Great Doctor Ling Ran
chapter-299

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

All the foreign doctors in the operating theater were as quiet as a mouse.

As long as a surgeon’s skills were good enough, he was entitled to have all kinds of weird habits and do all sorts of weird things.

Those foreign doctors did not know what habits Ling Ran had. They also did not want to know if he was the kind of surgeon who performed strange rituals before he carried out surgery. They merely waited quietly for the surgery to continue.

Even though the Chinese doctors were a little curious as well, they did not dare say anything in haste. There was only one resident doctor who was practically looking for trouble. He whipped out his phone to try to communicate with his colleague in the demonstration room. When he raised his head, he noticed that Ji Tianlu was giving him a deadly glare.

The resident doctor looked around before he lowered his head. He removed the cover of his phone and took out the battery. Then he placed his phone back into his pocket.

“Let’s carry on with the surgery.”

After Ling Ran said that, he began to palpate Damon’s calf. The red light of the camera with a plastic bag around its lens also lit up.

At the same time, everyone in the small conference room and the demonstration room went silent.

The doctors present in the operating theater held their breaths as they watched Ling Ran work.

They could have watched the livestream of the surgery in the conference room. Plus, there were more reasons for them to watch surgeries recommended by the organizing committee, which were performed by extremely experienced scholars.

However, they chose to come and watch Ling Ran operate.

It was only an Achilles tendon repair surgery, which even resident doctors knew how to perform.

Nevertheless, it was a surgery that would decide a nineteen-year-old teenager’s fate.

Damon had all the reasons in the world to cry.

All his previous hard work and all his future aspirations were hinged on a single surgery. He took part in that gamble with his entire life as his bet, and when he placed his fate on an unfamiliar surgeon’s operating table, he could only express his emotions by crying.

“Strip the Achilles tendon.” There were no changes in Ling Ran’s tone.

“Strip the Achilles tendon.” Yu Yuan, who stood on two stools that were stacked together, repeated.

“Aspirate.

“Gauze.

“Continue aspirating.”

First, Ling Ran stopped the bleeding to make sure that he had a clear view of the surgical field.

Yu Yuan listened to Ling Ran’s orders and contemplated as she worked.

She could never stop her thoughts from racing, and that often resulted in delays in the surgeries she was a part of. According to her mentor, she contemplated too much and did too little. Due to that, her mind and hands could not coordinate with each other.

When Yu Yuan was part of other treatment groups in Yun Hua Hospital, she was often shunned because of her slow movement and slow reaction time.

Even average surgeons wanted the surgeries they performed to be as successful as possible. Aside from good prognoses and adherence to plans, speed was also a very important indicator of success when it came to surgeries.

A resident doctor who was unable to coordinate well with other doctors was definitely a burden to any treatment group.

However, that was not the case in Ling Ran’s treatment group. Ling Ran was not demanding when it came to resident doctors.

Even though resident doctors who worked under Ling Ran had to work very long hours, Ling Ran rarely spoke in the operating theater, and he was able to adapt to the conditions and abilities of different resident doctor at will. Yu Yuan and the others had never encountered a doctor like him.

As Ling Ran’s assistant, even when Yu Yuan’s movements were a little slow because of her excessive contemplating, she would not get reprimanded.

That enabled Yu Yuan to relax, and as a result, she was able to perform well.

“There’s very little bleeding.” Yu Yuan discovered this “secret” before anyone else.

The others did not have an idea of what was considered a normal amount of bleeding during the execution of Plan A.

Ling Ran hummed in acknowledgment and said, “It’s always better to sever fewer blood vessels than to suture those blood vessels back at the end of the surgery.”

“Yes.” Yu Yuan immediately nodded. Then she turned to ask the anesthetist, “How much blood loss?”

“A total of 1.5 ounces,” the anesthetist said softly.

Ling Ran nodded. It was lower than his previous patients’ blood loss. That meant the number of blood vessels severed could have reduced compared with the previous times he executed Plan A. –

Of course, it was only a possibility.

The doctors in the operating theater finally understood their conversation. They could not help but start to discuss among themselves.

Some of the doctors who were not familiar with Achilles tendon repair surgeries whipped out their phones and began to search for information.

Ji Tianlu coughed loudly a few times and said, “Right now, the blood loss from incisions made using the traditional method is around 5 to 6.7 ounces.”

He deliberately lowered the numbers slightly so that the medical standards in China did not seem weak to foreigners.

Some of the doctors who were quick already managed to obtain some information. They nodded and placed their phones back into their pockets. Another doctor explained in English, “Right now, the blood loss from a limited incision is about 2.4 ounces, while the blood loss from minimally invasive surgery is around an ounce throughout the entire surgery.”

