Chapter Twenty-Three: Guo Fu

Among all the nurses and intern doctors at the Sanya Health Center, Guo Fu was He Ma’s key trainee. On the one hand, this was due to He Ma’s ulterior motives; on the other hand, she stood out among all the naturalized citizen medical staff in Sanya, both in terms of professional level and her qualification as a first-term nursing school graduate.

He Ma often took her to assist in the outpatient clinic and act as a surgical assistant. This frequent cultivation of goodwill and intimacy led to a rapid development of their relationship. Guo Fu’s respect and admiration for Dr. He Ma grew day by day.

Sanya had its own simple operating room, capable of performing simple surgeries like appendectomies without any problem. Of course, more complex surgeries could also be performed, but it lacked some necessary examination and surgical support equipment, and Guo Fu was not a qualified anesthetist. However, the volume of surgeries was large, given the population base and the working environment. Guo Fu’s skills improved rapidly under such intense practical learning. She also had a good memory and was much better at memorizing medical books than He Ma, who had suffered greatly from it during his medical school days.

“To learn modern—no, Australian medicine, the first thing is to memorize, constantly memorize,” He Ma assigned her homework after a private tutoring session. “Memorize this book.”

Guo Fu had never known that being a doctor required facing so many books, and each one was a tome. She silently took it and flipped through it. There were too many terms she didn’t understand at all, and she couldn’t help but look troubled.

“I don’t understand…”

He Ma said, “That’s why I’m telling you to memorize it. I’ll teach you after you’ve memorized it.”

Guo Fu nodded. She was full of admiration for the medical skills of this Senator doctor. “I’ll memorize it.”

“One section a day. Come here in the morning and recite it to me,” He Ma said with the air of a strict teacher. “If you can’t recite it, you’re not allowed to eat.”

“Yes, teacher,” Guo Fu’s face flushed slightly. The threat from Teacher He sounded sweet to her.

That morning, Guo Fu woke up very early. It was a habit of the naturalized citizens. Even though she had been on duty until midnight yesterday, she still woke up at 6 a.m. sharp. The medical and health personnel in Sanya were divided into morning, middle, and night shifts. The night shift only had a small number of people on duty. Most people worked the 7:00-17:00 morning shift and the 17:00-24:00 evening shift.

He Ma’s working hours were decided by himself. In reality, he was on duty 24 hours a day. Therefore, Guo Fu’s working hours were also very long. She not only had to see patients with He Ma in the outpatient clinic and assist in surgeries, but also had to do rounds in the inpatient department and teach the younger generation nursing knowledge. Every day, besides sleeping, she was working.

Since becoming a nurse, Guo Fu had developed the habit of bathing twice a day, in the morning and evening. The health center had a separate bathroom, with a dedicated boiler providing a continuous supply of hot water for the use of the health system personnel. Guo Fu looked down on the female health workers who had graduated from the short-term training class. They all had Type C diplomas and were mostly clumsy. The nursing knowledge she taught them had to be repeated several times before they could get it right. And their concept of hygiene was very poor and had to be repeatedly emphasized.

She walked into the bathroom with a basket containing her change of clothes. The changing room was empty. The small ventilation window near the roof was just letting in the morning’s first light. The night shift nurse had not yet left, and the morning shift people had not yet arrived. It was the quietest time. Along the wall of the changing room was a wooden shelf like a bookshelf, with rows of bamboo tokens with numbers branded on them hanging on it. During shift changes and training classes, the shelf would be full of clothes baskets—the female health workers assigned to the labor companies also used the facilities here. Guo Fu put her clothes basket on the shelf and hung a bamboo token around her neck. At the entrance to the shower room was a basket full of soapbeans. The soapbeans transported from Changhua were currently widely used as a substitute for soap in daily life.

The shower room had partitions made of bamboo strips, but this was purely for hygiene, not for shame. In the early morning, the health center used very little hot water, so the supply was ample. She took a refreshing shower. After her shower, she took out a mirror, not much bigger than her palm, from her clothes basket and hung it on the hook in the changing room.

There was a large full-length mirror installed on the wall in the changing room, enough to see her whole body. Although Guo Fu’s mirror was small, it was an “export product,” with an exquisitely crafted frame made of tortoiseshell. Its clarity was also much better than the large mirror on the wall. Of course, He Ma had bought this mirror at the “factory price,” which was countless times cheaper than in Guangzhou.

He Ma had given it to her a few days ago—the reason being to reward her for teaching nursing to the health workers. But Guo Fu’s girlish heart knew that was not the real reason. Just like when she couldn’t recite a certain section, Teacher He would gently tap her head with the book.

“I know, teacher,” Guo Fu stared at the innocent-looking girl in the mirror, stroking her own face as if she were talking to herself or to the girl in the mirror. “But, is this really okay?”

She stared at herself in the mirror: her hair fell to her ears, and the delicate collarbones were exposed under the Australian-style camisole. She couldn’t help but gently touch them. A blush flew across her face.

