godfather of surgery

Chapter 1352 This is a township hospital?

"Director Zhang, over here, over here!"

Led by a doctor from Guandu, Zhang Anyun, the head of surgery at the county hospital, rushed up with an anesthesiologist, two assistants, and a nurse. He was in his early fifties, with gray hair, and had been a surgeon at the county hospital for over twenty years, widely recognized as the county's "number one surgeon."

Director Zhang is a straightforward person. When he received the support mission assigned by the hospital director, he had just come off the operating table. With lives at stake, he didn't hesitate and immediately picked a few people to rush into the ambulance.

Upon arriving at Guandu Hospital, he grabbed an emergency room doctor and had him taken directly to the operating room.

"Where are the wounded?" he gasped for breath. "The one with cardiac tamponade, and the one with a closed abdominal wound—"

"Surgery in progress!"

"Is surgery underway?"

"..."

He saw Li Min and the old man at the entrance, and noticed the bloodstains on their surgical gowns. Only then did he realize that the wounded were indeed undergoing surgery.

However, it should probably involve some simple preparatory work.

The old dean stepped forward.

"Hurry up and go inside to change your clothes..." Director Zhang was an impatient person. Before the old hospital director could even speak, he directed the doctors and nurses he brought to rush inside.

"Director Zhang, thank you for making this trip." The old dean immediately stopped Director Zhang, who was rushing inside.

His voice was steady, as if he were reporting a case: "All four surgeries have been completed! All were performed by Dr. Li Min: heart repair, spleen removal and liver repair, thoracic exploration and lung repair with rib fixation, and open reduction and internal fixation of the femur. The patient's vital signs are stable after the surgery and he is under observation in the recovery room. He will be sent out soon. What we need now is blood products."

Zhang Anyun remained silent.

He stood there, looking at the old hospital director, looking at Li Min. His gaze held many things: surprise, doubt. The surgery was over? The wounded were still alive?

"What about the wounded? How are they? Have they been saved?"

"All vital signs are stable!" the old director repeated.

"Heart repair?" Director Zhang still didn't believe it. "You did it?"

Li Min nodded.

"Cardiotamponade, right ventricular anterior wall laceration, approximately 1.8 cm in length. Padded suture was performed, and postoperative circulation is stable."

Zhang Anyun remained silent for a long time.

He had been a surgeon for twenty-three years, performing countless surgeries involving combined chest and abdominal injuries, and removing countless spleens and livers. But he had never independently performed a single heart repair. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but that he dared not, or that he couldn't. The county hospital lacked extracorporeal circulation and a specialized cardiothoracic surgery team. Faced with such injuries, the only thing they could do was make an emergency transfer and then pray that the patient would make it to a higher-level hospital en route.

Now, a young doctor at a township health center told him: I'm done, the patient is stable.

"Where did you learn it?" he asked.

Li Min took off his mask, and his face showed little expression, only a calmness that came from having finished his work.

“Sanbo Hospital,” Li Min said. “Professor Yang Ping’s place.”

Zhang Anyun fell silent again.

He remembered that Li Min was doing advanced training at Sanbo Hospital. He seemed to have seen Li Min once when Li Min performed surgery at Guandu Hospital. This kid was really capable. He seemed to have encountered difficulties during the surgery, and it was this young man who resolved them.

He had also heard of Yang Ping, the Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, one of the most renowned names in the international medical community today. He had also heard of the Sanbo Advanced Studies Program, which only admits thirty people nationwide each year, with an entry threshold as high as a ladder to heaven.

He never expected that the person who came down from the ladder would be standing in this brand-new operating room in Guandu Town, covered in blood, with a calm expression, as if he had just completed an ordinary appendectomy.

After traveling for an hour and a half, Director Zhang was relieved to hear that the surgery was over. Instead of being annoyed by the disappointment of arriving empty-handed, he breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that the injured man had survived. This was better than anything else.

“Can I go see the patient?” he asked.

Li Min nodded: "They are all under observation in the recovery room now. They will be wheeled out and sent to the ward soon. Please wait a moment."

"Because they were operated on simultaneously, we didn't dare send the postoperative patients to the wards. They were all placed in the recovery room for observation and then sent out immediately. We just checked, and their vital signs are all stable," the old hospital director added.

Just then, the rumbling sound of a stretcher came from afar, and several patients were being wheeled out of the operating room one by one. Everyone followed them to the ward and then helped each other transfer the patients to their beds.

Zhou Fusheng lay on the bed, his face still somewhat pale, but his breathing was steady, and the numbers on the monitor were jumping steadily. Zhang Anyun stood beside him, looking at his chest wall, his drainage tube, and then at the vital signs on the monitor.

