Chapter 15

Yang Ping ate a piece of chocolate and a compressed biscuit, then rushed to the operating room.

Director Han, Song Zimo, Director Tian, Zhang Lin, Fang Yan and many others had arrived, including many young doctors and interns who had rushed to see the baby’s severed finger reimplantation. After all, this was a rare and highly difficult surgery, sometimes a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The circulating nurse scolded unruly interns: “So many people? Who is the teacher? Everyone, stay back, keep in mind the concept of sterility!”

Fortunately, the operating room for orthopedics was spacious, so it didn’t seem very crowded even with many people.

“Split into two groups. Tian Yuan will lead Fang Yan and Chen Xiaobo to clean and search for blood vessels, nerves, and tendons in the severed finger; Song Zimo will lead Yang Ping and Zhang Lin in cleaning the proximal wound and looking for blood vessels, nerves, and tendons; The reimplantation will be handled by Song Zimo and Yang Ping, with the others on standby.” Director Han explained clearly.

“Who is the nurse on duty today?”

“Su Yixuan!”

“The specialist nurse for orthopedic surgery?”

“Yes, Director.”

The circulating nurse responded as Su Yixuan had already gone to wash her hands.

The anesthesiologist was Liang Jing, a bona fide hefty man, who just happened to have a woman’s name. After the successful anesthesia induction, he gently pried open the baby’s small mouth, then carefully inserted the tracheal intubation, pulled out the guidewire, placed the stethoscope on the chest, and confirmed it was inserted into the trachea. Then, he connected the anesthesia machine.

“Well, the anesthesia was successful. You may wash your hands now.” Liang Jing sat at the head of the child, recording information as he stared at the monitoring data on the display screen.

“This one is too hard to handle today. So small, even magnified fifty times under a microscope it’s still difficult. A slight tremble of the hand will cause the blood vessels to rupture.”

“Yeah, I heard that the most difficult reattachment surgery is for babies, where blood vessels are probably as thin as a hair.”

“It must be Director Han doing it. He used to work at Magic City Sixth Hospital, which is where the reattachment of severed limbs originated at the national level. The world’s first limb reattachment was performed in that hospital.”

“Really? No wonder Director Han is so amazing.”

“No, it’s Senior Brother Song doing the surgery.”

“Senior Brother Song, wow!”

“He is really amazing, I’ve heard he’s a genius. Haven’t you noticed that Director Han is always with him?”

“He is so tall and handsome, highly educated, and so exceptional. I’ve heard that many girls like him.”

Some female interns started to gossip in whispers.

“Of course, I heard his family is really wealthy.”

“Really? Did he take all the good things in the world?”

Once the gossip box was opened, it was endless.

“Quiet! All observers, remain quiet! Replanting a severed finger requires highly concentrated attention. Turn on the video system in the next room. When the operation starts, go next door–” The chief nurse patrolled the operating room and came in to take a look.

This operating room was the main operating room, with additional rooms on both sides. One was a storeroom, the other was a teaching room, half of the wall dividing the teaching room was made of transparent glass. There was a high-definition screen on the wall, connecting to the high-definition camera on the microscope or shadowless lamp here. When needed, surgical video could be broadcast live throughout the entire process.

Su Yixuan had finished washing her hands and raised them in front of her chest. She took a sterile gown and stood on an empty side, facing the sterile table. With a slight shake of her hands, they slipped neatly into the inner sleeves. The circulating nurse immediately stood behind her, helping her pull on the gown and tie the straps at her back.

Then she put on gloves and started to count and sort the instruments.

There were two operating tables.

On one side, Song Zimo and Yang Ping were washing the wound.

On the other side, Tian Yuan, with Fang Yan, was also washing the severed fingers, carefully, for fear of missing one.

After washing the wounds, everyone went to wash their hands and put on their robes.

Generally, the first assistant is responsible for sterilizing and spreading the sheets, but Song Zimo let Yang Ping get dressed and did the sterilization and sheet spreading himself.

The microscope was rolled in and put aside.

Both sides began to debride, which is to thoroughly clean the foreign bodies, necrotic tissues, and devitalized tissues from the wound, and then neatly trim the edge of the skin.

The observing young doctors and interns were all driven to the next room.

Starting from the thumb, Fang Yan handed over the cleaned thumb to Song Zimo, who drilled the steel pin into the phalanx with an electric drill to connect the bones first, thus establishing the main framework.

The next step was to find the blood vessels, nerves, tendons and stitch them together. In simple terms, these were the steps. Blood vessels are the hardest to find, and also the most difficult to sew; nerves are the next; tendons are easy to find and easy to sew, any orthopedic resident can sew them skillfully.

The microscope was pushed to the operation area, fixed in position, adjusted for focal length, pupil distance, and magnification. The blood vessels were too thin, they were magnified fifty times.

Song Zimo held a microscopic tweezer in his left hand and a microscopic scissors in his right, starting to debride under the microscope and find the blood vessels. His operation under the microscope was indeed impressive. Under the viewing field magnified fifty times, his hand didn’t shake and his operation was extremely skillful.

This guy indeed had basis for his pride. Yang Ping had to admit it.

“The blood vessels are too thin. Hold your breath, steady your hands.” Director Han encouraged Song Zimo.

Song Zimo hasn’t spoken a word, operating on the microscopic instruments quietly, finding blood vessels, nerves and tendons under the microscope.

In addition to the large screen on the wall in the next room, there was also a screen in the operating room, just not as large. Director Han was sitting in front of the screen, staring at it.

The vessels of the thumb were found smoothly, followed by finding nerve and tendon. Next, debride the two ends of the vessels, making the vessels clean and standard, the tube cannot contain any impurities, let alone injury.

Rinsed with physiological saline.

Thread!

The thinnest double-needle non-damaging vascular suture thread, its diameter was only a few tenths of a child’s hair.

Cut it in half, half was given to Song Zimo, the other half was preserved by Su Yixuan.

Song Zimo started suturing the arterial vessel.

However, the baby’s vessels were even smaller than imagined, the diameter should be far less than 0.1 millimeters, estimated around 0.05 millimeters.

Song Zimo took a deep breath, composed himself, tried to keep his hand movements slow and steady, at this point, he was challenging the pinnacle of microsurgery.

Starting with the first stitch.

“Slow down, don’t rush.” Director Han said to Song Zimo.

Now he couldn’t rush even if he wanted to. The vessels were not only small, but also the wall was relatively thin, totally different from an artery’s wall.

Song Zimo’s first stitch was very slow, much slower than his usual training speed, he lifted the outer membrane of the vessel wall with a pair of tweezers, the appropriate touch was required as the wall was extremely delicate and could rip easily.

The needle gently pierced the wall of the vessel, in the correct position, and then emerged from the wall of the other end, gently drawn together, and knotted, the first stitch was perfectly sutured.

Director Han nodded slightly, indeed Song Zimo was a gifted individual, he had progressed very fast recently. Doing a suture on a 0.05mm vessel so adeptly already.

Yang Ping was ready to cut the thread, but Song Zimo declined and took the microscopic scissors to cut the thread by himself.

The second stitch, and the third stitch, — all the way to the sixth stitch, his rhythm was very stable, the distance and edge of the needle were very neat, he successfully rejoined the first pipe smoothly.

If it wasn’t for the need for silence in the operating room, the people observing the surgery next door would probably applause.