Surgery Godfather

Chapter 228: Chapter 0213: Probe Phobia

“Focus! What are you looking at?” Yang Ping scolded.

Director Wu immediately pulled himself together. He hadn’t been observing anything, just staring at the probe, trying not to get caught off guard by it again.

The surgery was progressing at a fast pace, and Director Wu struggled to keep up. He was reprimanded now and then.

He truly regretted stepping up on the stage and thought about making some excuse to leave, like a stomachache.

But if he did that, Jiang Baicheng would think he was not taking the surgery seriously.

So, he held it all in, swallowed down his shattered pride, and continued helping with the surgery.

He wanted to suggest a break, but Yang Ping was too engrossed in the surgery, and the other guys were all focused on weaving the tendon. No one was paying him any attention.

He decided to just hope for the surgery to finish quickly.

“Old Wu, need to take a break? Traction is pretty tiring.” Yang Ping turned around and saw the pained expression on Director Wu’s face.

Director Wu hastily loosened his grip and took the chance to suggest, “Yes, it is quite challenging, a bit too much for me. Can we swap roles?”

He wanted to help with the tendons or just sit to one side and rest, as long as he was on the stage.

Yang Ping looked serious and said, “Old Wu, this surgery is very challenging, and traction requires an experienced assistant to follow the surgeon’s instructions precisely. Only then can we provide the surgeon with the best possible view. They don’t have enough experience otherwise I wouldn’t impose on you. Do you want us to take a break and then continue?”

In the operating room, everyone was engrossed in the surgery. Some about-to-be senior orthopedics stepped in one after the other. No one was shooing them away, so as long as they were careful about sterility, it was fine.

Yang Ping’s voice was quite loud, and Jiang Baicheng heard him. As the person on the operating table, he was most concerned about whether his surgery was going smoothly.

“Director Wu, thank you for your hard work.” Jiang Baicheng called out from beneath the cloth.

Fatty leaned in, “What did you say?”

Jiang Baicheng repeated himself.

Fatty looked up and relayed it to Director Wu, “Director Wu, Mr. Jiang says thank you for your hard work.”

“Don’t worry, Director Wu is right here. He personally assists Doctor Yang.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Director Wu was initially trying to find an opportunity to sneak away and find a free spot on stage. After this conversation though, Jiang Baicheng was worried that if Wu stepped down as the assistant, it might affect the surgery.

It was inappropriate for him to leave now!

He decided to put up with it since it would only be for a few hours, after all. Can great things be achieved without a thick skin? Director Wu dropped the idea of finding a replacement.

“Old Wu, you look a little pale. If you’re really not feeling well, you can go and rest. We can manage here. Don’t worry!” Yang Ping said concernedly, a stark contrast to his stern demeanor on the stage.

Director Wu had no way out. He said, “It’s okay, let’s continue!”

The surgery proceeded. Director Wu flexed his arm and resumed the traction.

Endoscopic surgery is a groundbreaking technique, where complex surgeries can be done through just a few small holes.

Over two hundred years ago, Austrian doctor Botzini did something unusual. He came up with two tubes, and inserted them into a patient’s bladder through the urethra. One tube lead the light of a candle into the bladder, while he observed the structures inside the bladder through the other tube.

The great man himself probably hadn’t realized, yet his two tubes paved the way for minimally invasive endoscopic surgery in the future.

The man who first introduced arthroscopy to orthopedics, was Professor Kenji Takagi of Tokyo University. That is to say, Japan is the birthplace of arthroscopic technology.

Professor Kenji Takagi used a cystoscope to examine a patient with knee joint tuberculosis. Since then, he and his students created the first truly clinically useful arthroscope.

Most of the time, arthroscopic surgery is even more convenient than open surgery. Many locations and operations that can’t be managed with open surgery, can be easily done with arthroscopy.

They completed just the right amount of reshaping of the acromion, allowing the shoulder joint to move without bumps.

The subsequent surgeries performed included repair of the Bankart and SLAP lesions, reconstruction of the broken coracohumeral ligament, handling the labral tear, as well as a capsular plication and humeral head osteotomy.

Su Nanchen was equally thrilled. He admired Yang Ping’s superior skills. Every complex problem seemed simple in his hands. Such ability to simplify complexity requires strong theoretical and surgical capabilities.

He was also in awe of his sister’s ability to be an instrument nurse. The little sister, who was usually pampered in his eyes, was now the best scrub nurse he had ever seen.

Until now, there hadn’t been a single mistake in handing out the instruments, not even slightly early or slightly late. They hadn’t spoken a single word or exchanged a single glance, yet their cooperation was impeccable.

Su Nanchen was extremely confused. What did they use to communicate? How could they cooperate so perfectly? Were they communicating telepathically?

The challenge of this surgery is to ensure that each individual surgery is in harmony with the surgeries that have been completed and those yet to be done, finally forming a unified whole.

To make the repaired or reconstructed parts fit perfectly requires experience. Even the most precise machine cannot help a doctor master this complex coordination.

The secret to multi-ligament reconstruction in the knee lies in balance because the most significant feature of the lower limb joint is stability.

The most significant feature of the shoulder joint, on the other hand, is flexibility. It requires a higher level of coordination, not just balance.

