Chapter 732: Chapter 731: Time! Time

Atrial or ventricular septal defects are common congenital heart diseases, occurring in about one in every thousand newborns and accounting for 15% to 20% of all congenital heart conditions.

They are more common in females, with a male-to-female ratio of approximately one to two.

Defects with a diameter of less than 5 millimeters have a high chance of healing on their own before the age of five. If a septal defect has not closed by age five, surgical treatment needs to be considered.

The optimal age for surgery is between seven and ten years old.

The main treatment methods are transcatheter intervention by the cardiology department and surgical treatment by the cardiac surgery department.

Interventional therapy is limited, targeting simple types of atrioventricular septal defects with mild symptoms.

Complex atrioventricular septal defects with large diameters or multiple co-occurring conditions are usually treated with open-heart surgery.

The seven-year-old boy being operated on by Dr. Gu Lin had a ventricular septal defect with a maximum diameter of 1.4 centimeters, complicated by other malformations such as patent ductus arteriosus and pulmonary valve stenosis.

The boy’s complex heart condition required open-chest surgery to completely repair the defect and malformations.

At 9:08 AM, with soft music filling the operating room, Yan Feifan, serving as the first assistant, helped Dr. Gu Lin begin the surgery.

Although the soft, instrumental music filling his ears was pleasant and quite relaxing, Yan Feifan didn’t like it.

He was accustomed to a pure, focused operating room environment.

But listening to soft music while operating was the lead surgeon Gu Lin’s preference, and as the indisputable master of the operating room, all Yan Feifan could do was endure it.

He had experienced even more outrageous things during his departmental rotations.

One lead surgeon operated while listening to intense rock music.

Lead surgeons had all sorts of different habits.

Yan Feifan assisted Dr. Gu in opening the chest of the young boy, who was under general anesthesia with tracheal intubation, and then established cardiopulmonary bypass.

After stopping the boy’s cardiac circulation, Yan Feifan helped Dr. Gu incise the anterior wall of the right ventricular outflow tract, finally exposing the ventricular septal defect completely...

"So what’s the story between you and that Zhou Xian fellow?"

Yan Feifan, who had been engrossed in observing the surgery, froze for a moment before realizing that the sudden question had come from Dr. Gu.

He looked at Gu Lin and heard him continue as he operated, "That fellow proactively requested clinic duty on Mondays and Fridays, saying he wanted to contribute more to the department before he leaves."

"If you ask me, it looks more like he’s avoiding you!"

After a brief pause, Gu Lin glanced up at Yan Feifan and added, "I heard the success of his recent heart transplant had quite a bit to do with you?"

Yan Feifan denied it. "Teacher, I hadn’t even started my rotation in cardiac surgery back then. How could I have had the ability to help Dr. Zhou with a heart transplant?"

He elaborated, "After Dr. Zhou was passed over for his promotion, I had an argument with his student because of an careless remark I made. That was the first time I had any real contact with Dr. Zhou."

"Some time later, we ran into each other, talked things over, and cleared the air."

"We had a meal together later on, and I just offered him a few words of encouragement. The success of Dr. Zhou’s heart transplant was entirely the result of his own hard work and determination."

The reason Yan Feifan concealed the part about Zhou Xian wanting to become his apprentice was mainly because it wasn’t something appropriate for him to bring up himself.

More importantly, the master-apprentice relationship is still highly valued in the medical world.

Many clinical skills and a great deal of medical experience require hands-on, face-to-face instruction from senior or veteran doctors.

If it got out that Zhou Xian had gone back on his word and was avoiding acknowledging his master, he would be scorned by the medical community.

At the time, Yan Feifan hadn’t taken the apprenticeship offer seriously anyway, figuring it was just a joke or something said in jest.

Now that the man had resigned and was leaving, there was even less reason to dredge it all up.

Gu Lin snorted softly. "Yan, given your performance during the live pig heart transplant and the dual-surgeon transplantation method you pioneered, you absolutely have the skills to guide Zhou Xian through a heart transplant."

"Teacher, I really didn’t!" Yan Feifan’s denial this time was completely sincere.

