Practicing Medical Skills in a Small Clinic novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Trouble After All

"I’m not going to lie to you, I did see the doctor at Quick Recovery Clinic. Dr. Zhao told me that there were several people still waiting for IVs there, and since I’m an old patron, they didn’t want me waiting until the middle of the night. They recommended I come to Sunshine Clinic for an IV. They said I wouldn’t have to wait here. They weren’t lying, I really didn’t have to wait here. Young man, Dr. Zhao has already checked me out and said I only need two bottles of IV fluid, so please hurry up!"

The old lady urged to start the IV as soon as possible.

Almost all patients are eager to receive the fastest treatment.

Upon hearing it was Boss Zhao who sent the patient over, Li Jingsheng became extremely cautious.

Boss Zhao had long wanted to eliminate Li Jingsheng as a competitor.

He’d played countless dirty tricks.

Just this evening, he had a direct conflict with Li Jingsheng because of entanglements with Tang Ping.

The two of them had practically torn into each other.

Would he really be so kind as to send an old patron to Li Jingsheng’s clinic?

Boss Zhao has run his clinic for many years without any major incident, so he must have some extraordinary skills.

Even chief physicians in big hospitals can’t promise a lifetime without medical accidents.

Misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis are almost unavoidable.

Operating a clinic for over twenty years without issues isn’t merely a matter of being cautious.

Boss Zhao’s diagnostic skills must be much stronger than imagined.

It’s already close to 8:30 PM; even if business is booming at Quick Recovery Clinic, the patients needing IVs should have already been treated.

So why did Quick Recovery Clinic treat this old lady?

Giving an IV isn’t a big deal.

Mixing the medicine takes some time, but the injection itself is quick. As for hanging the bottle, it takes one or two hours, during which medical staff barely need to do anything. They just need to remove the needle after the IV is done.

Why pass up money and send it to Li Jingsheng, a nearly starved rival?

It’s a no-brainer that no one would do this.

This old lady can walk and talk, but her heart sounds can’t be detected.

Could it be she has an artificial heart?

Upon closer inspection, there’s no sign of one!

Patients with artificial hearts carry a battery pack. Because it pumps blood continuously like a water pump, circulating it through the body without a heartbeat or pulse.

But through a stethoscope, you can still hear the humming of the machine.

"Aunty! Have you had heart surgery? Like getting an artificial heart?"

"No, my heart has always been fine."

If there’s no artificial heart, why is she alive without a heartbeat?

Li Jingsheng racked his brains to find the reason.

The world is full of wonders.

All sorts of strange diseases and unique physiques, many not even seen by doctors.

A flash of inspiration struck Li Jingsheng’s mind.

In a medical journal, he once read about a case of ectopic heart.

The probability of newborns with ectopic heart is about one in five million.

This old lady didn’t have a heart transplant, is still alive, and her left chest cavity isn’t registering heart sounds. That leaves only two possibilities.

Either he encountered a supernatural event tonight.

Or this lady is a patient with an ectopic heart.

"Let me listen to the right side of your chest,"

Li Jingsheng said, pressing the stethoscope’s probe to the right side of the old lady’s chest.

"Thump thump thump..."

The familiar sound of a heartbeat greeted his ears, and a look of joyful realization spread across Li Jingsheng’s face.

It was just as he suspected.

The patient has an ectopic heart.

Her heart is positioned in the right chest cavity.

After listening carefully for a while, Li Jingsheng’s face gradually turned serious.

The heart sounds had an obvious murmur, a regular swishing sound. It definitely wasn’t normal.

However, in terms of cardiovascular medicine diagnosis or cardiothoracic surgery diagnosis, Li Jingsheng was at an entry-level at best.

He didn’t know what illness this old lady had.

But it was certain that the elderly lady’s heart had problems.

Chest tightness, irregular pain in the right chest, labored breathing, dizziness, with the heart located in the right chest cavity... taking these symptoms together, Li Jingsheng’s heart trembled. Isn’t this the precursor of a heart attack?

Good heavens, Boss Zhao, what a scoundrel you are.

Sending a heart disease patient over here and urging the old lady to have Li Jingsheng give her an IV.

This is basically murder by proxy.

Boss Zhao knows that Li Jingsheng is so poor he needs to sell his motorcycle to keep the clinic running, so he’s definitely desperate for money. On top of that, being young and inexperienced, once faced with a chance to earn money, he might impulsively administer the IV.

By then, if the patient suffers a heart attack during the IV and dies at Sunshine Clinic,

Li Jingsheng would most likely face a lawsuit.

And Sunshine Clinic would be thoroughly ruined.

Uncovering Boss Zhao’s plot, he took a deep breath to calm his anger.

Even though Boss Zhao’s plan to use a human life to destroy Li Jingsheng’s Sunshine Clinic was despicable,

the patient was innocent.

Li Jingsheng couldn’t bear to see a life wither away.

It was like she had one foot stepping into the gates of hell.

The golden rescue time for respiratory and cardiac arrest is only about three minutes. The longer it takes, the more irreversible damage the patient will gradually suffer, such as brain cell death, myocardial necrosis, etc.

"Oh heavens, are you joking with me? What exactly is the illness!"

He racked his brains to quickly go through diseases with similar symptoms in his mind.

Theoretical knowledge is ultimately just theoretical.

In practice, experience is most important.

Li Jingsheng exhausted his mind thinking about the patient’s condition: pale lips and face, whole body twitching, heart rate up to 198 beats per minute, pulse gradually disappearing, breathing also stopping slowly... Could it be ventricular fibrillation?

Yes, it could likely be ventricular fibrillation.

After successfully diagnosing the condition, he excitedly rushed to get the AED.

This device had never been used since it was purchased.

It was bought just in case.

Now, it was finally going to be useful.

After grabbing the automated external defibrillator, he hurriedly and awkwardly followed the operation steps, turning on the AED, sticking the electrodes on, conducting heart rate analysis on the patient, stepping away to charge, and then shocking to administer the discharge.

"Ouch!"

The patient let out a scream.

This automatic defibrillator was considered very user-friendly; if it were the hospital’s defibrillator, it would be much more powerful.

During the shock, the patient’s body could directly bounce up.

After successfully defibrillating, the patient’s condition improved somewhat.

Li Jingsheng quickly dialed 120 for emergency assistance.

Soon, an ambulance, with its lights flashing, parked with sirens blaring at his clinic door.

"What happened to her?"

The doctor who got off the ambulance was a young man in his thirties, and the nurse appeared to be in her twenties.

You could sense that this young doctor looked at Li Jingsheng through tinted glasses.

He certainly misunderstood that it was Li Jingsheng’s clinic that treated the patient into this state, and inwardly, he was full of contempt.

"It seemed like a heart attack. I defibrillated her once just now, and her condition improved somewhat."

Li Jingsheng briefed the emergency doctor on the basic situation.

"Let’s lift the patient onto the ambulance first! You small clinics dare to accept any type of patient. In the future, you should be cautious when encountering patients with severe illnesses!" He advised Li Jingsheng in a senior tone.

The nurse also looked at Li Jingsheng with an unfriendly gaze.

Doctors and nurses from reputable hospitals usually look down on clinic doctors.

Not far away, Boss Zhao stood under the street lamp with a face full of schadenfreude, looking this way.