Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Deal with the thread.”
Doctor Qu did not say anything, but Ling Ran had already coiled the thread and placed it by the side.
“Make it moist.”
Right when Doctor Qu finished speaking, Ling Ran had already asked for saline solution.
“Carry out the aspi…”
Doctor Qu did not finish his sentence, but Ling Ran had already drawn out the fluid.
Doctor Qu had just cut open the skin, treated the subcutaneous tissue, and then did the necessary protection needed for the mesentery, small blind vein, the sural nerve, and the other parts. He felt… extremely comfortable, but also awkward. His body was comfortable, but he felt awkward in his heart.
Once he thought carefully about the surgery, Old Qu noticed that he had not scolded anyone since the beginning of surgery.
The operation was done too smoothly, to the point that Doctor Qu did not even think about scolding anyone.
Basically, right when Doctor Qu thought of doing something, before he could make his request, Ling Ran was already several steps ahead of him.
Such a surgery could only be said to be extremely comfortable.
As an ordinary surgeon, Doctor Qu never once thought that surgeries could be done in such a comfortable manner.
This was exactly like a person delivering the food you wanted to eat to your lips when you wanted to grab some food.
Although the surgery was done smoothly, Doctor Qu did not feel happy.
What he pursued was not a smooth operation.
What he pursued were surgeries that were challenging, and him being able to overcome them by himself bit by bit. He pursued surgeries that would give him a sense of accomplishment.
Doctor Qu was only forty years old this year, was bald, and ambitious. He was different from Wang Haiyang.
Wang Haiyang was old and frail, and his favorite thing was being spoon fed. Wang Haiyang could always keep on performing surgeries and enjoy being endlessly spoon fed.
Doctor Qu hoped for a surgery that was at least a little difficult to chew.
In today’s surgery, he even looked forward to watching Ling Ran make a small mistake.
A senior doctor’s authority towards junior doctors was based on mistakes done by the juniors.
A doctor’s qualifications were not what others cared about the most in operating theaters. Perhaps the qualifications and identity of a department director would make everyone feel a little wary and make them a little uncertain of their movements. However, while the department director could scold anyone anytime he wanted to, any doctor who wanted to scold others must find a suitable opportunity to do so.
When a junior doctor made a mistake, it was a good opportunity for the senior doctor to scold him and vent his anger.
But what if the junior doctor did not make a mistake throughout the whole operation? That meant that the authority of the senior doctor was non-existent. Perhaps, both of them were already on the same level. Their skill levels might even be reversed.
If there were no gap between their skill levels, and the surgeon did not have control over the surgery and the operating theater, how could the senior doctor show his seniority?
He could not just act unreasonably and rudely, right?
Although surgeons had aggressive temperaments, there were basically none who were unreasonable and rude.
Doctor Qu raised his head and cast a glance at Ling Ran. He opened his mouth and said, “It’s time to suture.”
“Okay.” Ling Ran’s eyes never left the lens of the two-head microscope. He held the forceps in his hand with a posture that suggested he was ready to grab the Achilles tendon at any moment.
When Doctor Qu looked at him, he frowned. Indeed, his next step was to suture the Achilles tendon, and he planned to use a method that will strengthen the tensile strength of the suture, so he needed an assistant to bring out the Achilles tendon attached to slightly atrophied muscles.
Doctor Qu was sure that as soon as he started to work, Ling Ran would begin pinching the Achilles tendon, because the steps to strengthen the tensile strength of the threads were as such.
So, would there be no need to strengthen the tensile strength of the stitches?
An idea flashed in Doctor Qu’s mind, but he vetoed it in an instant.
Although he could indeed use another suture method to suture the Achilles tendon, the sudden change of plans during the surgery required a series of other changes to other things, and Doctor Qu was more worried that he would be confused himself.
There were many ways to repair the Achilles tendon. None of them were too complicated to describe in words, but it was not so simple to implement and execute any of them on a living person, even though they were certain whether he or she was alive.
To put it in the perspective of a math problem, this situation would be like how there were four solutions to the mathematics of Orsay, but no matter how many times the teacher taught all four solutions, most people can only master one or two solutions.
Doctor Qu had originally mastered two kinds of Achilles tendon repair techniques, the simple end-to-end repair technique and the repair technique that aimed to strengthen the Achilles tendon. The latter was already the complicated form of the former, so if Doctor Qu were to perform an even more difficult surgery on the spot…
His mind was not so vulnerable that he would do something so stupid to show his worth.
“Take out the Achilles tendon.” Doctor Qu sighed in his heart and watched Ling Ran bring out the Achilles tendon in only a second.
The corner of Doctor Qu’s eyes twitched, and he began to suture without a word.
He used the modified Kessler method, which was the most commonly used tendon suture method used by doctors in the Hand Surgery Department of Yun Hua Hospital.
The Achilles tendon was still a tendon, and the Achilles tendon was the sturdiest of all tendons in the human body. Therefore, it was enough to use the more common tendon suture method on the Achilles tendon. Meanwhile, the M-Tang technique which Ling Ran was familiar with would not show any of its advantages on this super-thick and super-strong tendon.
Ling Ran silently watched Doctor Qu’s operation and gave real-time assistance according to his speed and progress.
He now had the Perfect Level of Achilles Repair Technique in his possession, and it naturally included the complete version of the modified Kessler method in the skill. In fact, there was no need for Ling Ran to wait for the system to give such a basic tendon repair skill to him, he could just practice it a little and master it.
