will focus on nurturing."
For that one sentence, she gave it her all.
In the entire anesthesia department, only two top experts were proficient in both neurosurgery and cardiac anesthesia: the department head and an associate head.
She wanted to be the third.
A colleague @-ed her in the group: [Dr. Xu, you're on a specialized compound training track. This time, you won't take up one of our batch's slots, right?]
She was taking a cross-department compound path, which didn't conflict with the regular team selection.
Xu Qinghe replied: [Right, I won't.]
Colleague: [Good, so no need to compete in the same group as you (chuckle)(chuckle)]
The anesthesia department had over 140 physicians. The final grouping for young anesthesiologists was determined by the department based on each person's rotation assessment scores and daily performance.
There were nine anesthesiologists in this batch selecting teams.
Popular departments had very tight slots every year. This year, the neurosurgery anesthesia team needed only one person, and the cardiac anesthesia team also had only one spot.
Other teams also needed people, but most people's first choice would still be the popular ones.
The intensity of the competition was easy to imagine.
A colleague asked her: [Which team is your first choice? Cardio or neuro?]
Xu Qinghe was focused on replying to her colleague when someone sat down across from her. She looked up.
Shi Wenli: "Looking at cases again?"
"No. I'm reading messages in the group. We're settling into fixed teams after the Spring Festival."
When Shi Wenli first met her, she was already the department's key compound anesthesia talent. She had now mastered the core skills of both neurosurgery and cardiac anesthesia.
He asked, "Do you have to choose between neuro and cardio to settle into?"
Xu Qinghe nodded. "I need to pick one as my primary subspecialty."