Chapter 262 - 172: The Ruthless Surgical Machine (Part 3)

Chapter 262: Chapter 172: The Ruthless Surgical Machine (Part 3)

Zhou Li snapped his head around to look at the clock on the wall.

Time elapsed: twenty-two minutes.

A standard Lichtenstein tension-free hernia repair typically took an attending physician about an hour on average.

Jiang He had somehow managed to cut that time down to a third.

The key was, the entire surgical field was impossibly clean. The blood loss was practically negligible.

"Dr. Zhou, I’ll leave the patient’s recovery to you."

Jiang He walked to the airlock door. "Sister Jing, what’s the next case?"

Chen Jing glanced at the schedule and said gently, "A large lipoma removal on the right back. You can still take a break, Dr. Jiang."

"It’s fine. Prep for local anesthesia and call the patient in. I’m going to the OR next door to see if the orthopedics team is done plating that fracture. If they are, I’ll help them with the skin closure to save time."

Jiang He pushed the door open and left.

Leaving everyone in the operating room staring at each other, speechless.

Zhou Li stared in the direction Jiang He had gone. After a long moment, he choked out, "Holy shit... Is that kid a machine?"

Xu Chen found a random stool and sat down, looking exhausted.

"Are you okay?" Chen Jing asked with concern.

"Don’t... don’t talk to me, Sister Jing. Just give me a minute to recover..."

Xu Chen complained silently, ’Bro, that wasn’t a fucking surgery, that was basic training!’

’Is anyone here? Does anyone know how insane Jiang He is when he’s suturing? The second I cut the thread, he was already inserting the next needle. There wasn’t even a pause in between!’

’The pressure is immense! I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to keep up!’

After a sigh, Xu Chen said, "Sister Jing, my heart is tired. You feel me?"

Chen Jing couldn’t help but laugh, but as she did, she also rubbed her own aching calves.

"Tell me about it. During a routine hernia surgery, I can usually take a breather. But today? I had just handed him the gauze, turned around to grab something, and when I looked back, hey presto, he was already closing the skin!"

Zhou Li wanted to complain, too.

Back in ’08, the anesthesiology department was a far cry from later years with their abundance of automated micro-infusion pumps.

To control the dosage precisely, anesthesiologists often had to manually push propofol and fentanyl.

He held up his right thumb.

The pad was imprinted with a red mark from the syringe plunger, and it looked painful just to look at.

"Guys, when I came in at eight this morning, I brewed myself a cup of Xinyang Maojian tea and even brought a copy of yesterday’s *Southern Metropolis Daily*. I figured that assisting an undergraduate with a Level 1 surgery would at least give me some time to relax."

"And what happened? Never mind, let’s not even talk about it."

"Hey, do you guys think..." Zhou Li asked suddenly, "Dr. Jiang will be scheduled in our OR 2 again tomorrow?"

Chen Jing and Xu Chen exchanged a look, both silent.

Finally, Xu Chen concluded, "It’s fine. It’s good to be tired. If we’re tired, it means the patients get treated faster, right?"

After he said that, Chen Jing gave him a big thumbs-up in approval.

After finishing the large lipoma removal on the right back, Jiang He performed another three Level 1 surgeries back-to-back.

Third case: Internal hemorrhoids PPH (Procedure for Prolapse and Hemorrhoids).

Time elapsed: fifteen minutes.

Fourth case: Benign thyroid adenoma resection (Though technically a Level 2 surgery, it’s considered a basic minor procedure in general surgery, and Director Yang gave special approval).

Time elapsed: thirty-five minutes. The dissection of the recurrent laryngeal nerve was perfect.

Fifth case: High ligation and stripping of the great saphenous vein.

Time elapsed: forty minutes.

By the time Jiang He came out of his fifth surgery, it was already 2:30 in the afternoon.

The entire operating room staff was completely floored.

If yesterday was dazzling, today was just purely mind-numbing...

Zhao Yumin’s mouth was twitching.

He stopped Jiang He. "You kid, how are you so fast? Don’t you need to rest for a bit?"

Jiang He smiled. "Teacher Zhao, the department is short-staffed. If I move a little faster, everyone can work less overtime."

"A little faster? Old Zhou was just complaining to me that his hand is sore from pushing anesthetics all morning. The moment he extubated one patient, your next one was already on the table. Even a workhorse isn’t as capable as you."

Jiang He replied, "Director Yang told me to seize the opportunity and rack up as much practical experience as possible."

