The Operating Theater 1 of the Emergency Medical Center had been renovated, was spacious, and well-designed. Even though there were a total of eight people inside, and some of them were walking around, the place was not crowded.
Even though the visitation room was similarly spacious, because of the number of people inside, the air was a little stuffy.
The experienced Associate Chief Physician Wei Qing had the intention to chase out a few resident doctors or medical interns. However, even though he had moved his lips a little, he swallowed his words in the end.
Even though surgeons were brutes, they still cared about their reputation. Aside from this, it was the politically correct thing to do to provide young doctors with a good learning environment. Senior doctors could not just chase young doctors away because they could not understand what was going on. Even though they could not understand the maneuvers in the surgery, they had their own ways of learning. No one could master a certain skill just by looking at it once. Everyone needed time to get used to things.
Besides, if he were to really chase people out, the women who were leaning against the window and taking photographs nonstop should be the ones who were chased away.
Wei Qing had been in Yun Hua Hospital for almost thirty years, but he could not really remember whether they were from the Finance Department or Public Relations Department. They might even be pharmaceutical sales representatives from third party companies.
Out of sight, out of mind. Like most of the doctors, Wei Qing fixed his gaze on the screen.
Compared with open abdominal surgery, one advantage of laparoscopy was that as long as the transmission of the signal from the operating theater was good, people who were watching the surgery got to enjoy the surgeons’ surgical field. The yellow peritoneum, spleen, stomach, and left lobe of the liver were exactly the same on the screen of the operating theater and in the screen of the visitation room. The greater omentum and transverse mesentery took up most of the surgical field…
Wei Qing suddenly regained his senses. “He’s working on the omentum already?’
“He dealt with the groups of lymph nodes in the right gastroepiploic artery and the middle colic artery at one go.” The director of the General Surgery Department looked solemnly at the operating theater below him.
Like Ouyang Kan, he had never performed radical gastrectomy for gastric surgery using a laparoscope before. It was not because he was incapable of learning it, though. It was just that gastrectomy was not exactly a high-end surgery, and as the department director, he was mainly focused on the pancreas as well as the duodenum. For general surgeons who specialized in digging patients’ shit, these were considered the pinnacle among surgeries.
Even though he did not know how to perform radical gastrectomy for gastric surgery, he had watched countless surgeries before. He was way more experienced compared to Ouyang Kan, and he was also a lot better at spotting various details. He only had to look at the operative route Ling Ran chose to know that Ling Ran was extremely confident.
Whenever surgeons were confident, they would take huge risks so that they could reap greater returns.
The department director of the General Surgery Department could not help but glance at Huo Congjun and say, “The patient is a policeman?”
“Yes. His parents also died while making great contributions to the country. And now he’s suffering from stomach cancer. He’s unlucky indeed,” Huo Congjun answered.
“You know, he would actually be in safer hands if the General Surgery Department were to take him in.” The department director of the General Surgery Department gave a deliberate reminder.
“Since Ling Ran is confident that he can handle this case well, let’s see how he does.”
“I’m just worried that he’s being too confident.”
“Huh?”
“Ouyang Kan from our department doesn’t know how to perform radical gastrectomy for stomach cancer using a laparoscope, so Ling Ran would have to call the shots throughout the surgery.”
Huo Congjun merely smiled and said nothing. He understood what the other party was trying to imply. As this surgery was an extremely risky one, they did not want to be responsible for it.
Of course, Huo Congjun could slap his chest and give his word that he would be responsible for everything that might happen like those dauntless sect leaders depicted in Wuxia novels.
However, Huo Congjun was not a lowly leader of a group of hooligans.
Everyone in the visitation room was quiet. Huo Congjun did not utter a word, and like a financial expert, he was determined not to hold any responsibility.
The department director of the General Surgery Department pursed his lips in disdain. “Old Huo, aren’t you being a little too irresponsible?”
“How could I be considered responsible if I were to put my subordinate in trouble?” Huo Congjun was not perturbed at all, and he looked at the other party like he was looking at a child. He then verbally attacked the other party. “You’re still young. In the future, you’ll realize what truly matters in life.”
In an instant, the department director of the General Surgery Department felt extremely angry. He was not this furious to begin with…
“Ouyang, safety first, yeah?” The director of the General Surgery Department pressed the intercom button and expressed his current emotions using a microphone.
