Surgery Godfather
Chapter 595 - 542: Thirty-Four Needles

Chapter 595: Chapter 542: Thirty-Four Needles

As long as there are no pinhole infections in Fang Faquan’s surgery, with regular check-ups during the reshaping process and close monitoring, generally there will be no other problems.

Many lower limb deformities caused by post-polio syndrome are much more complex than Fang Faquan’s case, yet satisfactory reshaping can be achieved with the use of external fixators.

So, this technology is already very mature.

The use of external fixators in trauma orthopaedics and reconstructive orthopaedics has solved many problems. In some cases where traditional surgery cannot deliver satisfactory results, a satisfactory outcome can be easily achieved with the use of external fixators.

Now in the afternoon, Yang Ping sits in his office, reviewing each patient’s case record in the department, not missing a single test report.

This has been his habit. When he was a resident, he would arrive in the department before seven in the morning and make sure to review all the case records in the department, especially the new test results, regardless of whether the patient was under his direct care.

He still keeps this habit as the head of the department. Being a doctor, there are some things that must be done personally.

Do each task with a cautious attitude, as if walking on thin ice.

Once a habit is formed, it does not feel like a burden. On the contrary, whenever he is momentarily careless, he would feel uneasy.

The approval documents for spinal external fixation have been submitted, and Yang Ping hasn’t thought much about it. With such impressive animal experimentation data, clinical trial approval should not be a problem.

In the doctor’s office, everyone steals a moment of respite from their busy schedule.

The resident doctors type up patient records while chatting.

They need to complete the backlog of home case records and also organize discharge records. As per the hospital’s medical record office rules, if the discharge records of a patient are not completed within one week, it will be regarded as a case of delayed archiving, and a fine will be imposed.

There’s no choice, the hospital has its own rules and regulations. Without these rules, no one would care about the mountain of discharge records piled up.

The rule of discharging patient records within a week, whether it is reasonable or not, nobody knows. Regardless, even if it was one month, some would still lag behind.

Anyway, the medical record office and frontline clinicians are always at odds; the former constantly accuses the latter of sloppiness, leading to numerous loopholes in the medical records.

On the other hand, the frontline clinicians are not happy: while they work hard on the front line, the medical record staff sit in their comfortable office finding faults.

But there is no choice, the job of the medical record office is to find faults.

"Whose medical record is this? It’s expired for three days, you got too much money in your pocket, right?" Head Nurse Cai pulled out several case records from the filing cabinet in the doctor’s office to find the person in charge.

"Sister, I sorted out the medical records till twelve last night. How come there are still three left?" A distressed standardized training student took over the case records.

They hadn’t finished writing the medical records for the newly admitted patients, yet there were already three waiting to be discharged.

The standardized training student looked completely drained.

"Brother Song, can you call and ask the medical record office not to record the delay?" The standardized training student begged Song Zimo.

The medical record office, with more women than men, was somewhat biased toward Song Zimo due to his good looks.

"Just this once!"

Song Zimo agreed and picked up the phone on the desk.

This phrase, "Just this once", had been said countless times.

"Brother Song is so awesome!"

The standardized training student flattered him with an enthusiastic clap.

"Who’s going to the meeting this weekend, 300 cash!" Zhang Lin held up a stack of invitations.

Instantly, these graduate students and standardized training students went mad, rushing to snatch the invitations from Zhang Lin’s hands.

These graduate students and standardized training students earned meager salaries. They were the cheapest labor at the bottom of the hospital.

These so-called academic conferences didn’t actually provide much substance. Often, they struggled to find audiences. So, the organizers would bring in students from their own institution to make up numbers, offering an incentive of two to three hundred in cash, ostensibly as a travel subsidy.

It was essentially a way to pay for attendees, which made the event seem lively.

"You went last week, it’s my turn this week."

A standardized training student who managed to grab an invitation eagerly clung on to it.

"Don’t fight, don’t fight! If you want to go, sign up. If there are more people than spots, we’ll draw lots!" Zhang Lin shouted.

Professor Zhang called from the outpatient department looking for Yang Ping, asking him to take everyone downstairs to the outpatient department to look at an X-ray. Anyone available should go.

The old man must have encountered another rare disease and wanted to use this real-time situation for a class.

When Yang Ping and the team rushed there, Old Zhang was sitting in the chair, incessantly drinking tea, looking extremely troubled.

X-rays hung on the viewing light panel, an elderly couple in their seventies stood nearby. The old lady was holding a baby girl, who seemed to be less than a year old. The old man was opening a yellow canvas bag, searching for something inside.

