Surgery Godfather-Chapter 1996 - 1352: Time for Him to Take Over

"Director Zhang, over here, over here!"

Under the guidance of a doctor from Guandu, the director of the county hospital’s surgery department, Zhang Anyun, hurriedly arrived with an anesthesiologist, two assistants, and a nurse. He was in his early fifties, with graying hair, and had been in surgery at the county hospital for over twenty years. He was recognized throughout the county as the "top surgeon."

"Where are the injured?" he panted, "The one with cardiac tamponade, and the one with the closed abdominal injury—" 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"In surgery, in surgery!"

"In surgery?"

"..."

He had just met with the doctors in the emergency department to understand the situation and immediately rushed to the operating room.

He saw Li Min at the door and the old director, noticing the bloodstains on their surgical gowns, and realized that the injured were indeed undergoing surgery.

But it should just be some simple preparatory work, right?

The elderly director stepped forward.

"Hurry in, change your clothes..." Director Zhang was impatient, and before the elderly director could speak, he directed the doctors and nurses he brought to rush inside.

"Director Zhang, thank you for coming." The elderly director immediately pulled Director Zhang aside.

His voice was steady, as if reporting a case, "All four surgeries have been completed! They were all led by Li Min, cardiac repair, splenectomy with liver repair, thoracic exploration with lung repair plus rib fixation, and open reduction internal fixation of the femur. The patients’ postoperative vital signs are stable, they are in the recovery room being monitored, and will be sent out shortly. What we need now is support with blood products."

Zhang Anyun didn’t speak.

He stood there, looking at the elderly director, looking at Li Min. That gaze held many things, surprise, doubt, and a kind of unfamiliar respect he wasn’t prepared for.

"Cardiac repair," he slowly repeated, "You did it?"

Li Min nodded.

"Cardiac tamponade, with a 1.8 cm laceration on the anterior wall of the right ventricle. Performed a patch suture, and postoperative circulation is stable."

Zhang Anyun was silent for a long time.

He had been in surgery for twenty-three years, performing countless thoracoabdominal trauma surgeries, cutting countless spleens and livers. But he had never independently completed a cardiac repair. Not that he didn’t want to, but he didn’t dare, and couldn’t. The county hospital didn’t have extracorporeal circulation or a cardiothoracic surgery team. Faced with such injuries, the only option was an urgent transfer, then praying the patient survived the trip to a higher-level hospital.

And now, a young doctor from a town health center told him: I finished it, the patient is stable.

"Where did you learn this?" he asked.

Li Min removed his mask, his face showed little expression, just a calmness after completing his work.

"Sanbo Hospital." Li Min said, "With Professor Yang Ping."

Zhang Anyun was silent again.

He remembered now, Li Min had received further training at Sanbo Hospital. It seemed he had come to Guandu Hospital once as the chief surgeon, and it was Li Min who resolved a difficulty during that surgery. This young man was indeed impressive.

He had also heard of Yang Ping, a Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, one of the most prominent names in the international medical community today. He had heard of Sanbo’s training program too, which only admitted thirty people nationwide each year, with entry as difficult as climbing a ladder to the sky.

He hadn’t anticipated that someone who descended from such a ladder would stand in a new operating room in Guandu Town, covered in blood, calm, as if he had just completed a mere appendectomy.

"Can I go see the patients?" he asked.

Li Min nodded, "They’re all in the recovery room being monitored and will be wheeled out soon to be sent to the ward, just wait a moment."

"Because the surgeries were conducted simultaneously, we didn’t dare send the postoperative patients to the ward; they are all being monitored in the recovery room and will be sent out immediately. We just checked and their vital signs are stable," the elderly director added.

At this moment, the sound of gurneys wheeling approached, and just as several patients were being wheeled out from the operating room one by one, everyone followed along to the ward, and together they assisted in transferring them onto beds.

Zhou Fusheng lay on the bed, his face still pale, but his breathing was stable, and the monitor’s numbers showed steadiness. Zhang Anyun stood nearby, observing his chest wall, the drainage tubes, and then the vital signs on the monitoring equipment.

He said nothing.

Such stable vital signs, the cardiac repair must have been successful.

He then went to see Chen Dongxiu, to see Xu Dehou, and to see Zhao Qiulin. He carefully looked at each patient, viewed the surgical records, reviewed postoperative images, checked the monitoring data, and didn’t forget to inquire with the assistants who were present during the surgeries.

Four critically injured patients, over three hours of surgery. No, over three hours calculated from the time they were admitted in the emergency department.

Over three hours, one person almost singlehandedly completed the injury assessments, the surgery arrangements, the surgeries...

This level of emergency response, Zhang Anyun admitted the county hospital couldn’t match, not that they couldn’t—it was far beyond their reach.

Back in the doctor’s office, after washing his hands, Zhang Anyun held out his hand to Li Min.

"I am Zhang Anyun..."

He originally intended to say, "Whenever Guandu has an emergency they can’t handle, feel free to call; whatever the county hospital can do, we will assist."

But he swallowed the words back down.

Open-heart cardiac repair...?

Is this really a township hospital?

"Thank you, Director Chen."

Li Min shook his hand.

That evening, the support team from the county hospital only left Guandu after having dinner. In the dining hall, with a bowl of the special homemade chicken soup the elderly director had the kitchen prepare, Zhang Anyun silently finished it. Before leaving, he said to the elderly director:

"Dean Li, keep this Dr. Li from your hospital well."

The elderly director walked him to the door.

"He will stay," the elderly director said.

Zhang Anyun nodded and got into the car.

