The Surgeon’s Studio

Chapter 16: The Length of The Entire Operation Depends On The Anesthesiologist

“There are two dentures of different materials in auntie’s mouth and they use the secretion in the mouth as an electrical conductor to form a primary cell. The signs and symptoms will manifest whenever saliva is secreted during activities, so it’s actually normal to experience some buzzings in the ears and numbness because of this,” explained Zheng Ren.

The onlookers were amazed and confused at the same time.

Most of them had no clue what a primary cell was, but they could still judge the accuracy of Zheng Ren’s theory in his diagnosis.

“I’ll refer you to the oral surgery department for a tooth extraction. Any tooth will do. You’ll feel better afterward,” said Zheng Ren.

The middle-aged man was startled and confused. Zheng Ren’s words sounded logical, but… was that true? It seemed like a made-up story or some wild imagination.

Well, at least he was convinced that Zheng Ren was not a conman from some private pharmaceutical company.

A young man, who had failed to squeeze through the crowd with a cell phone in hand, stood on a plastic bench and yelled at his phone, “Brothers, the doctor said that two dentures of different materials will form a primary cell in the mouth. Look at that theory, it’s amazing! This is the current medical standard in Sea City. Fantastic! Absolutely outstanding! Everybody shout with me, 666! Send me airplanes and rockets too!”

Zheng Ren was stupefied. What the hell was this? Why did that young man, who appeared well and healthy, come to the emergency department in the middle of the night? Just for a live broadcast?

After informing the doctor on duty in the oral surgery department, the wait for an appendicitis case continued…

Fortunately, the worst-case scenario did not happen. Soon, a young patient, presumably a high school student, appeared before Zheng Ren.

After the diagnosis was confirmed, Zheng Ren brought the patient and his family members to the first general surgery department and called Xia Yiren along the way to inform her about the emergency surgery.

It was late in the night and extremely unsafe for a young lady to travel in this city, so Zheng Ren offered to fetch Xie Yiren personally but was rejected in return. According to her, she would arrive at the hospital very soon.

Sure enough, Xie Yiren reached the general surgery department right after Zheng Ren finished writing the preoperative assessment form, which took less than ten minutes.

“How did you arrive so quickly?” asked Zheng Ren as he prepared the patient’s records for submission to the operating theater.

“I didn’t return to my usual house since I could need to attend a surgery at any moment, so I’m currently staying in the house nearest to the hospital,” replied Xie Yiren.

Zheng Ren failed to notice that Xie Yiren mentioned a house instead of home.

“There was no need to rush. You ran just now?” asked Zheng Ren out of concern.

“No, I’m staying in a detached house which has a garage. I drove my car from the garage to the underground parking lot in the hospital. There isn’t any traffic congestion at this hour anyway. That was fast, right?”

Prolonged poverty had restricted Zheng Ren’s imagination and he could not understand the point Xia Yiren was trying to make. A house and home… The concept was the same, right?

This was a city center after all. The detached house she mentioned… should be a villa.

Xie Yiren once informed Zheng Ren that her family-owned seven buildings in the central business district. That was completely beyond Zheng Ren’s imagination.

Both of them lived in a completely different world.

However, Xie Yiren’s superb coordination with the surgeon in the operating theater was more than enough for Zheng Ren’s needs.

“The patient had fasted long enough. Scrub up and go to the operating theater,” Zheng Ren changed the subject back to something he was actually familiar with.

“Alright.” Xie Yiren nodded in response and added, “Chief Zheng, the surgery you performed this afternoon was amazing!”

“Well, it was alright.”

“I was shocked when you made an incision on the upper right quadrant of the abdomen,” replied Xie Yiren with a beautiful smile.

“I won’t perform a surgery casually if the preoperative diagnosis isn’t clear.”

“Anyway, that was a marvelous surgery. What’s the next case about?”

“Just an ordinary acute appendicitis. I’ll finish it within five minutes,” answered Zheng Ren with a convincing hand gesture.

“Okay. By the way, I’m hungry. Let’s have crayfish for supper after the surgery. The meal is on me,” replied Xie Yiren with a grin. Then, she hummed a song Zheng Ren was unfamiliar with and entered the female changing room without waiting for an answer.

…

…

The anesthesiologist had just anesthetized the patient when Zheng Ren finished changing into scrubs.

The circulating nurse helped Zheng Ren tie the surgical gown after he had performed his surgical scrub. On the other hand, Xie Yiren had finished preparing on her own and was currently standing in front of the instrument table.

