Xie Wanying donned her white lab coat and hung her probationary doctor’s certificate. She wore a watch then stuffed a notebook and a medical penlight in her coat, together with four different types of pens for signatures in blue and black, a yellow marker, and a red ballpen as well.
Guoxie Hospital’s official name was Affiliated Hospital of Guoxie University. Its main building was located near the university itself, but it has another branch situated not too far away as well. Patients would mostly go to the main building because that was where most of the services, and thus the best doctors, were located. There were two separate outpatient facilities at the main building as well, one of which was quite dated already. The new one was a relatively small, two-story building which mostly served dermatological and pediatric cases. Xie Wanying also heard that a much bigger outpatient facility was also being built, but she had no idea when it would be fully operational.
Since she had been frequently visiting the outpatient building to make phone calls late at night, she was already quite familiar with the facility. If one went straight ahead from the entrance of the outpatient building, you’d be able to find the entrance of the inpatient one.
The inpatient building was divided into three buildings. The largest of the three was occupied by the Internal Medicine Department, while the smallest and oldest of the three buildings was occupied by quite a few departments, including the Pediatric Rehabilitation Department, Geriatric Department, etc. The third building wasn’t finished yet, but was said to be dedicated for the Surgical Department, so for now, it still shares the largest building with the Internal Medicine Department. It just so happened that she got in at 5:00 p.m., which was the beginning of the so-called rush hour in the hospital. It was because, at that time, the outpatient building was closing for the day and many doctors ended their shift at that time.
The flow of patients diverts from the outpatient clinics to the inpatient department, so there are always a lot of people. Since it was also late in the day, there were always quite a few last-minute consults rushing to the hospital, hoping they’ll be able to get appointments with specialist doctors before they get off work.
Following her senior’s request, Xie Wanying walked into the internal medicine building. When she saw the large number of people crowding the elevator entrance, she didn’t even try to line up, but instead just opted to use the stairs. Most full-fledged doctors, let alone interns, weren’t supposed to take elevators with would-be patients. For medical students, their first physical trial was the daily ascent of the stairs.
The Radiology Department was on the 1st floor, the ICU was on the 2nd floor, and the operating rooms were on the 3rd floor. After those three were the medical wards. The Surgical Department likes to be placed in the top floor, which was the 10th floor, while the Neurosurgery Department was placed in the 9th. Xie Wanying noted that the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department she was originally aiming for was on the 8th floor, which meant that she only had to climb another floor more.
Curiously, she didn’t run into any of her other classmates on her way up. Perhaps they were already there or weren’t even in yet.
In any case, she trudged her way up to the neurosurgery ward, which was also located on the same floor as the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department.
Recalling the conversation she had with her seniors in the QQ chat group, she felt that it wasn’t a coincidence.
Upon entering the ward, there were already meal servers pushing food carts around to distribute dinner to the patients, so the corridor was bustling with activity. The lone Xie Wanying looked a bit out of place in that area. The hospital’s previous batch of students, Class 8, was quite small in comparison to other years, so it resulted in only one senior being assigned to training new recruits in each department. Everything had to be done by one person.
When she finally arrived at the doctors’ lounge, she found her fellow interns.
It seems that quite a lot of interns were assigned for this New Year’s Eve. The sight of six interns crowding the room was quite intimidating.
She felt that things just got real.
This kind of scene wasn’t present before her rebirth. In her past, most of the interns and the residents would leave at night, leaving only a dozen or so behind for the night shift.
But, wasn’t it only natural? Guoxie Hospital is ranked as one of the top three in the whole country. Who doesn’t want to have their internship here? Even the patients in the ward were different. In a different hospital, quite a few patients would have insisted on being temporarily discharged, in order to spend the holidays at their homes. But that wasn’t so here in Guoxie Hospital. If one wasn’t seriously ill, one wouldn’t be able to get admitted into the inpatient ward.