Chapter 2825 Simplified General Practitioners

Walking out of the Combat Injury Department's final ward, Shi Niaoren dispensed last-minute instructions to the attending physicians while privately savoring his morning's triumph. He had stumped every doctor during rounds—including several Senator physicians.

Hmph, my PhD isn't some worthless piece of paper... Dr. Shi returned to his office at the General Hospital. He maintained dedicated offices in all Health institutions. The life secretary waiting by the staircase hurried over to relieve the junior nurse of the case files, then swiftly collected the white coat he shrugged off. The moment he settled into his chair, she presented a cup of tea at precisely the right temperature.

Shi Niaoren sipped his mild tea while reviewing the Medical Business Operations Report from Director Deng. Every hospital's revenue showed explosive growth—the Provincial-Hong Kong General Hospital most dramatically of all, with both revenue and profit margins up several hundred percent from the previous year.

It seems our medicine is finally earning everyone's recognition, he thought. No wonder Director Deng has been contemplating expansion into additional hospitals...

Just as he was mulling this over, the life secretary brought over a cigar tray. It already contained a properly cut authentic "South Sea-Caribbean Cigar"—rolled from tobacco leaves specially commissioned by the Agriculture Committee from Quake Qiong, imported from the West Indies. Its richness far surpassed the so-called "Early Clearing Version" from the early days.

He struck a match, lit the cigar, and began puffing leisurely clouds. His eyes, however, never left the report.

That was when his secretary at the General Hospital stepped in and quietly announced that a Senator from Propaganda wished to see him.

"That would be Senator Ding. Please show him in."

The visitor was indeed Dingding, just as Shi Niaoren had expected. What surprised him slightly was the man's speed—only twenty-four hours had passed since the meeting. Clearly, he was a man of action.

Dr. Shi didn't hold a particularly favorable impression of this person. He had always felt that besides flapping his lips, Dingding simply paraded around with his tall foreign mare of a wife all day, very much embodying the "empty bombast" style.

"Minister Shi, the simplified general practitioner training program you introduced yesterday was truly creative—I really admire it!" Dingding sat down and immediately began heaping praise upon Shi Niaoren. "Calling it the new timeline's barefoot doctors, benefiting all life, would be no exaggeration. I'm planning a series of special reports on this theme. For domestic audiences, I'll use 'Living in Australia-Song, Heart with the World' as the central message. For external audiences, I'll lead with 'Teaching and Healing, Curing and Saving'—highlighting the medical system's professional spirit of helping humanity. For the health of the vast people of the north, not hesitating to risk their lives traveling to the mainland to deliver medicine and treatment."

Shi Niaoren deflected with a string of "not at all, not at all" responses, thinking to himself how remarkable these pen-pushers were—flattery and nonsense flowed from them as naturally as drinking water.

In the time that followed, Dingding dispensed with further pleasantries and directly presented his specific plan. In truth, this plan was only half complete. A proper training program should include at least three elements: "who teaches," "who learns," and "what's taught." Dingding's proposal covered only the first two; the last he had left entirely blank for Shi Niaoren to fill in.

"This is only half a deck, you realize," Shi Niaoren said with a teasing smile.

"I handle the first half, you handle the second." Dingding's attention remained fixed on the plan itself, apparently missing Shi Niaoren's playful undertone entirely.

The Senate's medical service capability could be roughly divided into several tiers. The first tier was the Health Ministry's Lingao General Hospital, equivalent to Peking Union Medical College Hospital in the old timeline. By the make-do traverser standard, it boasted complete departments, comprehensive equipment, systematic protocols, and possessed this timeline's most precious medical asset: Senator physicians.

Besides serving Senators and their families, this hospital primarily catered to the naturalized-citizen class—those receiving "wages" from the Senate's financial system. This included state-owned enterprise staff and workers, "military-government-education" personnel, and students enrolled in Education's directly affiliated schools in Lingao. Different tiers of "publicly funded medical care" were available based on position and status.

The hospital was also open to ordinary people, provided they could afford the fees. Since Lingao's wealthy class had been growing exponentially in recent years, Deng Bochuan had established a "Premium Outpatient Clinic" under his management. Its revenue became one of Bairen General Hospital's primary funding sources.

To balance outside criticism, Deng Bochuan had also established a "People's Clinic," providing low-cost or even free diagnosis and medicine. Most naturalized-citizen doctors' first assignments began there.

The second tier was the Provincial-Hong Kong General Hospital in Guangzhou—which possessed the basic framework of a medical system, along with some specialized equipment. Though its medical personnel were primarily naturalized citizens, they were senior in tenure and mostly "direct disciples" trained by Senators. It could be considered to have a relatively complete medical system framework. Senator physicians periodically rotated through for clinic duty, and medical training was also conducted—similar to the old-timeline mega-tertiary hospitals like Xiangya.