Her eyes narrowed upon noticing Zheng Ren, seemingly smiling at him.

After putting on a pair of sterile gloves and placing the surgical drapes around the surgical site, Zheng Ren, cool as a cucumber, started preparing himself mentally for the second appendectomy surgery.

The biggest uncertainty of the operation—the patient’s diagnosis—was eliminated with the presence of the System, so the rest of the surgery depended solely on Zheng Ren’s skill level.

His Expert rank in general surgery boosted Zheng Ren’s confidence.

Most importantly, Zheng Ren realized that there was a huge improvement in his surgery skill after performing the complicated appendectomy surgery this afternoon.

The case that he was going to perform was merely a simple appendicitis case.

He just needed to achieve perfection in this surgery, and so he started revising the required surgical steps in his mind.

A pair of forceps holding an iodophor-soaked cotton swab was placed on Zheng Ren’s hand.

Once the surgical site was disinfected, the forceps and contaminated swab were exchanged with dry sterile gauze.

After that, the handle of a scalpel tapped on Zheng Ren’s palm with the perfect amount of pressure.

He felt good working with an experienced scrub nurse, not to mention that the scrub nurse was a beautiful lady too… A young beauty… Young, wealthy, beautiful, and adorkable lady.

That thought alone invigorated him. The scalpel then slashed through skin, making a precise, three-centimeter incision as if it had been marked with a ruler in advance.

Zheng Ren’s surgery was again broadcast live in Xinglin Garden.

The anonymous account had attracted attention and numerous subscribers after the live broadcast of the successful appendectomy with an ectopic appendix that very afternoon.

Hundreds of viewers entered the broadcast channel as soon as it went live.

[An emergency surgery in the middle of the night? Did we guess wrongly just now and he is merely a junior general surgeon after all?]

[Hey, the guy who presumed that he is just a junior surgeon, I really doubt your qualifications and intelligence. The preoperative diagnosis and intraoperative manipulation in this afternoon’s surgery were exceptional and high-skilled. He is an experienced and honest surgeon who is trying to save a patient now. Puny rat, tremble before your god.]

[Wow, a three-centimeter incision? How is he going to operate if the inflamed appendix is larger than the incision?]

Each and every comment transformed into specks of light and entered the System.

Zheng Ren had no intention of doing a laparoscopic appendectomy, not even a single-port laparoscopic surgery, in an appendicitis case.

With this simple appendicitis case, a single-port laparoscopic appendectomy was justified, but its incision size would be almost the same—two to three centimeters—as the incision Zheng Ren made in an open appendectomy. Moreover, a laparoscopic surgery cost a fortune and Zheng Ren would be unable to achieve perfection with it. Thus, that option had been discarded without the slightest hesitation.

The patient was just a teenager with a thin subcutaneous layer, which was exactly why Zheng Ren dared to make a three-centimeter incision. Nothing would be visible at all had the incision been made on an obese patient.

Incisions and blunt dissections of the subcutaneous layer, fascial layers, and peritoneum were made.

After that, a medium-sized curved forceps was placed on Zheng Ren’s palm.

The forceps was then inserted into the peritoneal cavity and the inflamed appendix was pulled out like an obedient earthworm.

The appendix was removed and the abdominal surgical wound was sutured. Everything went well as planned.

Zheng Ren was as calm as a millpond throughout the surgery. After the surgical wound was sutured, he took off his gloves and applied the sterile dressing handed by Xie Yiren on the patient’s wound.

The anesthesiologist was flabbergasted.

The anesthetic had just taken full effect, but the surgery was complete? The length of the entire operation depended solely on the time of injection of the anesthetic?

The anesthesiologist tonight was a senior anesthesiologist in Sea City General Hospital and had seen various doctors or surgeries throughout his career. However, the appendectomy Zheng Ren performed today made him stare in open-mouthed astonishment.

“The… The surgery is complete?” asked the absent-minded anesthesiologist.

“Yes, it was just a simple appendicitis case,” replied Zheng Ren as he removed his surgical drapes as he prepared to transfer the patient out of the operating theater.

“Wait, hold on…” the anesthesiologist jotted down the surgery time. Four minutes and thirty-two seconds…

“I must have calculated it wrongly,” he thought from within a deep mire of self-blame as he took out his cell phone to use its calculator.

Sure enough, he had made a mistake in his calculations, but the result on his cell phone made him sink in contemplation—four minutes and twenty-three seconds.