In comparison to those figures, the blood loss in Ling Ran’s current surgery was already more than the blood loss of minimally invasive surgeries at that point. Once he was done with the entire surgery, the total blood loss would definitely surpass that of limited incision surgeries as well.

That was due to the limitations posed by the type of surgery. If you were to only compare the figure with other surgeries performed through traditional incisions, the blood loss would be considered very low.

“Oh, so this is the theory behind Plan A?” Doctor Morris asked Ji Tianlu, feeling a little curious. “To reduce blood loss and increase the suture strength on the Achilles tendon?”

“Blood loss is only an… indicator.” Ji Tianlu asked his interpreter to translate what he said before he continued, “The ultimate aim of Plan A is to reduce the damage inflicted on blood vessels and make sure that the vascular network can function normally so that the Achilles tendon receives adequate blood supply.”

“Hmm… that’s a brilliant plan,” Doctor Morris smiled and said, “and a very difficult one too.”

“Doctor Ling is highly skilled.” Ji Tianlu took the opportunity to promote Ling Ran’s abilities. Right then, there was no point in promoting the center or himself. By promoting Ling Ran, he was also promoting Plan A, which meant that he was indirectly promoting Zhu Tongyi and his center.

“We can probably do a reinforced suture.” After he examined the tendon for a while, Ling Ran concluded.

Next to him, Yu Yuan started to make preparations in a flurry of motion.

The role that first assistants played in surgeries varied. Experienced chief surgeons would be able to work with both extremely unskilled first assistants and first assistants who knew how to do everything.

Since Ji Tianlu did not participate in the surgery, he stood aside and observed Ling Ran’s work. When he saw Ling Ran perform the reinforced suture as skillfully as he usually did, he gave a silent nod of approval.

The doctors, who were standing around the operating table to watch the surgery, could not help but inch forward.

There were ropes used as railings around the operating table, hence the doctors could only lean their waists against the ropes and keep their feet on the yellow line as they tried their best to crane their necks forward.

Some of the doctors even went overboard and stood with one leg so that they could get a better view of the surgery.

“Both sides of the ruptured tendon are lined up perfectly.”

“This is a double reinforced suture.”

“If there aren’t any complications, the strength of this suture will do.”

At that moment, the Chinese doctors and foreign doctors communicated in English without any problem.

Speaking in front of an audience required relatively complicated choices of words, and it was a lot more difficult than daily conversation.

Now that all of them were discussing the same topic, the Chinese doctors just blundered through the conversation and guessed the meanings of the words they heard but did not understand. Most of them did not have much problem with it.

“Hemostatic forceps.

“Aspirate.

“Use polydioxanone surgical thread.”

Ling Ran’s movements were swift, and he also gave orders very quickly.

“He truly retained a lot of the blood vessels in the vascular network.”

The doctors who were watching the surgery inside and outside the operating theater slowly realized what Ling Ran was doing.

Ling Ran drew on the experience he gained from the two hundred anatomical foot dissections and resolutely changed the operative route so that even fewer blood vessels were severed. Along with the blood vessels he sutured, not only did he reduce the surgery time and ensure that the Achilles tendon received adequate blood supply, but he also reduced blood loss.

Besides, Ling Ran was extremely familiar with all the other steps, as he had performed them countless of times previously.

Ling Ran became more and more at ease as he worked, and the doctors who stood beside the ropes also got increasingly excited as they watched.

Outsiders would have obviously found the surgery very boring, because neither extraordinary occurrences nor exciting conversations and fierce maneuvers were present in a perfect Achilles tendon repair. The whole surgery was uneventful, and Ling Ran acted like a man who went on matchmaking sessions in restaurants all the time and was talking to a woman he was not really interested in. It looked like he was eating without putting in any effort.

“I’m done.” After he personally closed the incision, Ling Ran severed the surgical thread and tossed the scissors aside. He then nodded at everyone before he walked out of the operating theater without asking for anyone’s opinion.

His gloves were covered in blood, and his surgical gown was not clean too. It was not the time to receive hugs and congratulations.

As if they had discussed it beforehand, all the doctors who had been watching the surgery in the operating theater whipped out their phones in unison and started to take photographs as well as selfies.

The resident doctor from the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center also whipped out his dismantled phone in a flurry of motion. He reassembled the battery and put on the phone’s back cover. Filled with anticipation, he then turned on his phone and joyously raised his head…

“Chief Physician Ji, your eyesight is really sharp.” The resident doctor flashed an honest and good-natured smile before he removed the battery he just reassembled.