"This is my granddaughter. My son and his wife divorced. My son has married another woman and his ex-wife has also remarried. The child was living with my son. We are getting older and having mobility issues, so we visit her once a week. Recently, the child cried every time she saw us and refused to let us go. I asked that bastard, if the child was sick and if we should take her to the hospital. The jerk kept avoiding taking the child to the doctor, so we decided to bring her to the hospital ourselves. We went to pediatrics, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. During the examination, they found that her knees couldn’t be moved without her crying out in pain, so we were advised to see the orthopedics. The orthopedic doctor took X-rays and found a needle in each knee joint, and they were also in the thighs and calves. So they did a full-body scan and found more than thirty needles in her body."

The old man’s lips were trembling as he told Professor Zhang about it, his hands shivering as he rummaged in the bag.

"Surely that vicious woman must have done this. We have already reported to the police. Oh, good girl, Minmin, Minmin, your grandma is here." The old lady was incredibly angry as she comforted her granddaughter and cursed the person responsible.

"Professor Zhang, these are the medical records from the other hospital." Old Zhang was wearing reading glasses. He wet his finger with saliva and began flipping through the records.

"Many hospitals didn’t dare to perform the operation. We went to the provincial maternal and child health hospital, who suggested coming to your hospital." Grandpa was so agitated he started to stutter in between his sentences.

Upon seeing Yang Ping and the others walk in, Professor Zhang pointed at the X-ray on the viewing light panel and said: Let’s examine the images first!

Good Lord!

On the X-ray, so many slim needles of different sizes were scattered throughout the child’s tiny body, arranged chaotically with varying position and orientation. The thought of it was horrifyingly abnormal.

Everyone couldn’t help but shudder, their skin crawling.

Yang Ping counted a total of thirty-four needles, which were distributed all over the limbs, chest cavity, abdominal cavity, and pelvic cavity. Some were near the heart, some were inserted into the intervertebral space of the cervical vertebra, some were in the knee joint space, and even in the hip joint ---

How on earth did those get into her body? And who would do such a thing?

"In my nearly sixty years of medical practice, I have never seen such a case. These must have been intentionally inserted by somebody. How wicked must someone be to commit such a heinous act."

Professor Zhang put down his cup heavily, breathing hastily.

"The police already have the bastard of a son and his wife under control and are conducting investigations. They denied any involvement, but the truth will come out in the end. This many needles couldn’t have possibly grown in a body themselves, after all."

Even though it was their own son, the old man had clearly marked him and his new wife as vile creatures.

"Has everyone counted? Are any missing?" Old Zhang asked.

Li Guodong replied: "Thirty-four."

"How do we take them out? There is a needle in the intervertebral space of the cervical vertebra, four in the chest cavity, one of them next to the heart, two near the brachial plexus, and six in the abdominal cavity ---" Professor Zhang’s voice choked as he spoke.

"We could only use the navigation system to locate them, and remove them one by one."

Zhang Lin said helplessly.

Song Zimo shook his head: "The operation would take a long time. The X-ray radiation from the navigation could be harmful to the child; ultrasound positioning might be a better option."

"Are we planning to cut her open and remove them, or what?" Little Five chimed in.

Thirty-four needles, if they would have to cut her open, countless incisions would have to be made on the child’s body, and then search for the needles inside.

"Ultrasound-assisted location, making small incisions to extract them, using a thoracoscope, laparoscope, or arthroscope for assistance in certain areas. However, for a baby this small, our hospital may not have the necessary equipment."

Yang Ping analyzed while looking at the film.

The poor child was looking at everyone with fear in her eyes.

"Borrow the equipment from the provincial maternal and child health hospital!" Professor Zhang decided without hesitation.

The baby girl, perhaps frightened by seeing so many strangers, finally broke down and began to cry loudly.

Professor Zhang got up and gently patted the crying child: "Oh, don’t cry, your grandpa will take a look at you."

While comforting the child, Professor Zhang looked around for something that could be used as a toy.

"First, let’s admit her. And then we can discuss the situation. What Yang just suggested seems feasible. Considering the age of the child, we should try to minimize X-ray exposure."

"To the two veterans here, I am going to admit the child now, then we will discuss the situation further and finalize a plan to remove all the needles, is that alright?" Professor Zhang instructed the elderly couple.

The old lady kept expressing her gratitude: "Professor Zhang, you are a living Bodhisattva, thank you so much."

"First, settle down. We will have a solution. Do you know where the cafeteria is? Keep your wallet safe; there are all sorts of people in the hospital, keep your bags in front of you and within sight. And don’t believe if people tell you about miracle doctors somewhere else."

Professor Zhang advised them, fearing that the elderly couple, being naive, could be easily deceived.

"Li, you go and help them with the admission procedures, and remind them about a few precautions."

Professor Zhang was still worried and so he got Li Guodong to accompany the couple to complete the admission procedures.