Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After the surgery went on for an hour, the people in the visitation room who were not medical staff members started to look a little bored.
For people who were not in the field of medicine, stomachs and intestines were only attractive when they were soaked in red and oily hot pot soup. Meanwhile, they find those structures quite disgusting when they were soaked in crimson blood.
If a person were to disregard the big screen, the happenings in the operating theater were also starting to get a little boring. The three surgeons who were clad in blue scrubs spent most of their time looking at the big screen in the operating theater, and their hand movements were so minute that they looked like they were operating on a cricket. If people who did not know better were to watch the surgery, they would think that surgeons were even more physically inactive compared to teenage boys who spend all their time playing video games.
The sight of the two anesthetists made the onlookers even more sleepy. Compared to the attending physician, Su Jiafu at least used the computer every now and then. He would key in some stuff before deleting what he typed. He looked like a white-collar worker who was doing data entry. Meanwhile, the attending physician from the Department of Anesthesiology looked like a retard. If a person were to describe it using milder terms, he could say that the attending physician looked like he was practicing Wudang Sect’s Turtle Breathing.
The nurses, though, were busy walking around. However, the people in the visitation room were not focusing on them.
“Sigh, why don’t we just leave? The surgeons keep repeating the same maneuvers again and again throughout the surgery. Aren’t you guys tired already?” The moment a woman who was wearing a large white coat said this, the people around her realized that she was merely posing as a doctor.
“You’re right. It’s so tiring to lean against the window like this.”
“We’ve already gotten all the photographs we need, anyway. I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything new.”
“You know what? You’re right.”
“Why aren’t you leaving, then?”
“After you…”
“Are you lying to us so that you can have the whole place to yourself?”
The visitation room suddenly became lively, and the doctors there were not prepared for this.
The doctors looked at each other before they realized that the department directors and chief physicians were judging them. They immediately put the phones in their pockets.
Huo Congjun cleared his throat and said, “They’re starting to remove the level VII lymph nodes.”
“Yes, this is probably the most difficult part of the entire surgery.” Wei Qing the associate chief physician from the General Surgery Department realized that the atmosphere was awkward, and he immediately spoke up.
Huo Congjun hummed in acknowledgment. “After this, they’ll need to remove the level VIII, level IX, and level XII lymph nodes too. Those are pretty difficult to remove too, aren’t they?”
“Yes, the removal of those groups of lymph nodes is crucial too. The direction of flow and position of the arteria hepatica propria, common bile duct, as well as the hepatic portal vein, are the most important anatomical features when it comes to lymphadenectomy.” After Wei Qing spoke, he suddenly felt embarrassed. It did not feel quite right to talk about hepatic arteries, the common bile duct, and the hepatic portal vein when Ling Ran was present.
Of course, doctors from the General Surgery Department actually performed liver surgeries too. In hospitals that did not have a Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, cholecystectomy and even hepatectomy were performed by doctors from the General Surgery Department. Professor Feng Zhixiang from Beijing believed in having a very general General Surgery Department. He was firm in his decision not to divide his department into smaller departments. In the end, he managed to establish a Center of General Surgery, and it was easy for him to delegate roles to his subordinates.
The General Surgery Department of Yun Hua Hospital was also a powerful Department. The Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery of Yun Hua Hospital was having such a hard time not only because He Yuanzheng was weak, but also because of how capable the General Surgery Department was.
On a structural level, He Yuanzheng who had transferred from another hospital was bullied by quite a number of departments. That had been going on from the day he became the department director of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery to the present. Unless he was able to improve his capabilities or find a powerful person to back him up, in the near future, he would continue to get bullied. Fortunately, he was pretty young. If he were able to endure the humiliation and hold on to his position, after the department director of the General Surgery Department, Huo Conjun from the Emergency Department, the hospital director who used to be a surgeon, and the associate hospital directors who used to be surgeons retired, he would… be bullied by Ling Ran alone.
Now that Wei Qing was talking about the liver, the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, as well as He Yuanzheng, came into his mind. This reminded him of Ling Ran too, and right now, he did not know what else to say.
Ling Ran’s achievements when it came to hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery were plain to see. Aside from the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery of Yun Hua Hospital, he was also bullying the Departments of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery and even the General Surgery Departments of all the hospitals in Changxi province. He even managed to find an excellent surgeon in Beijing, Feng Zhixiang to back him up. This was mainly courtesy of his skills. Because of this, other doctors had to submit to him. But this was precisely the reason why other doctors were indignant.
