Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Patients with acute myocardial infarction were classified into many types. But regardless of the type, modern medicine encouraged the treatment of myocardial infarction through interventional surgery.
Truth be told, this was also the best short-term method to ensure the patient’s survival.
The interventional surgery often carried out in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery was a type of endoscopy. This was also what Wei Jiayou was best at.
Wei Jiayou was confident that based on the patient’s current condition, he had an 80% chance of saving the patient if he were to operate on the patient right now.
However, as time passed by, the patient’s chance of survival was becoming lower and lower.
Wei Jiayou got so annoyed that he hid in the shadows and started thinking of various ways to save the patient.
“If all of you still refuse to sign the informed consent form, we won’t be able to carry out the surgery in time to save the patient.” A doctor from the Cardiology Department of Yun Hua Hospital had also come to the Emergency Department to give the patient’s family members notice of critical illness. He sounded impatient and agitated as he spoke.
“This decision is not up to us. We can’t sign the form.” The middle-aged man who had been trying to contact the patient’s son in a frenzy shook his head nonstop, and his tone became increasingly firm.
“You’re still unable to contact the patient’s son? How long do we have to wait for?” As the doctor from the Cardiology Department looked at the ticking clock, a surge of agitation rose inside his chest.
“I don’t know.” The middle-aged man was equally agitated. He said, “His son works overtime all the time. I have tried calling both his office and the house he rented. What else can I do?!”
The doctor from the Cardiology Department took a deep breath. “The surgery really can’t be delayed anymore. If you still refuse to sign the form, the patient might not make it anymore.”
The middle-aged man shook his head and did not even bother to offer any further explanation.
He felt that the doctors in the hospital would not be able to understand the reason behind his action, and he did not expect them to understand either.
Wei Jiayou glanced at the monitor before he looked at Di Maocai. He finally came forward and said coldly, “We’re not going to wait for you to sign the form anymore. Send the patient to the operating theater first.”
Di Maocai merely watched as his student spoke. He did not offer any opinion.
The patient’s family member breathed a sigh of relief and quietly lowered his head as if he did not hear what Wei Jiayou just said. He then whipped out his phone again and started yelling loudly.
The paramedics around the patient did not have time to care about the conflict between the doctor and the patient’s family members. The moment they received the chief surgeon’s order, they immediately got to work. No one wanted a patient whose life could actually be saved to lose his life because of delays that occurred in the hospital.
The brakes of the gurney were lifted. A male nurse stood behind the gurney, exerted some force using his hands, and started pushing it.
*Beep, beep, beep, beep…*
The monitor suddenly beeped almost exactly at the moment the male nurse started pushing the gurney.
“Defibrillator!” Wei Jiayou immediately shouted.
The male nurse immediately stopped in his tracks. He put down the brakes before connecting the defibrillator to the power source.
*Rip.*
Wei Jiayou tore open the patient’s clothes and placed the electrodes on his chest. “Clear!” he yelled, and at that very moment, it could be seen from the monitor that the patient’s heart beat once, albeit very faintly.
“CPR.” Wei Jiayou did not feel relieved because of that at all. He knelt on the gurney, stacked his palms together, and started carrying out chest compressions.
“One, two, three, four…” Wei Jiayou hummed a song to ensure that he was performing the chest compressions at the correct intervals.
The nurses in the Emergency Department tried their best to work along with him.
Soon, Yu Yuan showed up and said loudly, “I can take over when you’re tired.”
“There’s no need for that.” Wei Jiayou did not believe in Yu Yuan’s ability. In a hospital he was not familiar with, Wei Jiayou did not believe in anyone’s ability.
He performed the CPR alone as he fixed his gaze on the monitor, hoping that he would be able to resuscitate the patient.
Di Maocai did not interfere. For the hospitals in Yun Hua, his act of bringing Wei Jiayou along with him was a “show of force”. But for Wei Jiayou, it was a test.
Since he was lacking in experience because of his age, Di Maocai wanted him to broaden his horizons by visiting hospitals in different cities.
Some diseases might be very rare in certain provinces or cities, but extremely common in others.
Besides, a doctor was able to drastically improve his skills by visiting different places and dealing with different kinds of patients.
Take their trip to Yun Hua for example. Wei Jiayou did not get the chance to operate on patients with aortic dissection as expected, but he got to practice his CPR skills.
Wei Jiayou panted as he carried out chest compressions. After the patient was defibrillated again, he was finally brought back to life.
“Carry on. Bring him to the operating theater now.” Wei Jiayou ordered without hesitation.
The male nurse lifted the brakes again and slowly pushed the gurney forward. The patient’s family members automatically followed the gurney. Even though they refused to sign the informed consent form because they did not want to be held responsible, they still hoped that the doctors would be able to save the patient.
The male nurse pushed the gurney toward the operating theater at a uniform speed. When he was about to push the gurney into the operating theater, the monitor started beeping again.
This time, Wei Jiayou was even more well-prepared. He steadily defibrillated the patient before performing chest compressions.
First set.
Second set.
Third set.
Wei Jiayou’s forehead was soon covered in sweat.
“Defibrillate!” Wei Jiayou shouted. After the patient was defibrillated, he immediately started performing chest compressions again.
First set…
Second set…
Third set…
“Defibrillate!” Even though Wei Jiayou raised his voice, the defibrillator did not become more effective.
This time, Wei Jiayou did not even look at the monitor before he started performing chest compressions.