In the operating theater downstairs, Ouyang Kan paused for a moment. However, this did not affect the progress of the surgery at all.
Surgeries like laparoscopy was a one-man show, to begin with. Even though assistants were necessary, they were nothing but props. And they would be nothing but props throughout the duration of the surgery.
Ling Ran did not even pay any heed to what other people were saying as he operated on the patient. He traced the patient’s colic artery to the superior mesenteric artery. He then found the superior mesenteric vein that was to the right of the superior mesenteric artery. Next, he exposed the right gastroepiploic vein and the colic vein. He then ligated and severed the right gastroepiploic vein at the position of its root.
After he performed this series of maneuvers, everyone inside and outside the operating theater went silent again.
Just take a couple of instructors who were standing at a basketball court and discussing the knee movements of a few students as they performed a three-step layup as an example. How would they react if one of the students suddenly performed a slam dunk?
Whether they were from the Emergency Department or the General Surgery Department, at this moment, all the doctors in the visitation room were speechless.
Ling Ran was extremely quick as he ligated and severed the blood vessel. Unlike doctors from the General Surgery Department, he was not diffident at all. After all, as a surgeon, he was used to carrying out hepatectomy. It was very normal for him to look down upon the blood vessels in the stomach. Even if the blood vessels were to burst, he was confident that he would be able to stop the bleeding.
However, what truly astonished the crowd was how familiar Ling Ran was with the anatomical structures in the abdomen.
It was relatively easy to recognize the colic artery. This was why it served as a landmark. However, after the surgeon managed to find the colic artery, it was not easy to find the superior mesenteric artery. Finding the superior mesenteric vein and the rest of the blood vessels was an even more difficult feat. If the surgeon was carrying out an open abdominal surgery, it would be relatively easy to trace the blood vessels one by one to search for relevant anatomical structures. However, it was not exactly a walk in the park. Surgeons nowadays strived to make small incisions on the patients’ abdomens, and it was hard to find certain anatomical structures by tracing the blood vessels due to the amount of tissues that served as obstacles. Surgeons might easily make a mistake.
This step was even harder when it was used during a laparoscopy. A person just had to imagine the way a young doctor had to spend one or two hours feeling around the abdominal cavity just to look for the patient’s appendix. It would be understandable if they failed to find the patient’s appendix. For surgery such as an appendectomy, a surgeon had to find more than seven or eight relevant anatomical structures.
A butcher would be able to slice a chunk of meat off the stomach in three minutes. So, why did surgeons need five or six hours to complete an appendectomy? This was because they might encounter all kinds of problems during the process. This was when the surgeon’s anatomical knowledge came into play.
When it came to surgery, as long as a surgeon was well-versed in human anatomy, was able to perform small maneuvers such as making knots and suturing well, and was good in crisis control, all that was left to be done was to merely understand the surgical method. And compared to equipping oneself with other basic knowledge, this was way too easy. It was to the point that a surgeon could manage a surgical method after only reading about it from a book.
“Spin the laparoscope downwards.” After severing the right gastroepiploic artery, Ling Ran examined the surgical field before asking Ouyang Kan who was holding the laparoscope to move it downwards.
Ouyang Kan had been mentally prepared to play the role of being called by Ling Ran to handle the surgery if anything went wrong. He was ready just in case they had to make changes and perform open abdominal surgery instead. Right then, he had totally submitted himself to Ling Ran. He slowly spun the laparoscope and exposed the bile duct, liver, stomach, and the greater omentum, which had been turned over. All of those organs could be seen on the screen.
“I’ll be using the pancreas as the landmark,” Ling Ran said so that his assistants knew what was going on.
Aside from the doctors in the operating theater, the doctors in the visitation room nodded without realizing it too.
Ouyang Kan relaxed. He could not help but glance at the patient’s face and say, “At least we’re not disappointing his deceased parents. They sacrificed their lives while protecting our country, and our country is now well-developed, with enough resources to save their son’s life.”
Ling Ran glanced at Ouyang Kan.
“We can’t just let those two people who have shed their blood at the battlefield to protect our country shed tears in heaven, don’t you think so?” Ouyang Kan could not help but feel good when he saw that the surgery was going smoothly.
Ling Ran nodded slightly. “That won’t happen.”