Gu Lin continued operating without pause and suddenly let out a soft sigh.

"Sigh... That Zhou Xian fellow has talent, but he’s a bit flighty in his work and has a rather extreme personality."

"Later, he went down the path of self-promotion. A few people in the department, for their own various motives, took the opportunity to hype him up, and he slowly lost sight of who he was."

"And that mistake cost him ten years."

"This time, I thought he’d finally seen the light and would focus on improving himself through steady, solid work."

"I never expected he would actually resign and leave."

Gu Lin shook his head and sighed. "Some people... they’re just a lost cause. Always choosing the wrong path on the eve of success..."

Just then, a young doctor entered the operating room and reported, "Teacher, in Operating Room Five, the heart transplant being performed by Mr. Deng and Dr. Zhang has officially begun."

Gu Lin nodded to show he understood...

The boy’s ventricular septal defect repair surgery lasted over five hours, with the main part of the procedure finishing after two in the afternoon.

Gu Lin had the other assistants continue with the remainder of the operation, then took a short break with Yan Feifan before they rushed to Operating Room Five.

As soon as he entered Operating Room Five, Yan Feifan saw that Mr. Liang and Dr. Ni Leixing were already there.

He walked over to stand beside Mr. Liang and glanced at the timer clock on the wall. It clearly displayed the elapsed surgery time: three hours and eleven minutes.

Yan Feifan then turned his gaze to the high-definition monitor on the wall, which was displaying a live feed of the surgery.

The screen clearly showed Mr. Deng and Dr. Zhang coordinating skillfully, each methodically suturing the coronary and pulmonary arteries.

Yan Feifan knew they were in the final stages of the surgery.

He fought to contain his excitement and continued to watch...

Nineteen minutes later, the suturing for the heart transplant was complete.

Twenty-one minutes after that, the cardiopulmonary bypass was stopped, and the transplanted heart was perfused with blood.

Mr. Deng performed a manual cardiac massage, checking, adapting, and waking the heart before defibrillation.

A minute later, Dr. Zhang took the defibrillator paddles from a surgical nurse.

"Twenty-five joules!"

Twenty-five joules was the energy setting for the shock.

Dr. Zhang Shi’an’s concise command made Yan Feifan’s heart leap into his throat.

Heart transplant surgery was now a mature procedure, and both Mr. Deng and Dr. Zhang were experienced experts. A successful outcome was highly probable.

But this was, after all, the very first practical application of the dual-surgeon heart transplant method, and Yan Feifan couldn’t help but feel tense.

He wasn’t the only one; Liang Zhao Kui, Ni Leixing, and Gu Lin, who were also observing, couldn’t help but widen their eyes and crane their necks.

With a soft THUMP, the heart, which had turned a vivid red, beat violently a few times before quickly falling still again.

"Thirty joules! Hands off, everyone!"

Zhang Shi’an gave another command, observed for a moment to confirm no one around him was touching the patient on the operating table, and pressed the button on the defibrillator handle again.

Another soft THUMP.

This time, the heart, caught between the two small copper paddles, jumped even higher as it expanded and contracted violently and rapidly.

But in the blink of an eye, the heart’s rhythm rapidly decelerated until it stopped completely.

Just as Yan Feifan was sighing to himself, the heart, as if reanimated, suddenly gave a single beat.

Then, it beat again...

The operating room erupted in thunderous applause.

Liang Zhao Kui turned to Yan Feifan, his voice muffled by his mask but unable to hide his excitement.

"Feifan, you did it."

Yan Feifan exclaimed excitedly, "Teacher, *we* did it!"

Just then, another exclamation rang out.

"Ah, the time! The time! Mr. Zhang, stop clapping! We still have another goal to meet. Get back to work."

"Four and a half hours!"

Watching Dr. Deng Chunming dive back into his work, Yan Feifan looked at the timer clock on the wall.

Four hours and five minutes.

There was still a lot of work to be done, including cleaning the thoracic cavity and suturing the chest. It was now impossible to keep the surgery time under four and a half hours.

Yan Feifan then noticed Dr. Gu Lin whistle happily...

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.