It was even easier for him now because he did not need to use the technique as the chief surgeon.
The pressure and responsibility of a first assistant were much lower than the chief surgeon. Ling Ran had ample time to observe and understand Doctor’s Qu operating habits, think about his operating purpose, and sort out the sequence of his operation.
The first assistant in a normal surgeon pair in any surgery would usually be sweating bullets while he learned the surgery, and he would be considered quite good if he could keep up to the rhythm of the chief surgeon. The first assistant would not have time to predict the chief surgeon’s next step.
Doctor Qu did not raise his head to look at Ling Ran, but he could feel how relaxed Ling Ran was.
He was relaxed.
He performed the surgery as he was an artist who focused on vivid expressions.
He did it effortlessly.
For a chief surgeon, it was simply a sin to fail to make full use of his or her first assistant.
“Please pass over the tendon stripper.” Doctor Qu took it from the scrub nurse and asked, “Ling Ran, do you know what this is for?”
“It’s to strip down the plantaris muscle [1].” Ling Ran’s answer was simple and powerful.
“Yes. Do you know how to use it?” Doctor Qu followed up with another question.
“I do.”
“You do it.” Doctor Qu did not want to be working so hard alone and end up making a fool of himself before Ling Ran.
If the chief surgeon wanted to gain the initiative, he had to let the first assistant perform the surgery. If the first assistant did not perform well, then the chief surgeon could seize the chance to give a scolding and recover his authority.
If the first assistant managed it well… it was still expected for him to do so. Regardless of whether the chief surgeon praised him or not, the chief surgeon was still the in-charge of the operating theater…
Ling Ran reached out and took the tendon stripper. Under Doctor Qu’s expectant gaze, with two clips, he divided the plantaris muscle. Then after some epic maneuvers, he cut off the proximal end of the plantaris muscle, and stored it into a wet gauze to preserve it.
Such a procedure would require the span of time a person would take to read four to five pages of a surgical book. Ling Ran, however, only needed a few minutes to get it right.
“4-0 nylon thread.” Ling Ran took the thread from the nurse and began to stitch the tendon bundle of the Achilles tendon.
He only needed to use a 4-0 thread and employ a simple interrupted suture to comb the severed end of the ponytail-like tendon bundle neatly, and the tendon stripping would be completed.
Ling Ran threw the instrument on the plate and looked at Doctor Qu.
“Mmm… it’s done well,” Doctor Qu was silent for a few seconds before he reached out and said, “2-0 thread.”
The scrub nurse took the needle holder with the 2-0 thread and passed it to Doctor Qu.
Doctor Qu began to truly suture the Achilles tendon. The aim was to suture the distal plantaris muscle to the torn Achilles tendon, and finally spread the ponytail-like tendon bundle to form a smooth membrane surface…
For Doctor Qu, this was a relatively familiar operation, and there were not many fancy aspects in this operation. He just needed to suture the tendon according to conventions and thereby ensure the strength of the patient’s Achilles tendon.
This was also a very familiar surgical procedure to Ling Ran.
He had activated the Great Medical Spoon-Feeding Technique. If they had to something so standard, Ling Ran could feed Doctor Qu even more accurately than before.
After ten minutes, Doctor Qu was so well-fed that he was stuffed.
However, he still could not make a rash decision and stop. While he could still make changes when they were halfway through the surgery, now, there was no room for change. At least, with Doctor Qu’s ability, there was nothing else he could change in the surgery.
For the same reason, Ling Ran’s judgment on Doctor Qu’s operation was even timelier than before.
Doctor Qu was under the impression that he was running a marathon desperately, and Ling Ran was always running in front of him. He was even handing to water and bread to him nonstop.
Doctor Qu was someone with a stable position in the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center. How could he be spoon-fed like this…
He sped up the suturing…
He slowed down the suturing…
He operated in sequence; he operated in reverse…
Slowly, Doctor Qu became familiar with Ling Ran’s spoon-feeding.
As the saying went, “It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality.”
When someone prepared every step of the surgery ahead for you, handled the aftermath, and paid attention to the details, any chief surgeon would gradually fall in love with this feeling.
Doctor Qu sutured with all his might and completed the suture of the Achilles tendon at an ultra-fast speed.
Then, he asked for a 3-0 absorbable thread and sutured the skin to close the skin.
Ling Ran acted as his first assistant without making a sound. He did not fight back, behaved in a proper manner, just like how Doctor Qu requested. Everything was done according to the standards of all surgeries.
After the last suture was finished, Doctor Qu cast aside the needle holder and looked at the thin thread at the wound. He did not speak for a long time.
In his heart was a wonderful feeling. He felt that his technique had leveled up, that his technique had become stronger, and that his technique had changed in terms of quality.
However, rationality pulled the Doctor Qu to the other spectrum of emotions.
Doctor Qu’s expression changed constantly while his emotions were conflict.
“We’ll end things here.” After an indefinite time, Doctor Qu turned and stepped open the door of the operating theater.
“Be careful.” Xue Haochu was about to enter in a hurry, and he bumped against Doctor Qu.
Doctor Qu only frowned, turned away, and left.
Xue Haochu looked at Ling Ran, the resident doctor, and several other nurses in the operating theater. He gave them a cordial smile before he turned to Ling Ran and said, “Doctor Ling, the surgery was just recorded into a video, I sent a copy to Academician Zhu and one copy to your email address.”
