The Surgeon's Studio

“Hmm?”

“As an inexperienced junior doctor, one has to perform everything flawlessly,” Su Yun said, gently running his fingers across his bangs before putting on his sterile face shield. “I have informed the others in the groupchat, they should be ready for the surgery right now.”

“How did you do it?” Zheng Ren was speechless.

“Are you asking me how I knew which tools and machines they would require for this surgery?” The hair that was moments ago covering his forehead was now neatly tucked behind his face shield. However, out of habit, Su Yun began to toy with it again. “I had made a table, which now hangs outside the interventional operating theater, listing which apparatus and machine each procedure requires. Basically, different as they may be, each procedure has their similarities. Hence, all I had to do was make some minor adjustments. Chief Zheng, will you be using the gelatin sponge for embolization or the spring-loaded one?”

Since surgical nurses were unfamiliar with interventional embolization, it was about time a leading nurse was assigned to the interventional embolization control room.

Good lord… this was the first time in Zheng Ren’s life he felt this way.

It was not at the level of joy, but rather relief.

“The gelatin sponge, then.”

“Hey, is anyone in now?” Su Yun yelled.

The patient was not yet in the surgical theater and the hallways were empty. A shouted response echoed down the empty hallway.

“What do you need?” Based on the voice, it was most likely Chu Yanzhi.

“The gelatin sponge.”

“Alright.”

Zheng Ren was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of powerlessness.

What kind of situation was this? There was absolutely no need for him to prepare anything for this surgery. Was that not a luxury solely enjoyed by instructing professors?

“The patient is currently in transit, current blood pressure at 60/40 mmhG. Stay here and watch for the patient, then let me know what kind of machines are to be used. I will be heading out to scrub now,” Su Yun said softly after making a phone call.

There were hints of flirtatious intent in that gentle voice.

The feeling was… oddly peculiar.

The patient arrived swiftly and the blood bag in his pressure transfusion set was almost empty.

After the transfer was made, Zheng Ren placed the patient onto the surgical bed with the help of the urologist. Su Yun had already changed into his lead apron and sterile surgical gown and was disinfecting his gloves.

Zheng Ren also changed; he put on his special lead vest, then got himself scrubbed thoroughly before putting on his surgical gown.

As he stood in front of the operating table, he realized that disinfection and the placement of sterile surgical sheets had already been done. Su Yun was holding the introducer sheath and to his surprise, even artery cannulation, the very first step, was complete.

Zheng Ren sighed as he lamented how fast everything was being performed.

This brat was truly incredible; could someone with such impressive photographic memory truly exist in the world? Zheng Ren was unsure, since even he required continuous practice and revision with his System. It was only through constant exercise that he could improve his skills.

This man however, mastered everything with a single glance.

In the live broadcast room of Xinglin Garden, several hundred doctors were already sending messages of support within the first minute of the livestream.

During the day, there were fewer people online, with viewer counts rising at around 8 or 9 in the evening.

With a daily schedule of routine room inspections, surgeries and writing patient reports, anyone caught watching livestreams on their phones would be scolded into oblivion by their superiors.

[Hmm? Finally, I’ve been waiting for another interventional embolization.]

[We’ll see what it is. Tsk, it looks like postoperative hemorrhaging after kidney removal.]

[None of you understand my pain in the urology department. Removing a segment of a kidney is and will always be marginally more difficult than spleen restoration surgery. A spleen can be removed at a whim, but the kidney cannot. Tears are streaming down my face now. I’ll come back in ten minutes after I’m done crying about it.]

Several bold comments flooded the screen as the viewers were currently unfocused, and the host surgeon could be seen positioning the micro guide wire. The stream picked up as superselective catheterization began.

[Why do I feel like the standards of the surgical assistants have been greatly improved?]

[Good god! There is no limit to his skill, is there? I’m so envious right now.]

[You are unworthy of being a surgeon if your observation skills are so poor.

[Can’t you see there’s another pair of hands at the bottom right corner of the stream? The surgeon has found themselves an assistant.]

[Why would this surgeon even need to go through the trouble of finding an assistant? A single call would attract at least a few thousand people.]

[However, with an assistant now, the rate of surgery is marginally faster. It’s almost as if they are flying.]

The stream view shifted to the patient, displaying a view of his blood vessels and the micro guide wire within them.

