Li Yun lounged on the recliner in the resident area after he completed his surgeries. He subconsciously glanced at the digital clock display on his phone, it was almost time for the interview.
"An Luchang, wear a mask and pretend to be me for a day," Li Yun requested.
"No, are you stupid? Chief Zhang and Gao aren't blind," An Luchang stated as he was reviewing a medical journey on the sofa.
"Boss, it should be fun, interviewing all the fresh faces," said Lui Jing. "I would love to see more equality in the work environment! Please hire more female residents."
"Equality my ass," Mi Xuan wanted to flick his head.
"How was your fake date?" Yang Kang asked Mi Xuan about her date with Qi Sho over the weekend.
"It wasn't a date, it was a collaboration meeting," Mi Xuan replied. "We set up the rules for how we would approach our parents. I would write up things I like, and he would do the same. We will only go out once a week for thirty minutes to take a couple-y type pictures as evidence."
"Gee, you're really going all out," said Lui Jing.
"Can I write a novel about this?" asked Yang Kang.
"Shut up, this is actually a good plan. My parents have already stopped calling me."
Li Yun listened to their rambling as he was planning to be late for the interview, but who would have known that Nurse Yuen was waiting outside the residence hall and dragged him to the meeting room. Luckily, Li Yun didn't have to wear a suit for the interview. He showed up in his usual surgical scrub and white coat, similarly to Chief Gao. Only Chief Zhang had a dress shirt on.
The interview was from 9 to 4. There were 18 candidates for the entire day. Li Yun sighed, hoping for interesting candidates, otherwise he would be on his phone researching online.
As the interview began, Li Yun read through the possible list of suggestions for questions. Some of the questions were the same type that could be found online for people to practice. There were random questions that were meant to throw off candidates and to see how they would respond. For example, "why are the manhole covers round rather than square?"
According to Chief Zhang, the 18 candidates' CVs were mostly remarkable, except for one, who was recommended by another doctor. Chief Zhang wasn't opposed to interviewing them. Li Yun figured it was how he got his residency in the first place, so he reserved his judgment.
Most of the candidates were boring. Li Yun was waiting to see if the family-friend connection could liven up the interview process. As the candidates walked in, they were all nervous, especially the family friend connection when he saw Li Yun sitting behind the interviewer's table.
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"You!" Fan Geng almost felt like he was in a twilight zone.
"Why is this quack here!" Fan Geng thought. "Ma says he worked in the hospital, but I didn't think it would be in Qinbei!" Quickly realizing where he was, he bowed and apologized for his sudden outburst and sat down on his seat.
"Why are you surprised?" Doctor Gao whispered to Li Yun.
"Who the heck recommended him?" Li Yun asked.
"Believe it or not, Doctor Hao said to interview him. He said that you would also vouch for him, so I thought we would give him a try."
Li Yun laughed. Zuiba probably asked Doctor Hao.
"You listed that you have 50k subscribers on Douyo as a skill," Chief Gao asked Fan Geng. "Care to comment?"
"Chief, there's a study out there about gamers being better at eye hand coordination. Given the rate at which our nation's advance in technology, I see the need for more people with this type of skill."
"Yeah, and a 3rd best speedrun for a Surgeon Simulator?" Chief Gao asked.
"Yes, I can remember all the medical events in the game, and it helped me through many of my exams."
Chief Zhang scratched his head. Kids these days could learn anything from video games?
"It seems Iike we can't underestimate the new generation, but how much experience do you have with real patient's care?" Chief Zhang continued to ask, not knowing a single thing about Surgeon Simulator.
"Not a single one, but I swear, this will be a good start since I have a really good foundation!"
Li Yun snorted out a laugh.
Chief Gao turned to Li Yun. "Doctor Li, do you have any questions for the candidates?"
Li Yun looked at the woman, the man, and then at Fan Geng. They were good candidates, stable and easy to teach.
"All right, if I, as your senior attending, ask you to stab a patient in the throat, would you do it?" asked Li Yun.
"No sir, I would first ask you why there is a need to, what if the obstruction could be cleared some other way?" That was the male candidate's response. "It's not about questioning the attending, it's about understanding the decision before making them."
"I believe in that situation, I would follow the order," the woman candidate replied. "It's likely you're trying to create a passage for the patient to breathe. As an attending, you would have better judgment and experience. If we hesitate, the patient might not make it. The ER is a fast paced environment, any loss in time is a potential loss of life."
Fan Geng was the last to respond, but he wasn't sure how he would respond. In a normal situation, if it was an attending, he would follow the instruction. However, he was more inclined to the male candidate's answer. Following orders blindly wasn't his style, but it was also true what the female candidate said. He didn't have enough knowledge to make decisions, so listening to orders was better.
"I would not follow the order," Fan Geng replied. "The term stabbing obviously has malicious intent. You would have used incise if it was for an operation. The intent of your question was to ask whenever we are dumb enough to follow your orders."
The female candidate glared at him. "Who do you think is dumb!?" Her thoughts wasn’t vocalized, but her eyes were transmitting it to Fan Geng.
"Well, there's really no right or wrong answer," Li Yun replied. "It would be based on how much you trust the attending. If you encounter a poor attending, it's fine to question their choices. If you trust their judgment, then as Ms. Wei said, then it's better not to delay a potentially deadly situation. But Mr. Fan, do you play a lot of horror games?"
"Well, Resident Devil is my favorite game,” Fan Geng replied.