Other doctors had to submit to him because a surgeon’s skills spoke for himself. As Ling Ran was one of the top hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeons in the country, other surgeons had no choice but to submit to him. However, many chief physicians and associate chief physicians had gotten a taste of power and wanted more of it. Hence, they could not accept the fact that they were beneath Ling Ran in terms of skills and were always coming out with ways to defeat him.
“Ling Ran is pretty good at laparoscopy,” the director of the General Surgery Department said. He then changed the topic. “When it comes to radical gastrectomy for stomach cancer using a laparoscope, Southwest Hospital had actually performed quite a number of cases. From what I remember, they had already performed one thousand cases quite a few years ago. They only used this surgical method for patients who are in the early stages of stomach cancer. Based on the numbers, they should be pretty experienced at it.”
Huo Congjun arched an eyebrow when he heard that. “Is that so?”
“The doctors there wrote a research paper about it.” The department director of the General Surgery Department smiled. “If my memory isn’t failing me, they take an average of two hundred minutes to complete each surgery.”
Huo Congjun did the math and realized that they took an average of three and a half hours to complete each radical gastrectomy for stomach cancer using a laparoscope. He immediately became less adamant.
He was part of the preoperative consultation, and he knew that the surgeons planned to carry out today’s surgery for a duration of three hundred minutes. Even though there would be some discrepancies during the actual surgery, they would not be able to go a lot faster than planned.
“Speed doesn’t guarantee quality.” Even so, Huo Congjun refused to admit defeat. He looked at the operating theater and said, “When Ling Ran is fast, he can perform a hepatectomy in under an hour. However, he never strived to be fast.”
“Those doctors in Southwest Hospital didn’t strive to be fast either. It just happened naturally.”
“You’re right. But today, the most important thing is to carry out the surgery well for the patient’s sake, isn’t it?” Huo Congjun narrowed his eyes.
“Of course,” someone said, and that person was not the department director of the General Surgery Department.
The doctors subconsciously turned to look at the source of the hoarse voice, and was greeted with a doctor they were unfamiliar with. He was wearing a large white coat.
“Which department are you from?” Huo Congjun furrowed his eyebrows. He had worked in the hospital for a long time, and even though there were certainly doctors who had not been scolded by him before, he basically knew most of the other doctors.
“I… I’m Old Xu’s captain.” The stranger decided to take off his large white coat. “I heard that the surgery could be observed from here, so I came over.”
“You’re Old Xu’s captain? Do you have your identification card with you?” As the other party looked burly, Huo Congjun did not immediately start scolding him.
The captain of the Police Dog Unit hesitated for a few seconds before he whipped out his identification card and showed it to Huo Congjun. “I know that I have broken the rules, but I’m worried about Old Xu. He only has a wife, and she doesn’t really know what’s going on, so I’m here to check if everything is alright.”
“Even if he has two wives, those wives won’t be able to help out in the surgery.” Huo Congjun looked at the name on the identification card. “Captain Chu, this is your name, isn’t it? Since you’re here already, I won’t do anything. Don’t speak another word or I’ll lodge a complaint to your leader.”
“Alright.” That was the most obedient Captain Chu had been in twenty years. He then said in a soft voice, “I only have one more question. Is everything going well right now?”
“Everything’s going smoothly.”
Captain Chu felt a little more at ease when he heard this. But he spoke again a few seconds later, “I have one last thing to say. Old Xu’s parents died saving other people’s lives. They saved five people in total. I’ve asked someone about it, and all five of them are still alive. He had bought them more than one hundred years more to live in total.”
Huo Congju and the department director of the General Surgery Department looked at each other. Huo Congjun sighed and said, “You go ahead.”
The department director of the General Surgery Department nodded. “The surgeons are performing lymphadenectomy now. This is mainly to prevent a recurrence. By clearing the lymph nodes around the tumor, chances of recurrence will be lower.”
Captain Chu listened earnestly as the department director of the General Surgery Department spoke. He was not in the field of medicine, and it was impossible for him to be as optimistic as a doctor. Hence, his heart was filled with nothing but worry.
