Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1202 - 937: Balloon Man_2

Chapter 1202: Chapter 937: Balloon Man_2

Emergency departments in hospitals are all pretty similar, chaotic and noisy. The emergency department at City People’s Hospital isn’t as spacious as Sanbo Hospital, and the director isn’t as tall and imposing as Xiong Sihai, which makes it seem a bit less commanding. With his towering and robust stature, just by standing in the emergency hall and with his formidable demeanor, Xiong Sihai would impose order in the department, and troublemakers would think twice before causing a scene.

Yang Ping was very familiar with the emergency department of City People’s Hospital. Back when he was the attending in residency, he often visited the emergency department. The doctors there were also well-acquainted, and everyone proceeded to the rescue room.

The patient’s swelling was worse than it appeared in the photos—his chest, neck, and head were as inflated as balloons, especially the head, which was grotesquely swollen. The attending orthopedic surgeon stood there, not knowing what to do, having never encountered such swelling, so he simply stood by and called Director Zhuo.

Yang Ping asked for a pair of gloves and pressed on the swollen areas, which felt like air sacs. Director Zhuo, too, put on gloves and felt the areas.

"Subcutaneous emphysema?" Director Zhuo realized immediately.

Yang Ping nodded.

Director Zhuo had experience with this; subcutaneous emphysema was manageable. He feared it might be swelling due to other reasons, something Director Zhuo had never seen.

"Scalpel blade, quick!"

Director Zhuo shouted.

The emergency department nurse swiftly opened a wound cleaning kit. The orthopedic attending quickly attached the blade to the handle and handed it to Director Zhuo, who then punctured over a dozen holes in the chest, neck, and head to release the trapped air.

The gas hissed out of the puncture holes just like air escaping from a balloon. Director Zhuo pressed down on the bloated skin that resembled an inflated ball, gently squeezing the gas out, and the orthopedic attending hurried to imitate, forcefully pressing.

"Go easy!" Director Zhuo grabbed the hand of the orthopedic attending.

Pressing had to be gentle; otherwise, it could cause an air embolism, which could be fatal.

"Call the Thoracic Surgery Department for a thoracic cavity closed drainage—it’s safer. What’s going on with Thoracic Surgery? Why hasn’t someone come yet?" Director Zhuo complained while ordering the emergency physician.

The head of the Thoracic Surgery Department, Director Zhou, was standing right there, watching, "Oh! I’m here."

"Prepare a thoracic cavity drainage set. I’ll perform a closed drainage," Director Zhou said, immediately putting on gloves.

The patient’s swelling was just like a balloon—the result of an extensive amount of gas entering beneath the skin. The more the gas accumulated, the larger it grew, just like inflating a balloon. The patient had inflated himself into a balloon.

It seemed the patient had rib fractures, with the ribs piercing both the lung and the chest wall, continuing through to beneath the skin, which remained intact. An open valve formed on the chest wall, and during exhalation, lung gas blew through the rupture, into the break in the chest wall, and then under the skin. Since the chest wall acted as a one-way valve, allowing air in but not out, the gas accumulated, stretching the skin, eventually inflating it like a balloon and causing the exaggerated swelling seen from the outside.

If this situation wasn’t promptly addressed by venting the trapped air, the patient’s entire body could swell like a balloon, endangering their life.

The patient later underwent an emergency CT-Scan which revealed multiple fractures throughout the body—several rib fractures, pelvic fractures, lumbar vertebrae fractures, and multiple fractures in the limbs. There was also a subdural hematoma in the brain, though the bleeding wasn’t very heavy.

Handling these issues was not a problem for Director Zhuo. Yang Ping felt there was no need for him to stay any longer, so he said his goodbyes and returned to Sanbo Hospital. By the time he got back, it was past two in the morning.

Song Zimo was leading a surgery session while Xia Shu wasn’t participating. His father was hospitalized in the Department of Gastroenterology and had undergone a gastroscopy which found a significant bleeding ulcer in the stomach. The gastroenterology physician managed the bleeding endoscopically and took a sample for pathology. Wen Ruzheng was assisting in examining the pathology slice which turned out to be gastric cancer. The patient now needed to undergo a full-body examination to check for metastases.