Zhao Yumin said exasperatedly, "That thyroidectomy you did... you preserved the parathyroid glands so perfectly even Old Yang himself probably couldn’t do much better. Alright, that’s enough. Go get something to eat."

"Okay."

Jiang He went to the cafeteria, shoveled down a few bites of food, and then headed straight for the Southern Medical University labs.

The miRNA wet lab experiments had just begun.

Cheng Xiyao, Chen Hao, and the others were busy processing data.

Jiang He stayed in the lab until eight at night, only leaving after confirming that all the amplification curves were stable.

A true grinder never leaves time for rest.

Full throttle, always full throttle.

He went back to the hospital and performed two more surgeries.

He didn’t get back to his dorm until the early hours of the morning.

Jiang He didn’t even feel tired. He just kept working.

He turned on his computer and connected to the internet.

After what happened last time, he hadn’t logged into Dingxiang Garden for a while.

The moment he logged in, his unread messages exploded.

Jiang He opened his inbox.

In addition to academic inquiries from various medical heavyweights discussing glycemic control theories, there were also a large number of help requests from frontline doctors and patients’ families who had heard of him.

Jiang He quickly skimmed through them.

Most of the cases seeking help were, in fact, in the terminal stages of common diseases, beyond saving with the current level of medical science.

Although Jiang He sympathized, there was nothing he could do.

Until he came across a newly received private message.

The sender’s ID was "Yangcheng Panqing."

[Master Zhiyu, hello! I apologize for the intrusion. I’m from Yangcheng and I’m a medical student as well. My mother is 52 years old. Two months ago, she started experiencing jaundice and abdominal pain of unknown origin, as well as painless swelling in her bilateral submandibular glands.]

[We had a CT scan done at the municipal hospital, which revealed a huge retroperitoneal mass. It’s already compressing her ureter, causing right-sided hydronephrosis. The doctors suspect it’s either a retroperitoneal sarcoma or late-stage lymphoma. They said she needs a radical open resection as soon as possible, otherwise her kidney function can’t be saved. They also suspect it’s a late-stage malignancy, with a life expectancy of less than six months.]

[However, we’ve had two needle biopsies done, and the pathology results only indicated lymphocyte and plasma cell infiltration with fibrosis. No clear cancer cells were found. The doctors at the municipal hospital said the biopsy might have missed the tumor tissue and recommended proceeding directly to an open exploratory resection.]

[My mother is very weak. If they open her up and find late-stage metastasis, she won’t even have the strength to get off the operating table. I saw your previous god-tier diagnoses on the forum. I’m begging you, please take a look. For my mother’s condition, is an open surgery really the only option?]

[Attachments: Link to original CT images, link to CBC and biochemistry reports.]

A retroperitoneal mass, ureteral compression, swollen submandibular glands, pathology indicating plasma cell infiltration with fibrosis, no cancer cells found...

It seemed so familiar.

Isn’t this IgG4-related disease?

Simply put, it’s a systemic disease caused by an abnormal immune system.

It can affect multiple organs throughout the body. Its most typical manifestation is the formation of inflammatory pseudotumors that resemble tumors, leading to organ enlargement and fibrosis.

In 2008, international understanding of this disease was still in its initial stages.

It wasn’t until 2011 that Japan, in collaboration with Europe and America, established the first internationally recognized comprehensive diagnostic criteria.

In fact, he had encountered a similar case before at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

It was also an IgG4 case, but at the time, even the experts at Peking Union Medical College Hospital hadn’t been able to diagnose it.

It was Jiang He who turned the tide and saved the patient.

It was also because of this incident that he got connected with Wang Kuan.

If the department heads at Peking Union Medical College Hospital couldn’t diagnose it, it was perfectly normal that doctors in Yangcheng couldn’t either.

So, Jiang He thought for a moment and replied.

[This is Zhiyu.]

[Do not agree to the exploratory laparotomy yet. Your mother might not have a malignant tumor.]

[If the municipal hospital cannot make a definitive diagnosis, I suggest you transfer her immediately to the Southern Medical University First Affiliated Hospital.]

[Once you’re there, look for a doctor named Jiang He. He has the latest research and diagnostic protocols for this kind of rare disease.]

After sending the message,

Jiang He suddenly felt that he should have done this a long time ago.

He could use his Zhiyu account to screen for treatable cases and direct them to Affiliated Hospital No. 1.

Not only would he be saving people, but he could also continuously raise his status at Affiliated Hospital No. 1. It was killing two birds with one stone.