Surgery Godfather

Chapter 130: Chapter 0126: Sly Fearer Makes a Detour

“Ding dong, task completed. Successful nerve root sheath puncture performed. Patient’s pain relieved, no side effects observed. Reward: 16,000 points.”

The points rose from 15,000 to 31,000, leaving him with a bit of a savings.

After seeing his patient, Yang Ping, on his way back to the department, heard the system announce the completion of the task.

Now the tasks were getting harder. Unlike before, when completing a street-side rescue would reward him with a gift package.

The lab lights were still on, with Song Zimo alone practicing arthroscopy.

Yang Ping went in and found a chair to sit on. Song Zimo turned around, “What’s up? Aren’t you going back to rest? Zhang Lin and Little Five have also trained for an hour and have already gone back.”

“Arthroscopy scissors should not only be trained for separation but should also be trained for rhythm. It’s like tossing balls. One ball, two balls, three balls, tossed and caught in a loop. Master the rhythm!” Yang Ping said, watching Zimo keep spinning a grape until it rolled away.

Song Zimo stopped, listening attentively.

“Get good at spinning the grape first, then alternate spinning and cutting. Break down the movements, train for each one. After perfecting each part, string them together for practice,” Yang Ping directed Song Zimo.

Song Zimo, as if enlightened, immediately altered his training methods, breaking down and practicing each movement separately.

“Do you think Director Han will let us be the chief surgeon in the Golden Knife Award?” Song Zimo asked, worried.

After all, they were below the deputy chief physician, Tian Yuan, and the chief physician, Tan Boyun. Both Tian Yuan and Tan Boyun were in their thirties and less than forty-five years old respectively, both meeting the age requirement for the Golden Knife Award.

“Chief physicians can also serve as chief surgeons in the Golden Knife Award. Director Han should give us a chance,” Yang Ping analyzed.

Song Zimo was very familiar with the Golden Knife Award: “Generally attending physicians participate as assistants. Those who compete as chief surgeons are very rare. To compete as a chief surgeon, performing third-level or fourth-level surgeries, signatures from two chief physicians within the same specialty are required, one inside the hospital and one outside. Su Nanchen has already been promoted to deputy chief physician and Wen Rentao is also a deputy chief physician.”

Yang Ping yawned, “So you want to defeat them?”

“Don’t you?” Song Zimo retorted, stopping his arthroscopic training.

Yang Ping lazily shook his head, “Nope, doesn’t interest me. But Director Han did say that winning an award isn’t a bad thing.”

Song Zimo looked at Yang Ping, who spoke casually as if the award was easily attainable.

“Is the surgery for the synovial chondromatosis scheduled?” Yang Ping remembered the procedure set for tomorrow.

Song Zimo resumed his training, “It’s set. Now it’s easy for us to schedule surgeries. Schedule it here, call up to the operating room, and Xiao Su will have it arranged. Zhou Can is also here, he starts work tomorrow. Having two people makes it a lot easier. One handles the instruments and the other circulates.”

“Keep practicing. Can you handle all categories?” Yang Ping asked.

Song Zimo nodded, “Shouldn’t you be able to, too?”

Yang Ping snapped his fingers, “Your time to prove your talent is here.”

“No attending physician has ever received the award before? But I want to try.” Song Zimo’s ambition remained undiminished.

“Then let’s start. Make them break the rule!” Yang Ping stood up, yawned, and left.

Song Zimo was left alone in the lab, lost in thought. Yes, start from this batch, and break the norm. He clenched his fist.

Entering the system space before bed had become a daily requirement, more punctual than his daily grooming. It was the best time for focused training.

Last time he trained with knee arthroscopy. This time, Yang Ping decided to practice shoulder arthroscopy. He spent 12,000 points in the system’s store to purchase 600 shoulder arthroscopy cases, including ones for rotator cuff repair, acromioplasty, Bankart lesion, SLAP lesion, labrum lesion surgeries.

