A Hospital in Another World?-Chapter 579: Garrett Nordmark’s Rural Medical Aid

Garrett Nordmark was running back and forth, his tongue nearly hanging out from exhaustion, when he sadly realized a fact:

His students’ fundamentals were so poor they couldn’t compare to the mages of Nevis City at all.

To them, a Level 3 caster was someone who had mastered all relevant spells, while another might be a Level 3 who had only learned three or five spells and had a shaky grasp of the theory...

If he wanted to teach them these basic skills, he’d need to spend more time and a lot more patience.

So, growth through practice it was!

Garrett Nordmark sighed and changed his approach.

Aside from the ultrasound group continuing to torment animals with sound waves, and the invasive blood pressure group continuing to puncture the arteries of rabbits, sheep, and dogs, the other two groups would join him in clinical practice!

On the first day, he conducted blood tests for all the city guards and trained priests in cross-matching blood.

The second day was for the armed forces of the Temple of the War God and the lord’s manor, again training priests in blood cross-matching.

On the third day, he tested the temple springs, as well as the private soldiers of various lords outside the city...

After three days, at least the blood collection and cross-matching were going smoothly, without too much stumbling. As for the blood testing magic, Elder Elwin and Bald Bishop had both mastered it.

Garrett Nordmark finally decided to take the clinical work to the next step:

He would open a free clinic to treat the locals!

After all, even if these priests were a bit lacking, they still had healing spells to fall back on...

Garrett Nordmark was experienced in providing medical aid in rural areas. However, this time’s free clinic work was quite different from the ones he was accustomed to in his previous life:

Stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, and EKGs were all a mess. His own stethoscope was a "Y"-shaped vine, hardened at one end to form a chest piece and growing into earpieces at the other two ends. When inserted into the ears, the outer sides of the vines were a bit fuzzy;

The stethoscopes of other priests, from the Divine Church, were basically standardized like his. Those from the Temple of the War God each carried a copper tube, looking more suited to a street brawl than rural medical aid;

There were no blood pressure monitors, and using invasive blood pressure monitors during physical exams seemed too harsh to Garrett Nordmark;

As for EKGs, currently, only he and Mage Gelman Klaus operated the human-powered EKG machines, and the only reader was Garrett Nordmark himself...

What? An ultrasound? The human-powered ultrasound machine + human-powered lab technician, Garrett Nordmark, was the only one available...

But he had to carry on! Garrett Nordmark silently cheered himself on. He smiled and turned to the first old man who sat before him:

"Grandpa Johnny, what’s troubling you?"

"My chest feels tight..."

The old man turned his face away and coughed forcefully a few times, secretly sliding his hand into his pocket. Garrett Nordmark’s eyes narrowed, and he immediately rushed over to grab his hand:

"What’s wrong?"

A palm full of fresh blood. A middle-aged man beside the old man exclaimed:

"Dad!"

"It’s nothing, nothing." The old man coughed a few more times. "Just a little blood, it’s nothing serious. I’ve coughed up bowls of blood before, and you’ve seen it..."

Tuberculosis?

The word flashed through Garrett Nordmark’s mind. X-rays, listening, it did seem a bit like tuberculosis, but also not quite. The Bald Bishop sighed beside him:

"Johnny has been our patient for a long time, his tuberculosis flares up a few times each summer and winter, sometimes with blood, sometimes without. I’ve treated him before, but we’ve never been able to cure it completely. Little Garrett, what do you think?"

"I’ll take a look—everyone, step back! Don’t stand directly in front of him!"

Tuberculosis is contagious!

Garrett Nordmark wasn’t worried for himself. With masks and bubble spells ready, such contagions couldn’t touch him. He examined the patient with a stethoscope and X-rays, then collected the patient’s sputum for culture.

As he tossed 【Bacterial Growth Spell】 into the culture dish, he chatted with the Bald Bishop:

"Bishop, you were treating him for tuberculosis before?"

"Yes!"

"How did you treat it?"

"We used 【Remove Disease】 once, and it helped a bit, but then it relapsed. His family can’t afford the cost of divine spells, so he’s just been taking medicine."

Truth be told, taking medicine, various herbs, did help a bit: at least in terms of expelling and dissolving phlegm

and aiding coughs. However, after Garrett Nordmark cultured the bacteria, fixed and stained it, and examined it under a microscope, he furrowed his brows deeply:

There were no tuberculosis bacilli.

If it were tuberculosis, even if streptomycin hadn’t been developed yet, he could have asked Elder Elwin to use 【Targeted Bacterial Eradication】 to clear the tuberculosis bacilli from the lungs. But without the tuberculosis bacilli, this was a bit troublesome...

Garrett Nordmark patiently asked for the patient’s medical history. Fever, occasionally, unclear if it was high or low fever, unclear when the body temperature was highest;

Chest tightness, chest pain, blood in phlegm, a lot of blood coughed up two years ago;

What had he done before? Everything, chopping wood, burning charcoal, firing kilns... Rural folks had to do all sorts of work to make a living!

Hearing "burning charcoal" and "firing kilns," Garrett Nordmark already had a guess. He asked the old man to lie down in the hospital examination room and turned to the Bald Bishop and the old man’s son, a city guard soldier named Ten:

"This gentleman probably doesn’t have tuberculosis. As for the reason he’s coughing up blood, I suspect it’s due to too much dust in his lungs from his years of burning charcoal and firing kilns."

"What? How can you prove it?"

"How can we treat it?"

The Bald Bishop and Ten asked simultaneously. Garrett Nordmark confidently replied:

"The proof is simple, send an Arcane Eye vine into his lungs to have a look. As for the treatment, first, lung washing; second, considering how much blood he’s coughed up, there might be calcification in his bronchi, removing it should help."

Ten turned to look at his father, then at the Bald Bishop, skeptical. Garrett Nordmark smiled slightly:

"The lung washing surgery, I’ve performed it hundreds of times in the Dwarf Kingdom, and everyone survived. If you trust me, I’ll treat the old man right now."

"Really? Really?"

"Treat me!"

The old man suddenly burst out with a low roar. Following that, another severe bout of coughing ensued, causing Garrett Nordmark to rush over to pat his back and soothe his chest.

It took a while for Grandpa Johnny to recover, tightly gripping Garrett Nordmark’s wrist, his beard bristling:

"As long as I live, I’ll survive; if not, I’ll die! Little Garrett is someone we’ve watched grow up, this kid is kind-hearted, he won’t harm me! Let him do it!"

With the patient’s firm intention, Garrett Nordmark didn’t hesitate. He started the electric oxygen generator, cultivated the vines, performed single-lung ventilation, and initiated lung washing and extraction...

After countless practices in the Dwarf Kingdom, his actions here were smooth and efficient. Dark gray dirty water was pumped out of the lungs, leaving the watching priests dumbfounded:

"The lungs were this dirty?!"

"Can a living person’s lungs be cleaned like this?"

After the lung washing, using vines to "bite" open surrounding tissue and removing the calcification from the bronchi, the healing spells were cast. The old man opened his eyes and took a few breaths:

"Whew, much better! Little Garrett—uh, Nordmark Mage, your healing magic is truly miraculous!"

Ten rushed over to support his elderly father. The two of them, one on each side, slowly walked out of the examination room. Another old lady immediately came forward:

"Little... oh, Nordmark Mage, my hand has been feeling very numb lately, could you take a look?"

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