godfather of surgery

Chapter 1208 Worried about the boomerang

After joint discussions between the two hospitals, the final conclusion was that the surgeon lacked a sense of responsibility and respect for life. The hospital lacked standardized management systems, with many systems being merely formalities. The overall hospital management was very crude and far from being modern.

This serves as a wake-up call for all medical staff and a lesson for hospitals, highlighting that there is still a long way to go in training doctors and managing hospitals.

After the meeting, everyone returned to their respective departments, discussing the matter on the way.

In the doctors' office at the research institute, the young doctors were discussing the matter animatedly.

Li Guodong and Zhao Wenbo are the main characters in the discussion. These two arch-rivals have started another heated debate. In the past, they always had fierce debates on the topic of traditional Chinese medicine. Now, the topic of their debate has expanded to include everything. Starting with today's case discussion, their debate has begun to diverge.

The group of young doctors were divided into two factions centered around the two of them: one could be described as the emotional faction and the other as the rational faction. The two factions often clashed.

"We doctors are poorly paid, we suffer every day, and we are not understood by our patients. Look at doctors in Europe and America, they are respected so much, and their income and benefits are ridiculously high," Zhao Wenbo said indignantly.

Li Guodong disagreed with his view: "I think the treatment of doctors in China is already quite good, at an above-average level in every city. We can't compare them with doctors abroad. The national conditions are different. If we compare them like that, I dare say that 90% of doctors in my country would not be able to become doctors at all if they were trained according to the standards of doctors abroad."

Hearing Li Guodong say this, Zhao Wenbo's anger flared up: "You're just being a Western sycophant! Our doctors are far more skilled than them, especially in clinical practice. We handle more cases, have more clinical experience, and are more proficient in surgery. We have over a billion people, and we perform just as many surgeries a day as they do. You're saying that 90% of our doctors couldn't be doctors if they were to be treated according to their standards?"

Zhao Wenbo often labels Li Guodong, frequently accusing him of being a foreign worshipper, which Li Guodong finds extremely offensive. What kind of logic is it to equate praising others with being a foreign worshipper?

"What do you mean by worshipping foreign things? I'm stating the facts. By European and American standards, over 90% of our doctors wouldn't even have the opportunity to study medicine. We have a universal healthcare system, and the admission scores for the medical profession aren't relatively high. Except for a few top medical schools, many medical schools don't have high admission scores at all. But the West has an elite training system, and their medical school admission standards are extremely high. Isn't that a fact? Do you understand? With such a large population, according to the elite training system, the number of doctors is far from enough, and ordinary people simply can't afford medical care. I'm not worshipping foreign things; I'm just stating the facts." Li Guodong disliked Zhao Wenbo the most, especially when he accused him.

“You say doctors’ salaries are low, but I think it’s already pretty good. How much more do you want? You always want the salaries you get abroad, but you don’t want to match the level of doctors abroad,” Li Guodong added. He spoke calmly and logically, always presenting facts and reasoning.

"What do you mean? You just said that our doctors are not good enough. Putting everything else aside, our surgeons operate on more cases every day than they do in a week. Who has more experience?" Zhao Wenbo brought this up again.

"I'm not saying our doctors aren't skilled enough; we certainly have more clinical experience than them. But clinical experience is only one aspect. No matter how much clinical experience you have, even if you perform a hundred surgeries a day, what good are they? Your hundred surgeries are using outdated and obsolete methods, while others are using advanced new methods even if they only perform one a day. How many of the medications you use are your own? Open your computer and look at your medical orders; those medications are either imported or copied from others. Look at our surgeries; the vast majority of our procedures are original creations by others. Some of our innovations are merely improvements on those original creations. And look at our medical devices; are any of them original? They're all copied. So, do you think they're more advanced or we are?"

Li Guodong began to launch into a long speech.

"Furthermore, you say that our doctors have more experience than them, and I personally think so too. But that's just a belief. Is there any scientific statistical data? Experience includes effective experience, ineffective experience, and some erroneous experience. There is a lot of experience, but how much of it is effective? To give an analogy, an old doctor treats stomach ulcers and performs more than a dozen surgeries a day. But he doesn't know that apart from outdated and obsolete methods, most stomach ulcers can now be cured with medication without surgery. I'm just using this example as an analogy."