To be liked by Teacher He, whom she had always respected and admired, was a happy thing. However, as a pure and innocent young girl, Guo Fu also tried to resist He Ma’s masculine charm—like a lamb struggling under the wolf’s kiss. What would the Teacher He she had always respected do to her? Guo Fu’s earlobes turned red.

The sound of the steam whistle startled Guo Fu, who was staring at herself in the mirror. She touched her hot face and quickly took down the mirror. As if to hide something, she quickly got dressed.

The uniform designed by the Ministry of Health for nurses was a standard short-sleeved blue dress with a cinched waist. In winter, there was a cape-style shawl. The style was simple and elegant, and with the iconic swallow-tailed cap, it was the most fantasized-about uniform by the Senators.

Guo Fu’s swallow-tailed cap had a horizontal embroidered bar, indicating that she was a “head nurse.” This was the rank insignia established by the Ministry of Health for nurses: one horizontal bar was a head nurse, two were a department head nurse, and three were the director of the nursing department. The diagonal bars on the cap represented their technical level: one was a nurse, two were a charge nurse, three were a deputy chief nurse, and four were a chief nurse.

Now was not the time for idle thoughts, Guo Fu told herself. Soon it would be the morning rounds, and then class. She wondered what new content Teacher He would teach today. After a short break, she would have to go to the outpatient clinic for her internship…

After getting dressed, she carefully pinned the swallow-tailed cap to her hair with a hairpin. Guo Fu looked at the full-length mirror. The girl in the mirror’s chest was still rising and falling, and the blush that had spread to her earlobes had not yet faded. She couldn’t help but cover her face with her hands and waited quietly for a few more minutes before leaving the bathroom.

The Sanya Health Center was a third-level health center. According to the classification of medical institutions established by Shi Niaoren, any facility that could be staffed with one Senator doctor was a third-level center. Those with naturalized citizen doctors and nurses trained by the health system itself were considered second-level centers. The lowest, first-level centers, were those run in cooperation with the Runshitang, which basically relied on traditional Chinese medicine and herbs. The health department only provided some support in terms of medicine.

In terms of scale, it was second only to the General Hospital and the Maniao Army General Hospital. To find a place for the navy, Li Haiping had, on his own initiative, hung a white wooden sign with “Sanya Naval General Hospital” next to the sign of the Sanya Health Center. In reality, like the Army General Hospital, it had no connection with the military and was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health.

The medical and epidemic prevention tasks here were very heavy. Although malaria had been effectively controlled, work-related accidents were still frequent. He Ma had to perform two or three surgeries every week, and minor surgical procedures like debridement and suturing were performed almost every day, which was excellent training for the nurses’ surgical skills. Now, Guo Fu’s suturing skills were so good that she could teach and demonstrate to the younger generation and the health workers.

He Ma had not yet appeared. Guo Fu knew that the Senators were used to sleeping during the day. The Senators in the Ministry of Health had chaotic schedules, so as long as there were no emergencies, consultations, or rounds in the morning, they would sleep in. Today, there were not many patients in the inpatient department, and there were no “special care” patients. Guo Fu could just do the rounds, check their temperatures, and so on.

The night shift nurse in the inpatient department was named Bai Jie. She was a student of the third term of the Fangcaodi nursing class. The third-term nurses had not yet graduated and were in Sanya for their internship. After work, they still had to attend classes for training. In Sanya, medical personnel had no spare time. All their free time was used for studying: attending classes or self-study—which meant memorizing books.

Seeing her arrive at the inpatient department, the sleepy-eyed Bai Jie, who had been up all night, quickly stood up to greet her.

“Sister Guo,” Bai Jie was actually much older than Guo Fu, already in her twenties. But she was a junior, and in the Sanya Health Center, Guo Fu was her teacher and superior. And the Ministry of Health was the department with the most obvious hierarchy among the naturalized citizen employees, besides the military.

“Is there anything to report?”

“No emergencies,” Bai Jie said. “Everything is normal.”

Guo Fu checked the shift record and then checked the patrol record on each hospital bed again. Bai Jie was very meticulous in these tasks. Although her handwriting was crooked, it was clear that she had written it very carefully.

While she was busy, the bell in the inpatient department’s duty room suddenly rang. This was a signal for an emergency in the outpatient clinic, an urgent call for a doctor.

She immediately put down the folder in her hand. “I’ll go and see.”

It was rare to encounter an emergency so early in the morning. There were not many departments in Sanya that worked at night, so it was unlikely to be a work-related injury so early in the morning. She met two strong male health workers in the corridor, who were carrying a stretcher and running towards her. From the speed of their trot, the patient was definitely in urgent need of medical rescue. Seven or eight workers followed behind the stretcher, running to keep up. A few of them looked very pale and seemed to need treatment as well.

Food poisoning? This was the first word that came to her mind.