Practicing Medical Skills in a Small Clinic novel Chapter 695

Chapter 695: Chapter 320: Professor Wu Assigns Responsibilities, Causes of Hypotonicity (2)

In her clinical work, when she encountered problems, Professor Wu no longer guided her as attentively as before. People are like that.

Ou Qinglan’s office experience is still rather weak; there are just so many areas for her to improve.

"Ah, that’s how it is! Professor Wu is really nice to me!"

Although she lacks experience, luckily she’s smart as a whip, understanding things immediately.

She clearly already understood Li Jingsheng’s good intentions and changed her tune on the spot.

"Can you help me analyze this case now? Every time I encounter electrolyte imbalance or dehydration, I feel especially stressed. I have no idea where to start."

She sat down beside Li Jingsheng.

"No problem. Turn on your computer and pull up the patient’s information!"

Li Jingsheng readily agreed.

Perhaps still worried that his girlfriend didn’t understand workplace survival skills and might suffer losses, while Ou Qinglan was booting up, logging in, and retrieving patient information, he quickly sent her a text message from his phone.

"Make sure next time to control what you say; never speak ill about your superiors, colleagues, or anyone else."

She got the message, looked at her phone, and glanced over at Li Jingsheng.

Then, Li Jingsheng received her reply.

"Nanny Li!"

Li Jingsheng just felt a moment of breathlessness, this little spitfire even thought he was being long-winded.

"Good daughter!"

He quickly shot back a reply.

Now it was Ou Qinglan’s turn to breathe heavily.

Luckily, the two were not married yet; otherwise, Li Jingsheng might have had to kneel on a washboard at home or at least sleep on the couch.

"Help me find out the cause of this patient’s illness, then I’ll forgive you. Otherwise..."

She made a motion as if to pinch him.

"Girl, violence and intimidation are so out of fashion now. A woman’s greatest weapon is her tenderness, you know."

"As if! All the patient’s information is up, so get to work."

The two bickered a bit before focusing seriously on analyzing the patient’s condition.

"Giving someone a fish is not as good as teaching them to fish, let me teach you step by step!"

She kept nodding, like a diligent student, conscientiously noting down the progress methods he taught.

For any young doctor, such a good mentor is vital to guide them on their path to improvement.

"Next, let’s analyze the types of electrolyte balance. If serum sodium results remain within normal values but blood volume decreases and extracellular dehydration occurs, it’s isotonic dehydration. The major concern with this is circulatory failure.

Isotonic dehydration is usually acute, progressing rapidly, demanding immediate decisive rescue action once detected.

The second type, when serum sodium levels exceed 150mmol/L, significant water loss occurs, even leading to more water loss than sodium, strongly suggesting hypertonic dehydration. Usually, this arises from diarrhea, excessive sweating, or diabetes. Since this patient’s serum sodium is below normal, it’s evidently not hypertonic dehydration, so it can be directly ruled out.

Then there’s only the last two types left, one being water intoxication.

Often caused by drinking large amounts of water in a short time, though this patient had increased water intake, symptoms were already present before his thirst, so water intoxication is ruled out.

The last is hypotonic dehydration, where the patient’s serum sodium is below 135. If you lack diagnostic experience under available conditions, further plasma osmolality tests can be done. If below 280mmol/L, it can be mostly confirmed."

Li Jingsheng first walked her through the types of electrolyte imbalances and explained how this patient was determined to have hypotonic dehydration.

She was rapidly taking notes.

Some experiential clinical knowledge is hard to glean from textbooks.

It’s akin to combining textbook knowledge with practice, making it a living guide.