Reminiscing about Wu Mengchao, the People’s Army Doctor——
Heal and bravery help the common people
Our reporter Liu Gang Gao Liying Special correspondent Chen Guoquan Wang Zefeng
On May 22, 2021, 99-year-old Academician Wu Mengchao left, walking quietly.
People's grief echoed by the Huangpu River through the drizzle of drizzle.
People remember that in that year, the award presentation "Moving China" described Wu Mengchao like this: a knife in his hand and a fire in his heart. He was a tireless old horse who carried the patients across the river one by one.
Wu Mengchao himself said: "I am a doctor and even a fighter. As long as I live one day, I will fight liver cancer one day. Even if I fall on the operating table one day, it will be my greatest happiness."
Now, this tireless old horse is gone, leaving behind a string of numbers: He has performed more than 16,000 operations and treated more than 20,000 patients.
In the medical world, this is a miracle that is almost impossible to replicate-at the age of 97, he also completed a difficult operation.
It is not easy for a person to find and establish the correct belief, and it is a lifetime thing to defend the belief with practical actions.
Wu Mengchao said that he "has done one thing in his life."
Now, this tireless old horse is gone, leaving a star for people to look up to-on the bright galaxy, there is an asteroid numbered 17606, called "Wu Meng Chaoxing".
Heal and guts help the common people.
This starlight shines with the sun and the moon.
A pair of magical hands
These hands, deciphering the code of life in the square inch of the liver, have created countless firsts in Chinese hepatobiliary surgery.
This is a pair of fair and soft hands, about 14 cm long, with the right thumb and index finger and middle finger bent toward each other.
The insider knows at a glance that it is the result of the deformation of the fingers of the surgeon holding the hemostatic forceps all the year round.
It is these hands that decipher the code of life in the square inch of the liver, creating countless firsts in China's hepatobiliary surgery, and pulling thousands of patients out of the desperate situation of life.
Four years ago, Chen Meixiang, a retired Shanghai resident, went to the distribution department of Shanghai Film Group and hoped to spend 100,000 yuan to set up a movie show-"I Am a Doctor" is based on People’s Military Doctor Wu Mengchao as a model. The story of a legendary healer.
"I'm the one who was carried by Mr. Wu." After Wu Mengchao performed the operation on Chen Meixiang, a cancer patient, she lived a healthy life for more than 20 years.
She is grateful for Mr. Wu's benevolence, and she hopes that more people will see Mr. Wu's "rejuvenating hands" through the film.
"A surgeon is a knife with each hand." In Wu Mengchao's view, the hand is the fulcrum of the knife, and the knife is the extension of the hand.
In the hearts of many cancer patients, Wu Mengchao's hands symbolize the hope of life.
A Japanese colleague came here and took a video of Wu Mengchao’s surgery from start to end, but he couldn’t figure out why his magical hands looked like eyes; the American colleague had watched the operation on site for three consecutive days, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. He did not believe that an 80-90-year-old surgeon could still stand on the operating table.
On that spring day of 2019, Wu Mengchao put on his surgical gown as usual and stood on the operating table.
These hands that he was proud of were still flexible and powerful.
Under the shadowless lamp, a thin doctor with white eyebrows was buried among a group of tall assistants.
He was motionless under his feet, slightly raised his head and looked upwards, a pair of magical hands plunged into the patient's abdomen, smoothly between the liver and gallbladder.
After 40 minutes, the tumor was removed successfully.
With the help of the nurse, Mr. Wu walked out of the operating room, his tired feet staggering slightly.
At this moment, the surgeon with white beard and hair is 97 years old.
At that time, Mr. Wu didn't know that this was the last time he took up a scalpel in his medical career.
Since then, due to physical health, these hands have never been able to continue surgery on the patient.
Life is like a day.
Time will make people grow old.
Time will also make your career immortal.
This is a pair of dexterous hands.
In the 1920s, teenager Wu Mengchao followed his father to explore Nanyang.
