Chapter 842: Giving Up on Treatment
This is the common phenomenon I face. The patients in the intensive care unit all have incurable diseases or are on the brink of death.
And these are just the diseases from my previous life. There are also several strange diseases unique to this world. For example, one ward has a sign that reads “Zego Virus Infection,” and the patient’s face is severely deformed, with strange tentacles growing out.
Another ward has a sign that reads “Rampant Dragon Disease.” The patient’s eyes are blood red, they are acting violently, and they are struggling while being chained to the hospital bed, with black smoke constantly emanating from their body.
The medical record outside yet another ward reads “Green Rot Disease.” The patient has grown green mold on their body and emits a foul stench.
These three patients all exhibit different energy fluctuations, but none of them are easily curable diseases. If Vice Dean Masleyton were to ask me to choose one, I’m not entirely sure if I could cure them.
I feel that although the first patient seems to be a viral infection, normal methods won’t cure them. The second patient is beyond viral infection; the virus is constantly evolving within them, and I can’t say what they will eventually turn into. As for the third patient, the magical energy fluctuations on their body make me feel very uneasy.
Originally, I thought Masleyton would pick one of these abnormal patients to make things difficult for me. To my surprise, he frowned, pulled over a bird-faced plague doctor, and asked, “Why are you still keeping these patients? They should have been given up on long ago!”
“However, they are all rare cases with research value. Moreover, it’s estimated they only have three to four days left to live. Even if something goes wrong, we have sufficient means to handle it here,” the bird-faced plague doctor replied in a muffled voice.
“Are you kidding me? Do you want to repeat the accident from three years ago? If you want to die, don’t drag everyone else down! Don’t forget the unwritten rules. Or do you want me to report this to the Dean?” Masleyton said with a dark expression, gritting his teeth.
It seems that mentioning the Dean has some deterrence on these plague doctors. The bird-faced plague doctor could only say, “I understand. We will shut down all their life support devices and stop all treatment afterward.”
“Hurry up. And I suspect they won’t die that easily. If they don’t pass away by tomorrow, help them along. One injection, and make it clean and neat. You can dissect the corpses however you like afterward.”
“Yes, we will handle it cleanly.” The bird-faced plague doctor became much more enthusiastic after receiving the Vice Dean’s promise that they could dissect the corpses, and immediately agreed to his command.
Because Masleyton was speaking emotionally, his voice was quite loud. I was following behind him and naturally overheard all their conversation. This revealed something terrifying.
The Vice Dean of a hospital openly instructing his subordinates to abandon patient treatment, and even planning to harm them, would be shocking if it got out.
Masleyton didn’t even consider this matter something to be avoided or a secret conspiracy. Even with me and Amelia, two outsiders, right behind him, he spoke his mind directly. And the other doctors, upon hearing this, seemed to find it normal, without any objections.
I felt something was very wrong. Doctors are supposed to save lives and heal the injured. Isn’t this equivalent to murder? Even passive inaction is better than active killing, right?
But when I opened my mouth, the words caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say because my intuition told me that the Vice Dean’s decision was correct. Those patients were extremely dangerous, like ticking time bombs. Letting them be could lead to major trouble.
I know this danger is not the patients’ fault. They are also victims. They might have accidentally contracted the virus, or been chosen by some dangerous entity, just like I got Vascular Disease, it was just bad luck.
However, if they are allowed to live, more people will encounter the same danger as them, and perhaps even more terrifying things will descend.
If I were to plead for them, it would only be justifiable if I could cure them completely. That would be being responsible to others and to the patients themselves.
The problem is, I have no confidence in my ability to cure them. Rather than letting them continue to suffer and even endanger others, it would be better for them to die swiftly and without further torment.
Ultimately, after my conscience was troubled by the dilemma, and after repeated hesitation and wavering, I chose to remain silent, allowing them to kill the patients and becoming a silent accomplice.
The Vice Dean who ordered their deaths was not wrong; he made a cruel but correct decision. The mistake was mine. It was my lack of ability to cure these patients and eliminate the dangerous factors that forced me to watch them be abandoned.
I clenched my fists silently. I had been reluctant to embrace the identity of a doctor before, refusing Amelia’s invitation.
But what I have seen and heard along the way has shown me the darkest world I’ve encountered since my transmigration. Even Falbedy Cemetery and the Slums seemed like paradise compared to this place.
Perhaps, studying medicine can truly save people. Perhaps, I should try harder. I can’t change the world, but I should be able to save more people.
I feel ashamed. Previously, relying on my ability to control germs and my excellent Potion Brewing talent, I thought I could cure any disease. I even boasted that my specialty was treating germs and plagues. Yet, upon entering, I find myself unsure about most severe cases.
At this moment, Masleyton has begun carefully examining the case files of patients in various wards. He didn’t choose the dangerous patients whom he himself had declared doomed. In his opinion, those cases were beyond scope, had no treatment value, and were outside the scope of medical research.
His gaze swept across the last few wards: rabies, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, tuberculosis, late-stage hepatitis—almost all of which were incurable diseases in this era.
Just contracting any one of these diseases was essentially a death sentence, warranting writing a last will. There was not a sliver of hope for survival, and everyone would shun these patients, fearing they’d be next.
However, these diseases that everyone feared, and were considered incurable by ordinary people, happen to be ones I have some confidence in treating. As long as these diseases are caused by germs, I can directly command the germs to stop harming the human body.
I looked at the Vice Dean, hoping he would choose one of these patients. Then I could easily cure them, win this bet, and quickly leave this oppressive old hospital to obtain a recommendation letter for further studies at the medical college.
But the Vice Dean stopped. He didn’t choose from these incurable diseases. Instead, he glanced back at me, thought for a moment, and then turned to another area.
It was an area I had already seen: wards for meningitis and poliomyelitis. Although these patients were not in immediate mortal danger, they were either mentally disoriented or paralyzed in bed.
“Miss Parul, you mentioned earlier that you are most skilled at treating diseases caused by germs?” Vice Dean Masleyton suddenly asked meaningfully.