The wire arrived at the edge of the aorta branch. As the viewers watched, the micro guide wire advanced once more and swiftly reached the renal artery.

It then entered the renal artery, allowing for radiography to begin.

The wound at the edge of the kidney was clearly visible. Under the contrast medium, it looked like a cloud of lethal fireworks exploding out of the kidney.

Superselective catheterization continued as it entered the renal artery through to its branching vessels.

[Partial nephrectomy can only be performed in top-of-the-line hospitals in huge cities. If any backwater hospital performed this procedure, the moment the kidney began to bleed, they would resort to removing the entire organ to minimize injury.]

[Come on now, the modern era of medicine is different and combines several fields. Private hospitals are only capable of performing minor surgeries. Their focus lies mainly on ophthalmology and anorectalogy. Any post-surgery side effects would be referred to general hospitals.]

[You’re going off topic; minor hospitals are not capable of performing these procedures and our hospitals do not have an interventional embolization department.]

[Report: our hospital had a pelvic fracture patient yesterday with some inflammation in the peritoneum leading to hemorrhagic shock, hence my immediate suggestion of performing interventional embolization. The patient has since been transferred to a hospital that performs this procedure, and according to what I was told, the surgery was completed and the patient is now fine and still alive.]

[Pfft… that person sure is lucky. Had this happened a month prior, that patient would’ve died in your hospital.]

As the stream viewers were conversing with each other, the gelatin sponge was swiftly embolized in a single attempt. The entire swift, smooth action was visible on-air. After three whole minutes, another radiograph was taken and the lethal, morbidly beautiful firework of blood had disappeared completely.

The entire duration of the surgery, including the three-minute wait, was five minutes and twelve seconds.

Thus, the stream ended. However, the doctors were speaking to each other in the comments.

[If our urology department wanted to perform a partial nephrectomy, someone has to master interventional embolization.]

[Stop joking now, alright, it’s bold of you to assume anyone would be brave enough to perform this procedure even if they had mastered it. Without a radiography license, if any unfortunate accidents were to occur, you might as well say goodbye to your medical license. If you’re brave enough to perform such a risky procedure, the patient’s family would also be bold enough to cause a scene. Let me tell you, young man, if you want to solve such an issue, you’ll have to have at least one million yuan lying around.]

[There’s way too few radiographers out there, and fewer still would have clinical knowledge. What should we do about this?]

[What should you do? Tuberculosis was a terminal illness a hundred and fifty years ago. Time will solve everything.]

[I really, really want to study under you now, which hospital do you work in, my lord?]

[I believe there is a rumor that this signal was broadcast from Montreal General Hospital]

[…]

…

The surgery had been completed extremely quickly. Zheng Ren felt a wave of relief wash over him.

Having an assistant felt amazing!

Although Su Yun was still rough at the edges, having him was still better than performing the entire procedure alone.

As the surgery concluded, they removed their gloves, recorded the surgery and began editing the video recording of the procedure in order to hand it over to the patient’s family.

The urologist had literally wheeled the stretcher out of the operating theater moments ago and had just managed to reassure the family for a few minutes.

The moment he returned, the surgery was complete.

Assistant Director Chen grabbed Zheng Ren’s arm as the latter edited the video of the procedure. He said, “Chief Zheng, you’re wasting your talent in our hospital.”

“It’s fine,” Zheng Ren replied, chuckling.

“Your standards in specialized fields notwithstanding, your skill at interventional embolization alone would easily net you an annual salary of over a few hundred thousand yuan, even after tax deductions. You’d only make four thousand yuan a month in our hospital.”

“I’m not a lead surgeon yet, I’m just a chief resident. It’s actually three thousand eight hundred yuan,” Zheng Ren corrected.

That was the gross total inclusive of tax, which was dwarfed by the sum of a few hundred thousand yuan after tax.

“You’re joking, Assistant Director Chen,” Zheng Ren said as he edited the video, “Who would want a lead surgeon to write a patient’s report after performing a surgery, right?”

“Yes, you have a point. Just take care of the patient’s report first; the assistant chief surgeon will take over after that. Haih, what would we do if a similar patient were to be in our hospital?”

The single statement by Assistant Director Chen instantly silenced the entire room.

It was an impossible debacle to solve.