Chapter 327: Chapter 293: Crisis at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital

“Who’s this?”

“A doctor hired by Dean Lu. I heard his skills are top-notch!”

“Really? I see he was assigned to the Bone Setting Department, so he must be good at bone setting.”

“Not just that, according to the Director, this guy isn’t just good at bone setting; he also has a secret remedy with plasters. But how effective it is, that’s hard to say.”

“I noticed there was someone new in the dean’s clinic today. Another hired doctor?”

“Yeah, but they’re all quite old.”

“What is that person good at?”

“I’m not sure…”

The hospital had two new doctors, and everyone was aware of it as soon as they arrived.

However, both of them came without any titles and seemed very nervous.

It was as if they had never worked in a hospital before.

They knew almost nothing about computers, but their handwriting was exceptionally beautiful.

Though, most of it was in traditional Chinese characters!

To accommodate Wang Tong, the Bone Setting Department specifically assigned a young doctor to help him with some trivial tasks and learn from him.

Initially, the doctors in the Bone Setting Department didn’t think much of it. Of course, they didn’t look down on the elderly gentleman either; they maintained basic courtesy and respect without thinking he was particularly skilled.

But when patients really started coming in, Wang Tong’s series of bone-setting techniques left everyone in awe.

His techniques were even more proficient than Director Xie’s.

This was not even the most startling part.

A child came in with a fractured leg. An X-ray showed multiple bone fragments. When the parents heard surgery would take a year or two to recover, they immediately brought the child to Lu Jiu TCM Hospital.

The child was at the age for high school entrance exams, with physical tests imminent.

Though he could take medical leave for the injury, usually scoring thirty, scoring twenty with the injury was manageable; yet, with his school’s test scores, getting full marks was not an issue.

The ten-mark difference could potentially prevent him from getting into a good high school, which would greatly impact his future.

Naturally, the parents wished for their child to recover as quickly as possible.

In such a case, even with bone setting assisted by traditional medicine, it would generally take at least two to three months just to enable him to get out of bed, and six months to participate in exams.

However, after Wang Tong took over, not only did he reset the bone that day, he also applied a plaster he brought from home. The result was amazing—the child could move around in just three days.

This rapid recovery left everyone in the Bone Setting Department astounded.

The speed of the bone’s recovery was simply unbelievable.

A broken bone!

In three days, not only was the pain gone, but the patient could also bear weight and move.

This plaster was practically miraculous.

The doctors in the Bone Setting Department finally understood that this elderly gentleman hired by Lu Jiu, even without titles or a medical license, had medical skills not inferior to several directors.

Initially, they thought he would never share his craft.

But Wang Tong not only revealed the plaster’s formula, he personally instructed the Bone Setting Department doctors on how to pair it with patients’ conditions and explained the production process.

The plasters’ effectiveness was due not only to the correct pairing but, most importantly, the medicinal herbs.

He used herbs he collected himself from his village or nearby mountains, all wild-grown.

Wang Tong knew hospital herbs were all artificially cultivated. Even if many knew how to grow these herbs in environments mimicking the wild, their efficacy couldn’t compare to the wild ones.

Especially with such a large number of patients in a hospital, wild herbs could never meet the demand.

As a result, they had to retry the efficacy of the cultivated herbs.

Based on this, Wang Tong continuously experimented by adding supporting herbs to his original plaster formula, increasing the quantity where herb potency was insufficient.

He shared this entire experimentation process with the Bone Setting Department’s doctors, including Director Xie.

After witnessing Wang Tong’s medical skills, Director Xie was completely captivated by this elderly gentleman.

Especially upon hearing that Wang Tong never had a medical license and had been discreetly treating patients in his village all his life, Director Xie insisted on informing the dean, hoping to quickly arrange for Wang Tong to take the qualification exam for expertise in traditional Chinese medicine.

This exam allows candidates to obtain a medical license if they can prove their ability to heal patients and have a recommendation from a physician.

With Wang Tong’s addition, the Bone Setting Department’s reputation began to spread, especially after the student who nearly fully recovered within a month returned to school, astonishing both students and teachers. His parents praised the Lu Jiu TCM Hospital’s Bone Setting Department doctors on the parent group chat.

Initially, Lu Jiu TCM Hospital was already quite well-known in Jianghan City. Now, in many minds, this newly built hospital had surpassed the Jianghan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

For medical treatment, the People’s Hospital was the choice for Western medicine, and without a doubt, Lu Jiu TCM Hospital was the choice for traditional medicine.

This situation made Jianghan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine awkward.

Carrying the name of a traditional Chinese medicine hospital, it was filled with Western medicine, and its only Chinese medicine department didn’t have medical resources comparable to a single department in Lu Jiu TCM Hospital. In terms of Western medicine resources, it couldn’t match the People’s Hospital’s financial resources and medical equipment.

The strong rise of Lu Jiu TCM Hospital had undoubtedly caused a decrease in the number of patients attending Jianghan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

This gave Dean Qi quite a headache.

He had ambitious plans to support traditional Chinese medicine, and yet, after establishing the Chinese medicine department, not even a splash was seen.

When Lu Jiu TCM Hospital was built, he foresaw this outcome.

Comparing their resources with their own hospital, they couldn’t compete in traditional Chinese medicine.

But both had the traditional Chinese medicine hospital title; over time, the public would eventually discern the better one.

If they didn’t carry the traditional Chinese medicine hospital name, it might not matter much, but now, they could only accept fate.

“Dean, you called for me?” Ji Yuanning entered the dean’s office.

Qi Jing smiled, “Have a seat, what tea would you like?”

Ji Yuanning replied, “Pu’er, please.”

Qi Jing then took out a bag of tea leaves from the drawer and began brewing, “You must have heard our recent business status at the meeting.”

Ji Yuanning frowned, “Indeed, it doesn’t look too good. I didn’t expect our hospital’s decline to be this severe.”

Qi Jing smiled, “It’s not surprising. We didn’t have such strong competitors before. Times have changed, and the phase of profiting from marketing Western medicine under the guise of Chinese medicine has passed. If we don’t change, we can only wait for the downfall!”

Ji Yuanning was surprised, “Dean, isn’t that a bit much? Even with the strong rise of Lu Jiu TCM Hospital, we’re still a public hospital, and we can still…”

Saying this much, Ji Yuanning looked at Qi Jing and immediately showed a look of horror.

Qi Jing smiled, “The hospital will certainly have no issues, but if it’s poorly managed and incurs losses, the dean will be subject to disciplinary talks. If we can’t turn a profit in two years, it’ll be packing up and rolling out. I may not be a full-time dean, but I’m also in business management, hehe.”

Ji Yuanning shook his head, “No matter how good they are, they can’t possibly drive our hospital to losses, right?”

Qi Jing smiled, “It’s only been over three months, and our daily patient visits have dropped from seven or eight thousand to just over five thousand. Do you know what that means? A reduction in numbers is secondary; crucial is the hospital’s decline in public ranking, leading to certain downfall.”

“Once the Jianghan locals form a habit of going to the People’s Hospital for Western medicine and Lu Jiu TCM Hospital for traditional medicine, do you think our hospital can survive? It’s impossible; staffing and benefits might decrease, and in the end, everyone will suffer. It’s just a matter of time.”

…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep