Zheng Ren and Su Yun reached the interventional operating theater at 8.18 a.m.
Feng Xuhui stopped at the door as he did not have permission to enter operating rooms in Imperial Capital General. However, right before Su Yun closed the door, Feng Xuhui openly conveyed his intentions: he would be waiting for Zheng Ren and Su Yun to finish their surgery and then go out for lunch together.
“This guy is still too green,” Su Yun commented when he shut the door.
Zheng Ren did not pay Feng Xuhui much attention as he only had one thing in mind—the interventional surgery for hepatocellular carcinoma.
The interventional radiology department had already sent the patient over.
He guessed that Chief Kong had prepared everything earlier to prevent an awkward situation where Zheng Ren arrived before his patient.
These situations happened relatively often, and there was no exception, even for Chief Kong.
Zheng Ren had gained Chief Kong’s recognition after briefly working together and the latter was eager to commence the surgery today, hurriedly handing over his shift before ordering the first patient sent to the operating theater.
The entire morning shift of the interventional radiology department was aware of the new surgery. All of its doctors were bubbling with excitement as they crammed themselves into the operating theater.
As for their own department… The operating theater was not far from the ward, reachable on foot within a minute. What was there to worry about?
No extraneous task could surpass the significance of observing a new surgical method.
Therefore, as soon as shift handover was complete, not a single white coat could be found in the entire ward. Instead, there were almost twenty doctors standing in an orderly manner inside the interventional operating theater.
There were only eight in-house doctors among them, including Chief Kong. Many professors with their own teams could not get even a single in-house doctor to join them.
All of their in-house doctors had an assistant professorship at the very least, which begged the question: who would lead the surgery? That was why most teams consisted of postgraduate students, PhD students, and fellows.
Most of the physicians on duty in that room were fellows.
At this time of the year, manpower was still sufficient. Around Chinese New Year, though, the professors all suffered when the fellows, Master’s students and postgraduates returned to their hometowns.
They had to either choose to reduce their number of surgeries or beg someone else to assist them.
There were countless professors in Imperial Capital, making them stand out much less than they would in a place like Sea City.
Department Chief Kong sat facing the screen in the operating console room outside the theater. There were four other professors sitting around him. Every other physician had to find a spot to stand.
Zheng Ren went to scrub in while Su Yun prepped the table.
The films from the patient’s MRI and 3D-reconstructed 64-slice CT scan were pinned to the radiographic film viewer after being repeatedly examined for mistakes.
After scrubbing in, Zheng Ren gave them one final check while suiting up.
There was no such thing as being too cautious in surgery, even if one was being borderline obsessive-compulsive.
After all, surgery mishaps did happen, such as operations being performed on the wrong kidney or lung.
Why? Most of the time, it was simply because there were too many surgeries that day, and the scans of the previous patient were still attached to the reader.
At first glance, the surgeon would start their operation on the organ on the right side, only realizing mid-operation that the malignant tissue they were looking for was on the left side!
Those were considered the luckier ones. Some unfortunate souls even had their healthy organs removed…
“Dr. Zheng has good habits,” one of the professors, leading their own team, pointed out after watching Zheng Ren carefully examine the scans.
“There are four surgeries today. All four of the 64-slice CT scans were reconstructed by him,” Chief Kong explained, “Each one has a different insertion path, which is why he needs to check them carefully.”
Most doctors from the interventional radiology department had heard about it. They did not fully understand how Zheng Ren had managed to pull it off, but no one was stupid enough to challenge Chief Kong’s words.
As usual, Zheng Ren started operating while Su Yun was scrubbing in.
After the introducer sheath entered the femoral artery, the guide wire went in with no issue.
Zheng Ren’s cross-hands maneuver flowed like water.
Dr. Shen quietly took out his phone and started a stopwatch.
While watching over Lin Jiaojiao yesterday, he still felt somewhat wronged and simulated the entire scrubbing-in process repeatedly, timing himself as he did so. He wanted to check if Zheng Ren had sped up due to it being an emergency case, thus throwing him off guard.
After Su Yun finished scrubbing in and reached the operating table, Dr. Shen glanced at his phone.
Two minutes and fifteen seconds. This was half the time he took.
Was he also that fast during a normal surgery?
It was only the beginning. After Su Yun joined in, Dr. Shen witnessed the true meaning of efficiency.
IDuring the midnight surgery, he had been in a state of confusion and had not managed to get a clear picture, which was why he ended up “licking” the screen. In this moment, however, he was fully composed and finally able to truly admire how proficient Zheng Ren and Su Yun were at interventional surgery.
Zheng Ren began working at lightning speed once Su Yun joined in.
The micro-guidewire was inserted followed by the microcatheter. From the radiography, the microcatheter’s positioning was unbelievably accurate. Superselective catheterization was performed and the micro-guidewire continued down an invisible artery, executing targeted administration of chemotherapy drugs to hepatic cirrhosis nodules before finishing them off with embolization.
After treating all of the suspected cancerous nodules, Zheng Ren infused a minute amount of chemotherapeutic medication across the liver as a preventative measure, and the surgery was complete.
Su Yun did not perform manual compression to stop bleeding, instead choosing to use a compression device in accordance with local practice. He then bandaged the patient before proceeding to the next surgery.
Dr. Shen had been completely absorbed throughout the entire surgery up to that moment, where he checked the timer on his phone again.
Twenty-two minutes and fifteen seconds…
Before this, he would have thought that interventional surgeries on hepatocellular carcinoma lasting less than thirty minutes were shams.
However, he had just seen this unbelievably short surgery, so precise that he would never be able to simulate it at his current skill level, with his own eyes.
“What an elegant piece of work!” one of the professors exclaimed.
“The insertion was on point. Chief, I assume you were referring to the technique of referring to the 3D-image reconstruction of the 64-slice CT scan. It’s really brilliant,” another professor commented.
“Yes, Chief Chu and I helped out Mr. Zheng with the reconstruction for ten hours,” Chief Kong said, immediately feeling a pang of guilt, his wrinkled face flushing red.
Had they really been helping Zheng Ren?
They did offer discussion and research, but Zheng Ren completed almost 80% of the work by himself. To say that they helped… was quite far-fetched.
While they spoke, Zheng Ren and Su Yun had already started the second surgery.
It was good that they could not hear him. He was just making conversation and there was no need to take his words seriously.
Department Chief Kong smiled when he saw Zheng Ren and Su Yun breeze through the second surgery. Internally, he chuckled as he thought about how this new differential diagnosis and surgical method would soon spread across the entire country and even the world.
The Zheng Method?
Chief Kong became teary-eyed as he thought about it. Nevertheless, he quickly regained his composure. It would not matter if Zheng Ren could not understand such a sentiment.
It was unfortunate that he had such sharp-witted company. The chances of that man brushing off this matter were close to zero.
If he accidentally offended Zheng Ren, by the time he reached retirement age in less than ten years, Zheng Ren and Su Yun would still be under forty…
Tsk tsk, it was unwise to try to swindle the young.
