Chapter 237 - 159: King Zhang the Great

Chapter 237: Chapter 159: King Zhang the Great

Lin Haibo briefly summarized the patient’s condition.

Yang Xu summarized, "Haibo’s assessment is that the patient has lost the window for surgery. His recommendation is palliative PTCD or discharge. What are your thoughts?"

Everyone present was an experienced clinician; the situation on the scans was clear at a glance.

The tumor had wrapped itself around the main blood vessel like a gnarled root, making it an absolute surgical no-go zone.

There was nothing more to be said. Haibo’s judgment was sound.

If anything, holding a meeting to discuss it seemed strange.

After a dozen or so seconds of silence, Yang Xu spoke.

"Jiang He, you mentioned a plan to Haibo in the office this morning? Tell us what you’re thinking."

Jiang He nodded and repeated what he had said earlier.

Deputy Chief Physician Wang Zhigang posed several pointed questions.

Jiang He answered them one by one.

His answers were clear, but the process was far from smooth.

The questions just kept coming.

An attending physician frowned. "...You mentioned a round ligament patch? Won’t that cause the liver to be ischemic for too long?"

Jiang He replied instantly, "That’s why we’ll use the posterior approach."

"The posterior approach?"

The moment he said it, the atmosphere in the presentation room shifted subtly.

In the hepatobiliary surgery department at Affiliated Hospital No. 1, the posterior approach was practically the equivalent of a Celestial Tier Technique from a fantasy novel.

It was common knowledge that Yang Xu was a great admirer of this surgical technique.

He not only promoted it throughout the hospital but also intended to write a paper on it for nationwide circulation.

Jiang He explained how the posterior approach would be used in this specific surgery.

His explanation was clear and logical, with each step connecting seamlessly to the next.

He had even considered details down to the suture size and stitching technique.

For a moment, Wang Zhigang found himself unable to find any flaws to dispute.

He turned to look at Yang Xu.

Yang Xu twirled a ballpoint pen he had casually picked up.

His face was impassive, but the admiration in his eyes was becoming difficult to hide.

"The posterior approach is the right line of thinking."

Yang Xu spoke up at the opportune moment, settling the matter decisively. "The minefield ahead is too dangerous. Looping around from the back to control the major vessel is the only shot we have."

With the director having spoken, the technical debate came to a temporary halt.

That didn’t mean, however, that the plan would be approved without further issue.

The Deputy Chief Physician sitting in the corner sighed.

"Director, Jiang He, from a purely technical standpoint, I admit the plan is ingenious. But we can’t just look at the technique; we have to look at the reality of the situation."

The Deputy Chief glanced at Jiang He and continued, "Jiang He, you’re new, so you might not be aware of the current climate in the hospital. Just the day before yesterday, General Surgery performed a routine appendectomy. The patient developed an intestinal fistula post-op, and the family brought a dozen people to the lobby to set up funeral wreaths."

A silence fell over the room.

"The patient in bed forty-two is a simple man from the countryside. His family is very poor; they’ve already borrowed money from everyone they know just to pay for his treatment. Director, if we were just removing a gallbladder, I wouldn’t say a word. But the mortality rate for this surgery is conservatively estimated at over thirty percent. If he has a major bleed on the table, or goes into post-operative liver failure and ends up in the ICU... that’s over ten thousand yuan a day. The family absolutely can’t afford that. When they end up losing both their loved one and all their money, are they going to cause trouble? Who is going to take on that risk?"

The Deputy Chief’s pointed questions made most of the doctors in the room lower their heads.

’If the standard guidelines say not to operate, then don’t operate. Just perform a drainage procedure, and everyone stays out of trouble...’

’Why put your own neck on the line for such a minuscule chance of survival?’

Faced with this question, even Jiang He could only remain silent.

Yang Xu looked at Lin Haibo. "Haibo, you spoke with the family. What did they say?"

Lin Haibo replied, "I did. I explained the plan in layman’s terms to the patient’s wife and son. I also made it clear that this surgery is extremely high-risk, that he might not even make it off the operating table."

"The wife said that at the county hospital, the doctors told them it was hopeless and to just go home and wait for him to die. When they came to us, they were told the same thing. She was already planning to buy hard-seat train tickets for tomorrow morning to take her husband home."

"But when I told her that we now had this one option, a path with only the slimmest chance of survival, she asked me one thing."

"She asked, ’Doctor, if you do the surgery, will my husband be able to watch his grandson grow up?’"

Lin Haibo gave a wry smile.

"How could I make that promise to her? In the end, she said that as long as there’s a cure, he has to be treated. She said she’d go back to her hometown, sell their house, sell their land—she’d sell everything they own—to scrape the money together, and that she would absolutely not owe the hospital a single cent."

The Deputy Chief Physician was silent for a long time. In the end, he said nothing, simply turning to stare silently out the window.

Doctors are human, too. In the face of a patient’s fierce will to live, all the talk of risk assessment and self-preservation suddenly seemed hollow.

No matter the era, the immense weight of the trust a patient and their family place in you when they put a life in your hands...

...it’s a double-edged sword, but it’s also the reason so many doctors are willing to persevere, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

"Alright."

Yang Xu stood up, breaking the silence.

"The patient’s wishes are clear, and the surgical path is theoretically viable. We are the hepatobiliary surgery department of Affiliated Hospital No. 1. If even we give up, then this patient truly has no hope of survival."

"We’ll do as Jiang He suggested. First, we’ll reduce the jaundice. Haibo, first thing tomorrow morning, schedule him for a PTCD. Recheck his bilirubin levels daily. As soon as his total bilirubin drops below one hundred, schedule the surgery immediately. In the meantime, step up nutritional support and keep him on liver protection therapy."

"Understood, Director." Lin Haibo nodded emphatically.

"Meeting adjourned. Everyone, go take care of your own patients," Yang Xu said with a wave of his hand.

The doctors began to get up, gathering their things and filing out.

Meng Shiyu didn’t dare to breathe.