In the evening, Li Min stayed in the ICU, watching over Zhou Fusheng and several other patients throughout the night.

Outside, Guandu Town was in deep sleep. There were no city neon lights, no night flights – just a few scattered windows with warm yellow lights, like fireflies dispersed in the wrinkles of the mountains. In the distance, the mountain road hid in the night, occasionally a late-returning farm vehicle passed by, its headlights like two slowly moving stars.

The curves on the monitor undulated steadily. Zhou Fusheng’s blood pressure stabilized at 110/70, blood oxygen saturation at 98%. He hadn’t woken up yet, but his complexion had changed from blue-gray to normal pale, and his lips showed a bit of color.

Li Min sat on a chair beside the bed, his legs feeling a bit stiff, his waist a bit sore. He didn’t mind. He just watched the green curve and the gradually whitening sky outside the window.

At five in the morning, the elderly director pushed the door open and came in.

He didn’t speak, just dragged another chair over and sat next to Li Min. Both watched the monitor, like two silent sculptures.

After a long time, the elderly director spoke up.

"When I was young," he said, "I had just been assigned to Guandu, at twenty-six years old. The clinic had only three bungalows, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure meter— there wasn’t even an operating table. Debridement and suturing were done in the consultation room, and the patients screamed in pain."

He paused.

"One autumn, a farm vehicle overturned, sending three seriously injured people here. One of them had a ruptured spleen, with the abdominal cavity full of blood. We didn’t have a blood bank, had no surgical facilities, and I watched helplessly as he died before me. He was only twenty-four years old, and his wife was newly pregnant."

Li Min didn’t speak.

"That night, I wrote a transfer request, hoping to move to the county hospital, even if starting as a resident doctor," the elderly director said softly, "The next morning, I tore up that letter."

He looked at the gradually brightening sky outside.

"Then I thought, someone has to stay. If I don’t, who will? If I don’t do it, who will?"

He turned his head to look at Li Min.

"Now it’s you."

Li Min didn’t respond. He just watched the steady green curve on the monitor.

Outside, the first rays of dawn shone into the ward. The early spring countryside slowly awoke in the pale golden light, and in the distance, early risers among villagers pushed open their courtyard gates, with a few barks of dogs and calls of chickens echoing in the air.

It was another ordinary day in Guandu.

It was another brand new day in Guandu.

At seven in the morning, Zhou Fusheng woke up.

He opened his eyes and looked confusedly at the unfamiliar ceiling, at the beeping instruments beside the bed, and at Li Min keeping watch by his bed. His lips trembled as if wanting to say something, but only weak sounds came out.

Li Min leaned down.

"The surgery was very successful," he said. "Take good care and in a few days, you can transfer to a regular ward."

Zhou Fusheng’s eyes suddenly moistened.

He remembered yesterday afternoon when that out-of-control farm vehicle hit him, remembered the moment the steering wheel heavily crashing into his chest with piercing pain, remembered the swiftly blurring sky and the cries around him—he thought he was doomed.

He hadn’t expected to wake up, and even less expected that the first person he saw when waking was Li Min.

He didn’t know who donated this brand new operating room, didn’t know where the machine that saved him came from, didn’t know how many years Li Min spent to be able to save him on this operating table. He only knew it was Guandu Hospital that saved him, Li Doctor that saved him.

Tears trickled from the corner of his eyes into the white hair at his temples, and he couldn’t utter a word.

Li Min straightened up, told the nurse next to him: "Family can come in, but don’t stay too long, the patient needs rest."

He walked out of the ICU and stood in the corridor for a while.

The morning sunlight slanted in through the window, casting the floor tiles into a pale golden hue. Not far away, the outpatient lobby began to see patients gradually arrive, a small queue forming in front of the registration window, and the young girl at the guidance desk responding to an elderly lady’s questions. Dr. Zhang came out of the office with an enamel cup, nodded when he saw him. Nurse Director Wang hurriedly passed by with a treatment cart, its wheels softly hissing against the floor.

Everything was as usual.

Yet everything was different.

Li Min went back to the office, sat down, and opened the outpatient appointment list for the day. The first patient was Zhou Guiying from Qingshi Village, an elderly lady who had been taking the medication he prescribed for eight years, coming for a follow-up. He picked up a pen and wrote the date on the case file.

Outside, wisps of smoke from cooking rose in Guandu Town, mingling with the faint mist of spring in the mountains. In the distance, a farm vehicle puttered up the mountain road, loaded with newly purchased fertilizer and seeds.

Li Min lowered his head, continued writing the case.

His hand was still very steady.

Three days later, Zhou Fusheng transferred to a regular ward.

A week later, he was able to take a few steps by the bedside.

Half a month later, Chalu Village sent over ten villagers as representatives, walking into Guandu Hospital with a pennant, beating gongs and drums. The pennant had a bright red silk base, golden tassels, embroidered with four big characters: Compassionate Heart, Skillful Hand. The inscription was "Chalu Village All Villagers."

Zhou Daping personally handed the pennant to Li Min, held his hand, but couldn’t say a complete sentence for a long time.

Li Min stood in the center of the outpatient lobby, surrounded by dozens of grateful gazes. He was somewhat unaccustomed to such scenes, ears slightly red, hands unsure where to place.

But he still accepted the pennant.

Sunlight poured in through the glass facade, illuminating the red velvet of the pennant, the four golden words shining.

The elderly director stood behind the crowd, supported by a cane, looking up at the pennant.

He didn’t speak.

But his back, from that day on, straightened even more.

That evening, Li Min received a WeChat message.

It was from Yang Ping.

"Handled very well and timely."