Xia Shu was quite devastated upon hearing the news that his father had been diagnosed with stomach cancer just after he’d graduated with his doctorate and hadn’t yet had the chance to bring joy to his parents, so he naturally felt very upset, and his thoughts inevitably became somewhat chaotic.

Head Nurse Cai had just delivered meals to the Department of Gastroenterology for Xia Shu and his parents and then took the opportunity to ask the nurses there to take extra care of Xia Shu’s father.

Since the full body examination was not yet complete, Yang Ping was not in a position to draw any conclusions, so he planned to take a look at what the situation was and how to deal with it once the results were available.

As for Xia Shu, Yang Ping was very comfortable knowing that he was under the care of Head Nurse Cai, who was exceptionally wise and capable. She knew how to comfort Xia Shu.

Dashun reported to Yang Ping that they had discovered numerous computer Trojans recently, even within computers used by several laboratories. This was found during Dashun’s routine security checks of the department and the laboratories.

In the department, it was common for computers to be infected with viruses due to people frequently plugging in and unplugging USB drives, but the computers in the laboratory were isolated from the outside world—not connected to the internet or capable of plugging in USB drives or anything of the sort, without even having ports, making them unlikely to get infected.

Although the computers were isolated, the laboratories were open to personnel and there were never any restrictions on people moving in and out.

Furthermore, these Trojans were very sophisticated. The person in charge of this computer equipment inspection was a top expert from a large security company, who was very adept at various forms of cyber operations. According to the experts, these Trojans had been hiding in the computers and had already transmitted many files.

For safety’s sake, one of the experts stayed behind, specifically to take charge of the network security here.

However, Yang Ping said there were no particularly confidential files on the laboratory computers; all that information was public in their papers. He told Dashun not to worry because he would never casually store core files on these computers, so Yang Ping was not very concerned.

In the afternoon, Yang Ping took a stroll through the System Space. Although the system could provide a powerful platform for scientific research with a vast array of resources, it could not offer the richness of imagination. Yang Ping felt that imagination, curiosity, and the desire to explore were all extremely valuable.

The latest batch of modified K-factors still did not satisfy Yang Ping, who analyzed the reasons for failure and continued with the experiments in the laboratory, hoping to quickly modify a suitable K-factor.

Under Yang Ping’s guidance, Su Nanchen and Robert made breakthrough progress in their project on 3D-printed cartilage. By combining stem cell cultivation techniques with biological 3D printing technology, they printed out clear cartilage for articular structures that were indistinguishable from human articular cartilage and could be transplanted.

But this was only the first step of the experiment. Next, they would need to conduct animal experiments, and then clinical trials.

It seemed that everyone had learned how to use WeChat—compared to email, WeChat, as an instant messaging tool, was very convenient.

The international WeChat group on transplantation was bustling. Yang Ping glanced at the content of the conversations within the group, which, in addition to some academic discussions, often touched upon everyday life matters.

Robert was boasting about his proficiency in Chinese, having memorized Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Yuan dynasty drama. He had also finished reading dictionaries of idioms, proverbs, and slang, and now he was starting to read classic Chinese novels. He had already finished reading The Three-Body Problem and was attempting to read Journey to the West.

This guy really put in the effort to learn Chinese, no wonder his proficiency was so high.

Following closely behind was August, who had recently been studying the Shuowen Jiezi, researching the principles of Chinese character formation and word composition.

Woodhead was still struggling with the HSK level four, always falling just short. Every time he seemed to be on the threshold of passing, but after each test, he would miss by just a point or two. It seemed that applying for advanced studies in the short term was out of the question, but he could consider a short academic exchange, such as a two-week program. Woodhead thought it was impossible to learn much by just skimming the surface for two weeks and hoped to secure at least a three-month fellowship.

This reminded Yang Ping of his own university days when some of his classmates were troubled by the English CET-4, a similar situation.

Manstein was originally a Nobel laureate and a selector for the Nobel Prize, so he was well-versed in recommending candidates for the Nobel Prize. He had already prepared his recommendation materials thoroughly.