Chapter 1109: [1109] The surgery I'm most afraid of is difficult to perform

Chapter 1109: [1109] The surgery I’m most afraid of is difficult to perform

To soothe an anxious patient and encourage proper treatment, sometimes the combined efforts of family and medical staff make no difference. This is because some patients are inherently stubborn.

Lau Jingyun sat on the stool, her expression one of deep despair. There was one aspect of her boyfriend that was particularly problematic: he took the doctor’s advice with a grain of salt. He was a typical case of a patient who did not understand the seriousness of his illness until death was at his door.

Perhaps, as Doctor Song had mentioned, it would only be after the gallbladder was removed that he would understand the gravity of life and death.

“Senior sister.” Fearing an argument between the two, Xie Wanying followed and gently pushed her senior sister’s shoulder, “Let’s have breakfast together.”

“Right, right, you haven’t eaten yet.” Hu Zhenfan began to feel concern for his girlfriend.

Lau Jingyun looked up, stopped talking about her own boyfriend’s issues, and showed concern for her junior sister: “I heard Teacher Lu was hospitalized?”

The news had spread throughout the hospital that morning, leaving almost everyone anxious.

“Yes.” Xie Wanying nodded.

“Yingying, you should be prepared mentally,” Lau Jingyun said, her eyes conveying a deep worry as she looked at her.

What others thought, Lau Jingyun did not care. She knew her junior sister was kind-hearted and couldn’t bear to see Teacher Lu suffer, nor could she stand to see others heartbroken over it. If things continued this way, and she grew more attached to the patients, it would inevitably hurt her as well, just like those who were deeply wounded four years ago.

“As a doctor, we must face a variety of patients,” Xie Wanying said, while recalling the scene where Senior Cao had spoken of resuscitating a colleague. It was clear that being a doctor meant confronting these moments sooner or later. Fortunately, she had already experienced similar situations with her second senior sister.

However, Lau Jingyun thought she was oversimplifying things. Resuscitation was one thing; a successful resuscitation was great, but failure resulting in death was something else entirely. As an anesthetist, Lau Jingyun had a premonition that Teacher Lu’s illness was not going to be easy to treat.

“Don’t worry too much,” Hu Zhenfan tried to comfort his girlfriend, “this is the best hospital in the country. Our leaders have said that our department is the most renowned nationwide; what is there to fear? Surely we can cure any patient.”

“You’re being too naive!” Lau Jingyun couldn’t restrain her annoyance any longer, and she gave her boyfriend a direct explanation, “Do you know what the scariest disease in this department is?”

“It’s—” Hu Zhenfan thought, Hepatobiliary Surgery, liver cancer?

Terminal liver cancer is terrifying, but isn’t terminal cancer of any kind frightening? In that respect, Hepatobiliary Surgery is no different from other departments.

If we’re talking about diseases that are hard to detect, pancreatic cancer and duodenal cancer are similar. Each department has its own difficult and complex cases that are already advanced upon discovery.

Xie Wanying knew that her senior sister wasn’t referring to these, but to the difficulty of surgery. Surgical departments perform operations, and for surgeons, the biggest fear is whether the surgery can be performed and whether it’s difficult to do.

The most challenging surgeries are like a mixed bag. Several organs are affected at once, and they are located close together. Indeed, this department deals with some diseases that are just like that. For example, periampullary cancer around the Vater’s ampulla.

The Vater’s ampulla, an anatomical term, refers to the enlargement formed inside the back, inner side wall of the descending part of the duodenum, where the Common Bile Duct and the pancreatic duct converge. Just from the definition, it is clear that this area involves at least three organ tissues, with an exceedingly complex anatomical position, involving the duodenum, Common Bile Duct, pancreas, etc. Therefore, when cancer appears in this area, it complicates many surrounding organs, proving to be very tricky for surgeons. Generally, the only surgical approach available is similar to that used for cancer of the head of the pancreas, which is the pancreatoduodenectomy.

This surgical method involves the removal of parts of the stomach, the entire duodenum, the head of the pancreas, the proximal part of the jejunum, the bile duct, etc., followed by the reconstruction of the digestive tract.