He didn't say anything.

With such stable vital signs, the heart must have been repaired.

He then visited Chen Dongxiu, Xu Dehou, and Zhao Qiulin. He carefully examined each patient, reviewing their surgical records, postoperative images, and monitoring data. He also made sure to ask the assistants who participated in the surgeries about their experiences.

Four seriously injured patients, more than three hours of surgery—no, more than three hours from when they were admitted to the emergency room.

In just over three hours, one person almost single-handedly completed the injury assessment, surgical arrangements, and the surgery itself...

Zhang Anyun felt that the county hospital could not handle this level of emergency care; not that it couldn't, but that it was completely incapable, and there was a significant gap between them.

Back in the doctor's office, Zhang Anyun washed her hands and extended her hand to Li Min.

"I am Zhang Anyun..."

He wanted to say, "If Guandu has any emergency cases that they can't handle in the future, just call us anytime. We will definitely cooperate with the county hospital if it can."

But he swallowed those words.

He can repair his heart through open-heart surgery like it's nothing, why would he need Zhang Anyun's help? He'd be the one helping Zhang Anyun in the future.

This level of service, is this supposed to be a township hospital?
"Director Zhang, hello."

Li Min grasped his hand.

"You said you're doing your advanced studies under Professor Yang Ping? He's still personally supervising advanced students?" Zhang Anyun was very surprised. Li Min was just a junior college student from a township hospital. Going to that kind of hospital for advanced studies was already a special favor from the provincial department. Professor Yang was personally supervising him? You must be bragging.
It's good that young people are highly skilled, but it's not right for them to boast under Professor Yang's name.

"Professor Yang may have been looking out for doctors from remote mountainous areas, so he personally mentored me." Li Min didn't lie at all; he was just telling the truth.

The former hospital director said from the side, "Our Dr. Li is a good doctor in China. Professor Yang admires him very much and personally mentors him."

Zhang Anyun knew the old dean well; he would boast about some things and not about others, and he would definitely not boast about Professor Yang's reputation in this matter.

No wonder this young man is so talented; he's a student personally trained by Professor Yang.

So, if he goes to study, will Professor Yang give him special consideration because he comes from a remote area?

Opening up the chest to repair the heart... just thinking about it is exciting.

“That Dr. Li…” Zhang Anyun originally wanted to ask Li Min for help in getting a place at Sanbo Hospital for further training, but he swallowed his words halfway through. He couldn’t bring it up now; he would find an opportunity to bring it up naturally later.

Now that the surgery is over, Zhang Anyun has nothing more to do. Normally, he would rush back in a hurry. But this time is different; he readily stayed for dinner.

That evening, Zhang Anyun sat in the canteen, holding a bowl of chicken soup that the old dean had specially prepared for the kitchen, and silently finished drinking the soup he had asked Li Min for help with.

Li Min agreed on the spot, saying he would do his best, but whether it would work out depended on the arrangements made by the Sanbo Research Institute.

Zhang Anyun was very happy. Before leaving, he said to the old hospital director, "Director Li, you should keep this Dr. Li in your hospital."

The old dean saw him to the door.

“He will stay,” the old director said.

Zhang Anyun nodded and got into the car.

That night, Li Min stayed up all night in the intensive care unit to watch over Zhou Fusheng and several other patients.

The town of Guandu outside the window was fast asleep. There were no city neon lights, no night flights, only a few windows still lit up with warm yellow lights, like fireflies scattered in the folds of the mountains. The winding mountain road in the distance disappeared into the night, and occasionally a farm vehicle returning home would drive by, its headlights like two slowly moving stars.

The monitor's curves fluctuated smoothly. Zhou Fusheng's blood pressure was stable at 110/70, and his blood oxygen saturation was 98%. He was still unconscious, but his complexion had changed from ashen to normal pale, and his lips had regained some color.

Li Min sat on the chair by the bed, his legs a little stiff and his back a little sore. He didn't pay attention to it. He just stared at the green curve and at the sky outside the window that was gradually turning white.

At five o'clock in the morning, the old dean pushed open the door and came in.

He didn't speak, but simply dragged over another chair and sat down next to Li Min. Both of them stared at the monitor, like two silent statues.

Much later, the old dean spoke.

“When I was young,” he said, “I had just been assigned to Guandu when I was twenty-six. The health center only had three single-story buildings, a stethoscope, a blood pressure monitor, and no operating table. We did the debridement and suturing in the clinic, and the patients were screaming in pain.”

He paused.

“One autumn, a farm vehicle overturned and brought in three seriously injured people. One of them had a ruptured spleen and his abdominal cavity was full of blood. We didn’t have a blood bank or the facilities for surgery, and I watched him die right in front of me. He was only twenty-four years old, and his wife was newly pregnant.”