Below that came military-system hospitals, with the Naval General Hospital in Kaohsiung and the Army General Hospital slated to relocate to Jeju Island serving as the vanguard institutions. Though these two hospitals sounded impressive, they were actually just enhanced health stations. Now there were two more: the field hospitals dispatched from the Army General Hospital in Zhaoqing and Chaozhou. Facilities were even more limited, but being positioned at the front lines, they deployed elite personnel and had Senator physicians rotating through. Though medical standards—except for trauma emergency care—remained relatively low, compared to Ming's dismal healthcare, they qualified as regular tertiary-level facilities.

The fourth tier comprised overseas stations at Hangzhou, Qimao Island, and Shengjing, which had only a handful of medics and nurses. However, most stationed Senators had acquired some basic medical knowledge—barely reaching community health center level.

The fifth tier was rather chaotic. By the Senators' standards, it could no longer be properly called a medical tier at all. The first four tiers at least had "medics" who had trained for a year and formally graduated "nurses." By the fifth tier, the backbone consisted of so-called "simplified general practitioners"—the old timeline's "barefoot doctors."

Dingding's plan proposed using the third and fourth tier medical systems as a foundation, establishing training centers at each fixed military hospital and overseas station. Students would be locals willing to pay for instruction—regardless of identity, as long as they could afford tuition, they would be admitted. Teachers would be drawn mainly from local medical departments; if necessary, rotating physician dispatch from Lingao could provide reinforcement.

"...I believe your simplified general practitioner setup is especially suitable! The scale could be much larger. After all, before you were conducting public-interest education; now there can be revenue."

The word "revenue" genuinely moved Dr. Shi. After all, maintaining Lingao General Hospital's consistently high standards, and extending those high standards to Provincial-Hong Kong General Hospital—all required heaps of money...

As for "what to teach," this indeed required no meddling from an outsider like Dingding. Over the past two years, Shi Niaoren's "Non-Professional Medical Common Knowledge Short Training Course" in Hainan—abbreviated as "Simplified General Practitioner Training Course"—had already accumulated considerable experience in training natives who possessed nothing but enthusiasm. Regional Common Disease Prevention and Treatment Manuals were compiled accordingly. There was no need to instill professional medical knowledge—students simply needed to match symptoms to solutions. If no match could be found, refer to a hospital. In any case, this timeline had no such thing as illegal practice or medical negligence. Death was destiny; recovery was the Senate's glory shining everywhere. Based on the Guangzhou plague situation, substantial hygiene and epidemic prevention content had recently been added—such as how to construct latrines, how to purify water sources, and similar matters.

Drawing on accumulated experience, Shi Niaoren planned to have the medical Senators already stationed at the front compile Guangdong-Guangxi, Jiangnan, and Northern versions based on the Hainan Common Disease Prevention and Treatment Manual.

After tentatively establishing the framework, the two chatted freely about details—how much support Lingao would dispatch, how many teachers the medical department needed to prepare, whether Senator inspections were required, fee standards, and various other matters. Dingding also promised that Lingao Times and other related media would publish at least three positive reports about Health each month—thus confirming cooperation with the medical sector.

As Shi Niaoren walked Dingding out while continuing their conversation, he thought to himself: This man definitely has an insider in Health. How else could he know the situation so thoroughly? Could it be that money-grubber Deng Bochuan?

For his part, Dingding felt half excited and half apprehensive. Excited that with Health's cooperation, the Cultural Strategy finally had something concrete to stand on. Apprehensive because the refugee screening, training venues, and logistics support he had just promised were all empty pledges—he would have to approach the military and overseas stations waving Health's banner to beg for their cooperation.

Leaving Bairen General Hospital, Dingding cut across East Gate Market's busiest district, heading straight for the Cooperative Society Restaurant. He had arranged to meet Sikade at noon and was already running somewhat late. Dingding kept checking his watch, cursing East Gate Market's traffic, wishing he could grab a patrolman to clear the way.

The more anxious he grew, the more mistakes he made. He accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up walking further from his destination. When he finally spotted the Cooperative Society in the distance, his heart suddenly skipped—rushing over in such frantic fashion, what would Sikade think? At this thought, Dingding couldn't help but slow his pace. After a few more steps, he simply ducked into a nearby shop, purchased a bottle of chilled Kvass, and sipped it leisurely.

When Sikade arrived at the Cooperative Society, the agreed time had already passed. He had been rehearsing how to explain his lateness to Dingding, but the very man who had so warmly invited him the previous night still hadn't appeared—leaving him rather displeased. Dingding kept Sikade waiting for about ten minutes before finally walking in with an air of hurried apology, dropping several file folders with a clatter onto an empty seat, then seizing Sikade's hand while pouring out a stream of "so sorry" and "I'm late"—leaving Sikade thoroughly bewildered, his earlier displeasure forgotten before he could even think to tease back.

(End of Chapter)