He was left with just over 19,000 points. Every time he accumulated some points, after purchasing a training package he was left on edge.

He checked the stage task; its completion rate had increased by several percentages and the progress bar had moved a small step forward. Did today’s puncture earn points for this task?

It must have. Today’s puncture, acknowledged by Professor Su, naturally boosted the team’s reputation score.

Yang Ping understood that now every piece of work, as long as done well, would earn him points, increase his experience, and directly or indirectly contribute to the stage task’s score.

This was the logic of aligning personal goals with team goals, combining personal growth with the development of the platform.

No one was an island, no one could succeed on their own.

The following day, the aunt with the soft-kneed syndrome was ready to be discharged. By the time he checked on her, she had already packed her stuff.

She was overjoyed. She had gone from barely being able to move to being as spry as a hummingbird in just forty-eight hours.

“I’m going to give you guys some good publicity. And please take good care of my friend I referred,” the aunt made a mental note of her friend’s appointment.

“Doctor Yang, if you didn’t already have a girlfriend, I’d introduce you to one. Great girl, works at…” The aunt was enthusiastic.

“Mom!” Her daughter cut her off.

“Introduce me, auntie!” Zhang Lin joked.

“You’ve got a girlfriend already, nephew – trying to trick your auntie.” The aunt was sharp.

“How are you so sure?” Zhang Lin laughed as he asked.

The aunt pointed to his shirt collar, “Your collar is too clean to be single’s. You’re probably about to get married.”

Holmes, they all laughed heartily.

The patient with synovial chondromatosis was prepped for surgery after rounds.

“Anyone here suffer from trypophobia? If so, step back!” Yang Ping announced before the procedure began.

Patients like this, once the chondroma is removed, make those with trypophobia feel incredibly uncomfortable. Some may even vomit.

While adjusting the height of the three-liter bag of saline, Zhou Can said: “Even if we did, we’d probably be immune by now. I have a classmate who’s also an OR nurse, used to faint at the sight of blood and needles. Not anymore. We see organs and intestines all day long, even if we wanted to faint we couldn’t. That time in the tumor surgery department, a tumor weighing tens of kilograms was removed from the abdomen. When cut open, it was all raw, red meat.”

Yang Ping came back after scrubbing his hands in. Song Zimo and Little Five had already prepared everything.

Xiao Su had arranged the various tubes neatly, using a tie to bind them together and then fastening it above the knee.

Water tube, suction tube, fiber optic, camera transmission line, electric planer wire, the line of the plasma knife, four lines and two tubes, all without any entanglement, and the pre-set length was just right.

Before the surgery, he checked anew, elevated the surgical limb, used a sterile tourniquet to evacuate the blood, inflated the computer airbag tourniquet, and the surgery began.

“Those with mysophobia, stay back!” Yang Ping reminded again.

The scalpel made a 0.5cm incision on the outside of the knee. With a blunt puncture cone, the sheath tube penetrated into the fossa intercondylaris, straightended the knee joint, and when the puncture cone entered the suprapatellar bursa, there was noticeable rustling friction sound, like a pair of chopsticks stirring a pot of peanuts.

The puncture cone was withdrawn, and the arthroscope was inserted into the sheath tube, connecting the water tube.

The view was all white, nothing could be seen.

Under the impact of flowing water, the white objects were rolling and squirming, lined with round chondromas, white, slick and glistening from the crowd pressure.

“Wow!” Zhang Lin, Liang Fatty, and Zhou Can exclaimed simultaneously, finding the sight too dazzling, their skin instantly covered in goosebumps.

It was no longer feasible to use needle punctures to locate the medial entry route as per the norm.

The scalpel made another small incision on the inside of the knee, similarly, the puncture cone went in, carrying the sheath tube.

“Metal bowl!”

The metal bowl was already handed over and placed underneath the inner sheath tube, just as the puncture cone was being withdrawn.

