Surgery Godfather
Chapter 766 - 684: Is this my skin?

Chapter 766: Chapter 684: Is this my skin?

Boss Liao washed two apples, one for himself and one for Teacher Sun.

"I’ve always admired heroes like you who’re brave enough to help others. If it hadn’t been for a hero who saved me when I was a child, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. Yet till now, I have no clue who saved me. Teacher Sun, considering the huge fire, if I had been too scared to get in there, how did you muster such courage?" Boss Liao chatted as he ate his apple.

Teacher Sun smiled faintly: "I wouldn’t say hero, it was a dire situation and I didn’t think much. I knew there were over ten students trapped inside. If I didn’t get in there, we would have lost all those children."

"My students have to come, some of them will be here by tomorrow." Teacher Sun thought of his students.

Some of these students had done well academically, made it to premier universities, while others, not so good, started working right after high school.

No matter what they had done after graduation, these students had kept in touch with Teacher Sun. Every Chinese New Year, they would come together with gifts to pay him a visit.

"Let them come, they should." Boss Liao stated.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. When Teacher Sun and Boss Liao looked over, it was Professor Yang standing at the doorway.

Yang Ping had seen Teacher Sun many times, he had not only enquired repeatedly about his medical history but had also conducted multiple physical examinations, contributing to developing the surgical plan.

"The small skin sample that was taken from your body has grown to two square meters, enough for the surgery. Would you like to come take a look at it when you have time?"

Yang Ping came in and spoke to Teacher Sun.

"A piece of skin the size of a fingernail can grow to two square meters?"

Teacher Sun was surprised. Could technology really be this advanced now?

At the same time, Teacher Sun was intensely curious about this piece of skin, and when Yang Ping offered him a chance to see it, he certainly couldn’t pass it up.

"You are the first patient to receive our new technique, so you’ll be involved in the entire process, fully experiencing it. Wait for our arrangements, then you can visit the lab and see that piece of skin." Yang Ping said.

Teacher Sun understood, Doctor Zhang Lin had told him that such a new technique couldn’t be done no matter how much money was spent.

---

In simple words, Teacher Sun’s surgical plan was skin replacement.

To remove all the scars from his body and replace them with normal skin. In the burn department, this is a routine operation.

Scars lack elasticity and tend to contract, leading to the limitation of joint movement.

Scars cannot withstand friction, and are prone to breaking and forming ulcers in areas of constant friction.

Scars lack sweat glands, which severely hampers body heat dissipation.

Of course, the serious cosmetic disfigurement caused by the scar is also a reason for the surgery.

After a body tissue is injured, a very small number of tissues can be repaired by the original tissue, like bone healing after a fracture, which is repaired entirely by the bone tissue. This form of repair is the most ideal.

However, most tissue injuries are repaired by a small quantity of the original tissue and mostly scar tissue, like skin wound repair.

In a skin grafting surgery, there has to be a donor area — the place supplying the skin material.

If the area isn’t large, skin can be taken from a healthy part — robbing Peter to pay Paul.

For extreme cases like Teacher Sun with scars all over the body, the scalp is typically used as the material source.

Since the scalp has good blood supply, it recovers quickly after a thin skin graft, turning back to normal. Thus, after the scalp recovers, it can be cut again, just like cutting leek. After the leek grows tall, a part of it is cut off. As long as its roots are unharmed, it will grow tall again to be cut, and this can be repeated indefinitely. In this manner, the limited scalp becomes an infinite source of skin material.

There’s no such excellent material source elsewhere on the body, except for the scalp.

Other parts of the skin do not have as good blood supply as the scalp, don’t recover as quickly as it does, and cannot completely return to normal like the scalp, hence can’t reach the leek-cutting effect.

Beyond a skin graft, it would be even better if cosmetic surgery could be added to Teacher Sun’s operation, to reshape the burned mouth, nose, and ears, making it perfect.

Plastic surgery and the Burn Department have a very close connection, many plastic surgeons start their career in the burn department before transitioning.

Director Chi from the Burn Department was throwing himself fully into this one. He went to the Comprehensive Surgery Department to help take care of patients and prepare for the surgery.

After all, his experience was rich, when compared with the youngsters in the Comprehensive Surgery Department, he was much more seasoned.