Each set consisted of thirty compressions, and Wei Jiayou had to perform one hundred and twenty chest compressions per minute. He was drenched in sweat.
The tall and gaunt Wei Jiayou had long and beautiful fingers. His arms and legs were a lot longer than those of ordinary people, and because of this, he cut a strange figure as he leaned over the patient.
His arms were not muscular at all, and as he performed chest compressions, it seemed like the patient’s chest was being stabbed by two bones.
At first, everyone’s focus was on the patient.
But as time passed by, most of the onlookers started to notice how grotesque Wei Jiayou looked as he performed CPR on the patient.
Apart from Wei Jiayou’s posture and the way he looked, the onlookers could not ignore the burnt smell emitted as a result of the frequent use of the defibrillator.
“Epinephrine!” Wei Jiayou yelled again.
The nurse beside him was well-prepared. All the drugs that were frequently used on patients with myocardial infarction were right beside her hand. The moment she heard Wei Jiayou’s order, she immediately injected a syringe of epinephrine into the patient’s blood vessel.
Wei Jiayou then asked another doctor to open the patient’s upper respiratory tract, which meant that tracheotomy would be carried out and a ventilator would be connected.
Compared to using a bag valve mask, some research showed that the opening of the upper respiratory tract was beneficial for prolonged CPR.
The fact that Wei Jiayou asked for the patient’s upper respiratory tract to be opened was also an indication of his judgment regarding the patient’s condition—the CPR would last for a long time. In other words, the CPR he was carrying out was no longer a battle that would be over in a flash, but one that would last for a long while.
Five minutes passed…
Ten minutes passed…
Soon, the CPR lasted for more than fifteen minutes.
If this were to happen in the United States, this amount of time spent on a CPR effort was basically already the limit of the acceptable amount of time for CPR. Most doctors would give up on performing chest compressions at this point.
Even in China, only certain doctors would be willing to fight for this 0.5% chance.
Doctors who were not confident in their own skills or the capabilities of their hospitals and departments would not carry out prolonged CPR.
Sometimes, a doctor would also refrain from carrying out prolonged CPR because he knew that this was not what the patient wanted, or because this would result in the patient receiving a grim prognosis.
Truth be told, the probability of a patient recovering his heart functions after prolonged CPR was 5%, which was not considered low. Meanwhile, the other patients who had any less chance than the 5% chance of recovering heart function but were also among the 0.5% patients who survived will experience brain death.
A few doctors shifted their gaze toward Wei Jiayou, trying to guess what decision he would make.
At this moment, if the doctor carrying out CPR were someone the doctors in the hospital were familiar with, one of them would definitely go forward and remind the doctor of the time that had passed.
However, all the doctors neither liked Wei Jiayou nor knew him well. Hence, no one wanted to take this risk.
“Can someone else take over?” Wei Jiayou finally ran out of strength to carry out chest compressions. However, instead of making the decision to give up, he chose to let someone else take over.
A doctor from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery hesitated for a moment and volunteered. “Doctor Wei, I’ll do it.”
Even though Wei Jiayou was only a newbie, his teacher, Di Maocai was one of the most renowned doctors in the country. It was considered an investment for the doctor from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of Yun Hua Hospital to butter up to Di Maocai and flatter his student a little.
Wei Jiayou persisted for another minute before jumping off the gurney and making way for the doctor who volunteered.
The doctor from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery hopped onto the gurney and started to perform chest compressions. He soon started panting.
“Gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp, wheeze…”
When Wei Jiayou saw how unskilled the other party was, he said after counting to five, “Let someone else take over.”
The department director of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery had already come to the Emergency Department at this point in time. As he watched, another attending physician from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery volunteered, and then another.
The young attending physicians from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery and Wei Jiayou took turns to perform chest compressions on the patient. Even the medical staff who were crowding around them joined in.
Ling Ran entered the Operating Area together with the crowd.
He was quite curious as to how the skills of the doctors from another hospital who were here for a “show of force” were like.
There were no set rules when it came to the frequency at which different doctors take over, the usage of drugs, and the usage of the defibrillator during CPR. These were usually decided by the doctors on the spot.
After persisting for forty minutes, Wei Jiayou finally decided that the patient could not be resuscitated.
“He won’t make it.” Wei Jiayou raised his head to look at the clock on the wall. “Time of death…”
“We can continue with the CPR. There’s still a chance.” Ling Ran cut Wei Jiayou off before he could announce the patient’s death.
Even though forty minutes of CPR was considered extremely long, in Ling Ran’s opinion, it was far from the right time to announce the patient’s death as there was still a chance that he could be saved.
He came to this conclusion after looking at the patient’s electrocardiograph. Even though the baseline was unstable and the waves were haphazard, this was because many different people carried out chest compressions on him and caused a great disturbance.
Aside from this, the patient was only around fifty years old. Based on the lifespan and health condition of people in this modern society, as long as the patient was resuscitated, his prognosis would not be too grim.
However, Wei Jiayou did not like it when other people interfered with his patients. After he turned and glanced at Ling Ran’s face, he got even more annoyed. He shrugged and said, “He’s your patient now.”
“Alright.” Unlike the doctors Wei Jiayou usually encountered, Ling Ran did not make a scene about making sure who the patient belonged to. He merely gave a one-word answer before he hopped onto the gurney, knelt down, and started performing chest compressions.
“One, two, three…”