Li Min remained silent.

“That night I wrote a transfer request, wanting to go to the county hospital, even if it was just to start as a resident physician.” The old hospital director’s voice was very soft. “The next morning, I tore up that letter again.”

He looked out the window at the sky gradually brightening.

"At that time, I thought, someone has to stay here. If I don't stay, who will? If I don't do it, who will?"

He turned his head and looked at Li Min.

"It's your turn now."

Li Min didn't answer. He just stared at the steady green curve on the monitor.

Outside the window, the first rays of morning light shone into the ward. The early spring mountains and fields gradually awoke in the pale golden light, and in the distance, early-rising villagers pushed open their courtyard gates, accompanied by the barking of dogs and the crowing of roosters.

Zhou Fusheng woke up at seven o'clock in the morning.

He opened his eyes, staring blankly at the unfamiliar ceiling above him, at the beeping medical equipment beside the bed, and at Li Min, who was standing guard by his bedside. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but only weak whispers escaped his lips.

Li Min bent down.

"The surgery was a success," he said. "Take good care of yourself, and you'll be able to move to a regular ward in a few days."

Zhou Fusheng's eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

He recalled the out-of-control farm vehicle from yesterday afternoon, the excruciating pain of the steering wheel slamming into his chest, the rapidly blurring of the daylight before his eyes, and the cries in his ears. He thought he was going to die.

He never expected to wake up, and he never expected that the first person he saw when he woke up would be Li Min.

He didn't know who donated the brand-new operating room, where the autologous blood transfusion machine that saved his life came from, or how many years Li Min had spent trying to save him on this operating table. All he knew was that Guandu Hospital had saved him, and that Dr. Li had saved him.

His tears streamed down his cheeks and into the white hair at his temples, and he couldn't utter a single word.

Li Min straightened up and said to the nurse next to him, "Family members can come in now, but please don't keep the visitation time too long, the patient needs to rest."

He walked out of the intensive care unit and stood in the corridor for a while.

The morning sunlight streamed obliquely through the windows, casting a pale golden glow on the corridor floor tiles. Not far away, patients were already arriving in the outpatient hall; a small queue had formed at the registration windows, and a young woman at the information desk was answering an elderly woman's questions. Dr. Zhang emerged from his office, carrying an enamel mug, and nodded upon seeing him. Head Nurse Wang hurried past, pushing a treatment cart, the wheels making a soft rustling sound on the ground.

Business as usual.

Everything is different.

Li Min returned to his office, sat down, and opened the day's outpatient appointment list. The first patient was Zhou Guiying from Qingshi Village, the elderly woman who had been taking his medication for eight years, coming for a follow-up appointment. He picked up his pen and wrote the date in the medical record.

Outside the window, wisps of smoke rise from the chimneys of Guandu Town, mingling with the faint spring mist in the mountains. In the distance, on the winding mountain road, a farm vehicle chugs uphill, its cargo bed loaded with newly purchased fertilizer and seeds.

Li Min lowered his head and continued writing the medical records.

His hands remained steady.

Three days later, Zhou Fusheng was transferred to a regular ward.

A week later, he was able to get out of bed and walk a few steps while holding onto the edge of the bed.

Two weeks later, a dozen or so village representatives from Chalu Village carried a silk banner and entered Guandu Hospital with great fanfare. The banner was made of bright red silk with golden tassels, and embroidered with four large characters: "Benevolent Heart and Skillful Hands." It was signed "All Villagers of Chalu Village."

Zhou Daping personally presented the banner to Li Min, held his hand, and couldn't utter a complete sentence for a long time.

Li Min stood in the center of the outpatient hall, surrounded by dozens of grateful gazes. He was somewhat unaccustomed to such a scene; his ears turned slightly red, and he didn't know where to put his hands.

But he still accepted the banner.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass curtain wall, illuminating the red velvet of the banner and the four large, golden characters.

The old dean stood at the back of the crowd, leaning on his cane, looking up at the banner.

He didn't speak.

But from that day on, his back stood even straighter.

That evening, Li Min sent the case he was handling to Yang Ping, hoping to get guidance from Yang Ping. Soon he received a WeChat message.

It was sent by Yang Ping.

"It was handled very well and in a timely manner."

Li Min brought up Zhang Anyun from the county hospital's desire to pursue further studies at Sanbo Hospital. Yang Ping replied, "In the future, your Guandu Hospital can recruit doctors for further studies, and you can pass on your medical skills to them."

Li Min understood. He would also work hard in his position, just like Professor Yang, to help more people.