In short, Director Chi intended to walk completely down the path laid out by Gao Yuan.

"How much area does the skin graft cover now?" Director Chi asked Zhang Lin.

"At least two square meters. I haven’t measured it yet today," Zhang Lin said proudly.

Director Chi was extremely excited to hear that the stem cell lab had successfully expanded the skin. With this technology, Sanbo’s burn department could make a name for itself.

Since the experiment began, Director Chi had never visited the lab.

After Tang Shun took over as director, he introduced advanced management methods to the lab. Apart from the lab researchers, other personnel had to seek approval to enter.

This ensured that the experiment would not be interrupted and that technology wouldn’t be leaked.

The surface area of a typical human skin is only 1.5-2 square meters. This huge skin graft is enough for surgery and if expanded for a few more days, there will still be plenty left over.

Director Chi was eager to see this miraculous skin patch in the lab, so he asked Zhang Lin, "Can I go into the lab and see the skin graft?"

"That’s up to Doctor Tang. It should be fine. You’re the director of the hospital and the patient is yours. You’re considered one of the lab members too," Zhang Lin said, not daring to make the decision himself.

Hearing that he’s considered one of the lab members, Director Chi straightened up immediately. He went to a computer and, like a resident physician, started to examine Teacher Sun’s preoperative examination in detail.

---

August, Robert, Director Chi, Teacher Sun, and Yang Ping arrived at the stem cell lab together.

Tang Shun was conducting an experiment with a few graduate students. They were laughing and chatting, not at all rigid or serious. It was clear that Tang Shun had adapted to this relaxed lab atmosphere and approved of it.

It was warmer in the south, so Tang Shun didn’t bother with formal wear. Instead, he wore a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals, which was much more comfortable.

Tang Shun asked Li Guodong to open the transparent cultivator, put on gloves, and carefully lift out the skin graft, spreading it out on a nearby platform.

August and Robert’s mouths dropped open in surprise. In just two weeks, a 1 square centimetre piece of skin had expanded to two square meters.

No wonder Professor Yang had no interest in Langnaife’s surgery. Turns out he had already mastered the technique of in vitro skin expansion. And the quality of the expanded skin was not at all inferior to Langnaife’s technique.

August and Robert knew that Manstein’s induction formula was confidential. Yang Ping couldn’t have gotten it, so this must be Professor Yang’s own formula. These past weeks, August and Robert had been shadowing Yang Pian and hadn’t seen him conduct any experiments in this area.

It now seemed like he picked an induction formula at random and succeeded in the experiment on the first try.

This kind of miracle was hard for everyone, including Tang Shun, to accept.

Tang Shun was considered an international top talent, but even he had never seen an experiment that could succeed in one go.

The only explanation was that Professor Yang had conducted similar experiments before and the induction formula was now proven after numerous trials.

However, Tang Shun calculated the time and realized that with Professor Yang being so young and having had the external spinal fixation technique before, it was not possible to produce so many world-class achievements in such a short time.

A medical genius!

That was the only way to explain it.

Teacher Sun couldn’t believe that this piece of skin, the size of a fingernail cut from the perineal area, had expanded to two square meters. Laid out on the platform, its size was visually striking.

Is this my skin?

Can all my scars be removed in the future and replaced with this skin?

Teacher Sun was so overwhelmed that tears started to well up in her eyes.

"If you took a piece of scalp with hair and expanded it like this, wouldn’t you get a piece of skin full of hair? You could transplant it onto people with baldness. The result would be better than hair transplantation," Zhang Lin said on the side.

"For someone like Duan Bald who doesn’t have a single hair, I suppose you wouldn’t be able to expand anything," Little Five added.

Looking at the skin graft, Tang Shun said, "You’re right. One achievement can lead to many more. With future improvements to the induction formula, even completely bald scalps could be induced to grow hair follicles and hair."

"Once this technology is introduced, take me as your first experiment and shift my hairline forward," Zhang Lin said, touching his forehead.

Yang Ping laughed and said, "The further back your hairline, the more scholarly you look. Especially for someone like Teacher Zhang who tutors students, without this kind of hairline, you won’t have the right atmosphere."

That seemed to make sense.

Zhang Lin touched his forehead again.