This type of surgery requires a mastery of rich experiential knowledge, like a sophisticated chef needing to grasp the intensity of the fire, the amount of oil and salt, the proportion of various ingredients, the timing of putting them into and taking them out of the pot. All of this relies on rich and delicate experience, and cannot be achieved by measuring cylinders and scales.

Surgeons also need to master a wealth of perceptual knowledge, which indeed requires accumulation of experience and there are no shortcuts to it.

Even top professors will repeatedly contemplate the synergy of these structures, hesitating over tension balance and struggling to grasp coordinated movement, because it’s too difficult.

The number of people in the operating room is increasing, everyone is conscious enough to keep their distance from the operating table, showcasing professional etiquette.

They watch this surgery as if they were watching acrobatics, things that seemed impossible to many, were made effortless by the Chief Surgeon.

Arthroscopic surgery is better than artificial joint replacement because the continuous saline rinse keeps the operating area extremely clean.

“Don’t move around! Can’t you withstand one single surgery?”

With a ‘bam’ sound, something, perhaps a probe, flashed past and hit the fifth metacarpal. The first to fourth metacarpals had already been hit, causing the involuntary trembling of the hand.

This guy was polite and gentle when resting, but became ruthless during surgery, practicing a simple and brutal style.

The most difficult part, capsular plication surgery, began. It appears simple, but it’s very difficult to achieve the end goal.

“Don’t let your hand shake! This is a critical step in the surgery, any small mistake can affect the outcome.”

Yang Ping’s voice was slightly loud, but clear.

Capsular laxity could no longer be addressed by plasma knife shrinkage, so capsular plication surgery was the only option.

Yang Ping cleared away an old scar at the torn area of the anterior capsule, a place frequented by habitual dislocations.

This tear needed to be repaired, but Yang Ping didn’t seem to have any intention of repairing it.

A deputy chief physician who was proficient in arthroscopy watched, but he couldn’t understand the process.

When he was being trained, he saw that these kinds of operations required the tear to be repaired, sometimes using other fascial tissues to patch up the area.

For capsular plication, it was often handled rough-handedly, and how effective it was remained a question.

The coracohumeral ligament had been reconstructed, and Yang Ping used the PDS line to sew it in a twist-fold pattern. The positions needed to be folded were extremely tricky, but they did not trouble him.

The conventional folding technique in Yang Ping’s hands yielded amazing results. The folds were precisely like works of art. After a few folds, the laxity of the capsule was eliminated, and the original tear naturally disappeared. Everyone was baffled about how he managed to do it.

There was no need to repair the opening of the joint capsule, just stitch it together.

Next step was the downward relocation of the large tubercle, back to its original, correct position.

The patient previously had a severe anterior shoulder dislocation and large tubercle fracture, which healed on its own, but the large tubercle’s position moved upward, causing not only impingement but also muscle relaxation.

Under the guidance of the periosteal elevator, cautiously carving out a potential cavity on the surface of the large tubercle, creating a workspace for the arthroscope, fixated with two hollow screws.

Finally, the double-row bridging repair for cuff tear was performed. The steps of the surgery were scientifically and cleverly arranged, everything fell into place in an organized fashion.

In the end, all structures were coordinated, all the reconstruction and repair constituted an organic whole.

“The surgery is not over yet, can’t you show some professionalism?”

After hitting all the metacarpals, the probe struck the radial and ulnar styloid, and the superficial bones of both sides of the hand and wrists had been thumped all over.

Each time it struck, Director Wu dared not withdraw his hand, fearing that any withdrawal might critically interfere with the surgery. The onlookers couldn’t help but cringe each time it struck.

All the arrogance of Director Wu usually seemed to have disappeared today!

Well deserved! He not only monopolized the benefits but also withheld overtime pay, claiming that doctors were volunteering, and had the spirit of selfless dedication to not need overtime pay.

No one was voluntarily doing this, no one had signed anything, no one knew about this matter at all. That little bit of money earned while risking hypertension was funding his climb up the ladder.

So inhumane, hit him a few more times!

A few young doctors thought to themselves. Usually, they dared not express their anger, but now someone was venting for them. They didn’t say anything, but inside, they felt satisfied.

A few associate professors found the situation amusing. Every time the probe appeared, Director Wu would involuntarily tremble, he had developed a phobia to the probe.

Director Fu stood to the side, not daring to say a word; since the man himself Didn’t say anything, what place did he, a subordinate, have to speak up?

The surgery ended in less than an hour, including the mid-operation break.

“You’ve worked hard, old Wu!”

Yang Ping saw him massaging his own hand.

Yang Ping pulled out the mirror, collected the surgical instruments and handed them to the nurse.

Seeing one of the probes again, Director Wu instinctively dodged.

“What’s wrong?” Yang Ping asked, manipulating the probe in his hand.

Director Wu tilted his body, fearing the probe would strike again and said with a forced smile, “Young…Professor Yang, this thing, it really hurts when used to hit someone!”

“You mean this?”

Yang Ping held up the probe for him to see.

Director Wu nodded, his eyes full of fear.

“Why would such a good instrument be used to hit people?”

Yang Ping handed the probe to Xiao Su.