After Li Guodong finished speaking, he looked at Zhao Wenbo and thought that Zhao Wenbo was out of his mind.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Wenbo was alarmed and immediately said, "We don't have much time..."

"Didn't you just say that our level completely crushes theirs? Now I'm telling you who's more advanced, and you're bringing up the short time limit again. Can't you use some logic? We're comparing who's more advanced now, not comparing history. If we're comparing who's more advanced, we should look at the results directly." Li Guodong didn't want to talk to him anymore.

But Zhao Wenbo clearly wasn't going to let him off the hook: "We had surgery thousands of years ago. Look at Hua Tuo, he could use anesthetic powder to operate on patients, and there are even legends that he could perform intracranial surgery. Western surgery has only been around for a few hundred years. How can it compare to us?"

"I'm not discussing Western medicine or traditional Chinese medicine with you right now, so don't try to change the subject. Okay, let's go with what you said. You used to say that football has existed for thousands of years, and that Cuju in the Song Dynasty was football. Does that prove that Chinese football is better than theirs? I don't want to argue with you, it's pointless. I just want to tell you that we need to be objective. Science is objective. It's okay to have gaps, but if you have gaps and don't admit it, and insist that you're advanced, then there's nothing I can do. Just because you say you're advanced doesn't mean you're advanced!" Li Guodong argued back, point by point.

"Then why don't you use anesthetic powder for surgery? Why bother studying modern medicine?" Li Guodong retorted.

"People like you are just blindly worshipping foreign things, belittling yourself while praising others. Your stance is problematic. If war breaks out, people like you are nine times out of ten traitors and foreign lackeys," Zhao Wenbo said angrily, beginning his personal attacks.

"Why do you always like to label people? If you're going to argue, then argue. Discuss the facts and reason things out. Why do you always resort to labeling people? Is that meaningful? We were just arguing about medicine, and you're bringing up traitors and foreign lackeys? Aren't you a graduate student in modern medicine now? Does that mean you're a traitor and a foreign lackey too?" Li Guodong was too lazy to pay attention to him.

Every argument between the two was highly charged. Zhao Wenbo spoke urgently and with strong emotions, while Li Guodong remained calm and always tried to analyze the problem using logical reasoning.

“I studied modern medicine, but I didn’t belittle myself or elevate others. I didn’t undermine anyone’s confidence. What you’re doing is just sucking up to Europe and America, saying everything about Europe and America is better, and you can’t see the progress of doctors in our country,” Zhao Wenbo snorted and said.

Li Guodong smiled slightly: "We were just talking about the gap between our doctors and those in Europe and America. It's not about who is progressing faster. Do you understand logic? Do you know what debate is? You're just expressing your emotions. I'm not denying the progress our doctors are making. We are indeed progressing, and we are even leading in a few areas. But we have to face the fact that we are lagging behind in most areas. As long as we have more cases and more experience, this is just one aspect of evaluating progress, not the whole picture. Do you understand?"

Li Guodong didn't want everyone's thinking to be confused by Zhao Wenbo, so he argued with him; otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered with him.

Yang Ping chuckled as he listened to their conversation. He never cared about these social issues. His mindset was quite unique. In terms of life, he might lack rich social experience because he spent most of his time studying and working. However, in the medical field, his experience was richer than anyone else's. This severe imbalance in his experience made him indifferent to social issues.

In Yang Ping's view, there is definitely a gap between China and developed countries in terms of doctors and the medical industry, but he believes that we can surpass them in the future.

While my country's healthcare system has many shortcomings, it also has many advantages. This universal healthcare system ensures a balance between efficiency and quality of care for over a billion people. At least it avoids the situation abroad where free healthcare can lead to waiting months for surgery or years for a checkup. Those who claim that free healthcare abroad is superior are clearly people who haven't traveled abroad and experienced the inefficiency of free healthcare; they're just making unfounded claims. China's healthcare system, with its sheer size, maintains a balance between efficiency and quality.

