Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1278 - 973: Multi-Arm Thinking

Chapter 1278: Chapter 973: Multi-Arm Thinking

Talent truly exists, and it can’t be compensated for with just hard work, Director Fang was very clear about this principle.

Therefore, if a person wants to succeed, and their efforts align well with their natural talents, the probability of success is much greater. However, if the direction of their efforts does not align with their talents, they might end up working harder for less return, or even achieving nothing for all their hard work.

"You’re not bad either, the volume of general surgery performed with the Da Vinci surgical robot is among the top few in the country, isn’t it?"

The chief physician of the Thoracic Surgery Department felt that the remark he just blurted out might have hurt his colleague’s pride, so he quickly added another sentence to offer some consolation to his colleague.

"Forget it, in front of others I might claim to be pretty good, but how would I dare say that in front of Professor Yang?"

Director Fang said self-deprecatingly and fell silent.

On the high-definition screen, several robotic arms were performing actions like cutting, separating, suturing, and tying knots at an incredibly fast pace. Logically, with only these few robotic arms as the main performers and a monotonous plot, this should be dull, but the doctors in the teaching room were as engrossed as if they were watching blockbuster movies, their eyes riveted to the screen with rapt attention, and the whole venue was so quiet that even occasional conversations were whispered.

One of the doctors even took a video of the scene and posted it on his moment, commenting on how so many people gathered in the dead of night to quietly watch an action movie performed by a few robotic arms. This scene seemed peculiar and interesting, and it was a kind of romance that only doctors could understand.

Some colleagues who arrived late were extremely anxious and whispered to their companions, "The Da Vinci lung transplant? What step are they at now?" Upon learning the progress of the surgery, their hearts were filled with regret for coming too late and missing the complete surgical procedure.

On the operating table, assistants Song Zimo and Xu Zhiliang had completed the trimming of the donor lung hilum, making the edges of the blood vessels and bronchi neat and of appropriate length, so they could smoothly anastomose with the patient’s bronchi and blood vessels.

After preparing the donor lung, Song Zimo made an incision of about 8 centimeters in Ou Lianfeng’s right intercostal space. Through this incision, the donor lung was inserted into Ou Lianfeng’s chest cavity. Even though the lung appeared large, that was because it was inflated like a balloon. Once the air inside was completely evacuated, the deflated lung, just like a deflated balloon, could be easily inserted through the 8-centimeter incision into the chest cavity.

In any organ transplant, the most important step is the vascular anastomosis. Only with reliable anastomosis can the transplanted organ maintain a good blood supply and remain viable. In addition to the vascular anastomosis, a lung transplant also requires the suturing of the trachea to ensure that the donor lung’s bronchi are joined with the bronchi left in the patient, so that the lungs can take over the breathing function after surgery.

For Yang Ping, when performing traditional surgeries, he only had two hands, but when using the Da Vinci Robot, he now had four. Disregarding the robotic arm responsible for holding the camera, there were three other robotic arms capable of working at any time, all completely controlled by his will. Thus, the surgery efficiency was significantly higher.

Yang Ping performed interrupted sutures on the cartilaginous part of the bronchi, each stitch even and precise. For suturing the ducts, he always insisted on using interrupted sutures rather than the time-saving continuous sutures. Each stitch of an interrupted suture is independent, offering the greatest reliability, and reliability is the most important thing in medical work.

Not a single robotic arm rested, not even for a brief moment; they were constantly at work throughout the procedure. Yang Ping’s handling of the robotic arms had completely abandoned the conventional two-handed approach. When other doctors operated the Da Vinci Robot, they still did not break away from the inherent two-handed concept, thereby unable to fully utilize the maximum capability of all the robotic arms.

When Yang Ping performed robotic surgery, he entirely set aside the human dual-arm mode of thinking, genuinely achieving multi-arm operation. The Da Vinci Robot has four robotic arms, one of which is equipped with a camera to provide a field of vision for the surgery. Therefore, it is almost stationary during each step of the surgery, moving only after one step is completed to switch the view.

The remaining three arms can all act as operative robotic arms, and the efficiency of three arms versus two is far from a mere 1.5 times greater; it’s manyfold.

The high-definition screen is now showing the anastomosis of the donor and recipient bronchi, where three robotic arms work in unison. One arm passes the suture needle in and out, while another immediately catches the suture as soon as the needle emerges. The third arm instantly ties a knot; the first arm, now freed, moves in to cut the thread. The coordination of each movement is nearly zero-delay; these three arms seem like an extension of Yang Ping’s consciousness.

"This surgery looks a bit odd. Why are the three robotic arms in constant high-speed motion? Shouldn’t one of them be at rest, or at least pausing during certain operations? You say the Da Vinci Robot only has two main controllers and two foot pedals; how did Professor Yang get all three arms moving at the same time?"

Director Lu from the Urology Department is also sitting next to Director Fang. Although his level of Da Vinci Robot surgery is high, he does not understand how these three arms can be maneuvered so smoothly.

Even though Director Lu’s proficiency in robot-assisted surgery is high, he cannot compare to Director Fang. The latter can be considered the person second only to Yang Ping at Sanbo Hospital in terms of dexterity and understanding of the Da Vinci Robot. He exclaimed, "His thinking is completely on a different level from ours. No matter how skillfully we use the surgical robot, we are always constrained by dual-arm thinking, whereas he operates with multi-arm thinking."

"What do you mean? Can you be more precise and less mystical?" asked Director Lu, someone who had performed several hundred surgeries with the Da Vinci Robot, but had never heard of the concepts of dual-arm and multi-arm thinking before.

Director Fang gave a slight smile; it seemed he retained his second-place spot on Sanbo Hospital’s robotic surgery skill rankings. Director Lu did not understand the concepts of dual-arm thinking and multi-arm thinking. However, that was understandable; Director Lu did not visit the Surgical Research Institute as often as Director Fang, and had less interaction with Yang Ping. Since these concepts were Yang Ping’s ideas, it was natural for Director Lu to be unaware of them.

Today, Director Fang decided to educate Director Lu, "Dual-arm thinking is an innate human mode of thinking and the basis of human labor, as human hands are designed for work, and any manual operation relies on the coordination of the left and right hands. Therefore, since the invention of machines, most machine controls have also been designed based on the coordination of both hands."

"Although the Da Vinci Robot has four robotic arms, in general, only two arms are actively involved in a surgery when operated by most people—coordinating like a left and right hand. Professor Yang is different; he utilizes all the main controllers, foot pedals, and manages to maneuver all four arms. The coordination between the three arms involved in the surgical operation completely breaks away from the paired-hand mode and instead operates in a tri-hand mode."

"Take a closer look. Every single surgical maneuver of Professor Yang, such as suturing, knotting, and cutting, is entirely different from ours because our methods are entirely based on dual-arm mode, whereas his methods are built upon a triple-arm mode."

Director Lu had an epiphany, "That explains it. I was wondering why the knotting and cutting seemed unfamiliar and incomprehensible. All three robotic arms are working rapidly, with none at rest. The three arms are continuously active at high speed, and I couldn’t tell what exactly they were doing. Anyway, the anastomosis of the bronchus is just like using a sewing machine, stitching it up swiftly and efficiently."

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