Splash! Some small cartilage tumors flowed down the sheath tube and were caught by the metal bowl. Some even bounced around.

After a while, the bottom of the metal bowl was quickly covered in white cartilage tumors, all relatively small, about the size of sago, densely packed.

Slowly, nothing more flowed out because the large sheath tube was blocked.

The sheath tube was withdrawn and Xiao Su handed over the marrow forceps – the best tool for removing floating bodies under an arthroscope.

To remove the floating entities through an arthroscopy, each one had to be removed individually. Song Zimo’s frequent training of taking crystal babies proved useful at this moment.

“Do you want to give it a try?” Yang Ping passed the marrow forceps to Song Zimo.

Song Zimo had mastered these kinds of procedures. Now, he wanted to follow Yang Ping and upgrade his surgical skills, so he had agreed to assist, observing how Yang Ping operated.

“You go ahead, I’ll support the legs and learn from you.” Song Zimo said.

Each time Yang Ping’s marrow forceps went in and out, it was holding a white chondroma, which he dropped in the metal bowl.

He didn’t miss a step with each repetition. He went in, clamped a chondroma, then pulled out and dropped it into the metal bowl.

One by one, then a couple, then dozens, the numbers kept climbing–

In Yang Ping’s forceps, not a single chondroma was missed, nor was any repetition required.

A single metal bowl could no longer hold them all, Xiao Su had to swap it for another one.

Slowly on the screen, the circular field of view was becoming more clear. One could see the chondromas accumulated in different joint spaces, some even moving around under the flow of water.

That a human knee joint could hide such clustered peanuts was beyond comprehension.

Zhou Can felt goosebumps all over his body, as if millions of ants were crawling inside his internal organs.

The entire knee joint was occupied by chondromas resembling peanuts packed together. Over three hundred had been removed, with more than two hundred still present.

“Zhou Can, are you okay?” Concerned, Liang Fatty looked at Zhou Can whose face had turned pale.

Xiao Su also asked with concern, “Zhou Can, why don’t you take a break?”

Zhou Can shook his head and took a deep breath, “I’ve got goosebumps all over now, but I’m fine. I just need a moment to relax.”

“Weren’t you immune?” Zhang Lin challenged her, recalling her confidence from moments ago.

“I was immune to tumors weighing several dozens of pounds, but have never seen hundreds of these things. It’s making me feel suffocated,” Zhou Can admitted.

Indeed, this was extremely rare. The removal of the chondromas continued.

The procedure was quick; once one area was cleared, the next was targeted. In the end, the posterior compartment was swept once more. From head to foot, the entire knee joint was inspected for any residuum – under the meniscus, inside the synovial folds, everything was checked with the probe, including squeezing the lateral recesses.

Confirmed there were none left, a normal knee joint was revealed.

Yang Ping had cleaned up the knee joint, removing the proliferating synovial tissue and repairing the degenerated, torn meniscus.

The two metal bowls were filled to the brim, the height of the contents exceeding the edges.

It was astonishing that all of this came from one single knee joint.

Five hundred and twenty-seven pieces! More than what was shown on the MRI.

The smallest was the size of sago, and the largest was bigger than an adult’s thumb.

“Shall we show this to the patient and their family later?” Zhang Lin took a photo.

“Communicate with them in advance and seek their opinion. If they don’t want to see it, let it be. It might make them uncomfortable,” instructed Yang Ping.

Last time, the patient was too scared to see it, and the sight almost made his son vomit.

Zhou Can stared at the two metal bowls filled to the brim with white, smooth, egg-shaped tumors that had piled up like mountains.

“Are you sure you want to keep looking? Are you trying to desensitize yourself?” Zhang Lin blocked Zhou Can’s view.

“Let me look a little longer. I won’t feel this way next time. It’s quite stimulating,” Zhou Can admitted.

“You’re a freak!” Zhang Lin moved aside.