Seeing Yang Ping enter, they stopped arguing. Zhao Wenbo's face was flushed, clearly still unconvinced and wanting to continue the debate with Li Guodong.

"Nothing to do? You've finished all your work? I'll go check the medical records." Zhang Lin immediately dismissed everyone.
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Adams has decided to stay at Sanbo Hospital, and he has requested that Yang Ping's team treat him, whatever the method may be, he is willing to accept it.

In fact, this latest method should be used only for patients who are most eager to use it, so that compliance is good and disputes are avoided.

Yang Ping had previously heard from senior colleagues that when patients with lumbar disc herniation undergo surgery, the timing must be chosen when the pain is most severe and cannot be relieved. Only at this time will they feel that the surgery is most valuable. If it is not when the pain is most obvious, the patient may regret the surgery and complain about the hospital, feeling that the doctor has overtreated him, because he will recall that the symptoms before the surgery were not that serious and that the surgery was not absolutely necessary.

Similarly, when applying K therapy directly in clinical practice, Yang Ping will absolutely not actively seek out patients. He learned his lesson from a previous experiment: patients sought out by doctors are bound to be skeptical, while patients who actively seek him out and request to participate in the treatment have a significantly different mindset. He has already considered this method as his last resort.

This also involves some psychological knowledge, which is an issue that researchers have to face.

Yang Ping's approach is not about playing mind games with patients, but rather about conducting psychological assessments and implementing interventions when psychological compliance is at its highest. This approach yields the best patient compliance, the best laboratory results, and the lowest probability of social disputes.

For some reason, Yang Ping did not agree to participate in the K therapy experiment, but Adams had great confidence in Yang Ping, perhaps because of the strong self-confidence he exuded in his words and actions.

After Adams settled in, he felt very at ease and safe. He walked around the hospital with a bunch of crutches, looking here and there, trying to see what was so special about this hospital and why it could produce a genius doctor like Yang Ping.

He discovered that this hospital had a large number of foreigners seeking medical treatment, especially the international clinic, where there were so many foreigners coming and going. He was amazed that China had such an international hospital.

Adams met Maurice in the hospital garden. Maurice was walking with her two daughters. As they walked and chatted, Adams learned from their conversation that these were the conjoined twins who had recently made headlines around the world.

I'm ashamed to say that Adams was against and condemned Professor Yang at the time, and he was very active in doing so. He was a leading figure in the academic circles outside of the British medical field. He also witnessed the surgery, although he didn't understand it, he knew that it was a great success.

Now the conjoined twins are laughing and talking right in front of him. What did they say back then? They said that this kind of surgery was impossible to succeed, that Professor Yang was simply experimenting with their lives and had no sense of scientific ethics whatsoever.

Adams wasn't sure if Professor Yang knew about his outrageous behavior at the time; if he had, Professor Yang certainly wouldn't have agreed to treat him.

It's like a boomerang hitting Adams himself. If he were to participate in Professor Yang's volunteer experiment now, wouldn't the whole world condemn Professor Yang for disrespecting life, lacking any ethics, and directly using methods that haven't undergone rigorous clinical trials on patients? This is an insane act, disregarding everything for experimental data.

Thinking about this, Adams couldn't help but feel a little scared. He was afraid that he would also encounter such public opinion. He knew how powerful public opinion could be, because at that time he himself was a part of public opinion, and an important part of it.

Hi! Hello!

When the conjoined twins' older sister noticed that Maurice was watching them, she waved and greeted her warmly.

Morris looked over and recognized Adams as his "fellow townsman," so he greeted him as well.

"I am Adams, from England. It's a pleasure to meet you."

“Maurice, an American, these are my daughters, and they are very happy now.”

"You...you are the world-famous conjoined twins?" Adams wanted to confirm.

"Yes, I am the older sister."

"I'm the younger sister!"

Two children from the community spoke first, and Mosley smiled slightly in affirmation.

It really was them. Not only was the surgery successful, but their spines have also returned to normal, and they are now no different from normal people.

“It’s so nice to see you all. I remember you were an American doctor,” Adams said to Morris.

Morris smiled and nodded: "Yes, I am a neurosurgeon."