Before dawn, 8-year-old Wu Mengchao walked barefoot through a rubber forest in Malaysia.
Holding a tapping knife in his hand, he gently cut an oblique cut in the green-white tree body, and the milky white glue slowly oozes out.
Tapping rubber, pounding rice, making baskets... the hardships of life in a foreign country when he was a teenager gave Wu Mengchao's skillful hands strength and strength.
During the Anti-Japanese War, Wu Mengchao and several patriotic youths returned to China to study.
He studied medicine at Tongji University School of Medicine in Lizhuang, Sichuan. These hands also traced drawings for the architect Liang Sicheng.
This is a pair of clinging hands.
During the anti-Japanese war, when the Kunming Tongji High School "ran the alarm" to avoid Japanese air raids, these two hands held the hand of female classmate Wu Peiyu. This hold lasted a lifetime, and Wu Peiyu became his lifelong beloved partner; after the founding of New China, Wu Mengchao teacher From the surgical expert Qiu Fazu, these hands formally picked up the scalpel...
This is a pair of warm hands.
In each round, Wu Mengchao would rub his hands to heat, examine the patient's body, and arrange the shoes under the patient's bed.
Once, when Wu Mengchao finished checking the room and was about to leave, a patient suddenly grabbed Mr. Wu.
He got up gently and kissed the hands that gave him new life affectionately.
Old Wu immediately turned around, held the patient's head, and gently kissed him back on the cheek.
This is another pair of sharp hands.
If the student and assistant make a mistake in the ward and operating room, their hands will be slammed on the table, and the continuous sound makes the students and assistants startled...
Wu Mengchao is not only an outstanding surgeon, but also a medical educator.
Seeing Mr. Wu habitually tapping his left and right thumbs, the secretary Liu Ran Ran knew that Mr. Wu was thinking about "big problems" again.
More than 50% of the world’s new and dead liver cancer cases occur in China each year. my country has the highest incidence of liver malignant tumors and surgical resection rates in the world.
Although there were too many pennants sent by the patient, Wu Mengchao couldn't be happy.
"Even if I am transformed into a Thousand-Hand Guanyin, I can only perform one operation a day. Surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy can't solve the problem. The fundamental treatment plan depends on basic science." Since then, Wu Mengchao has led the students to successfully develop a new vaccine that allows the immune system to recognize and kill liver cancer cells, opening the door for the immune system to prevent and treat cancer.
In recent years, Wu Mengchao has led students to make major breakthroughs, and the 5-year survival rate of liver cancer patients in my country has greatly improved.
A pair of benevolent eyes
After an operation, Mr. Wu, who was paralyzed on the sofa with exhaustion, had a childlike smile on his face.
That year, Wu Mengchao welcomed a two-year-old child in his clinic.
Wu Lao looked at the child with a smile, and stretched out his hand to touch the child's belly.
The child looked at Grandpa Baimei's kind face and smiled.
On the side, the young mother cried: "I have been ill for more than a year. This is the first time I saw a child laugh." It turned out that she had been taking the child to various hospitals for medical treatment, and the child was wearing a white lab coat. People cry.
The child's eyes can't tell lies, what kind of eyes did he see?
These eyes are very "gentle".
Wu Laochang said that no matter how long-winded the patient is, the doctor must keep his eyes on the patient.
Behind every patient is a family.
The patient's eyes were hungry for hope, and he didn't dare to let it down, let alone let it down.
Such a picture is unforgettable: Mr. Wu, who was paralyzed on the sofa after the operation, had a childlike smile on his face.
Once, Mr. Wu had a fever, but there was a tumor resection that day.
He knocked on the table and drank back the nurse who advised him to rest.
After 2 hours of cutting off the 890 grams of tumor, Mr. Wu collapsed on a chair with exhaustion.
Everyone hurriedly carried him into the rest room, and the head nurse cried with distress.
That year, the 95-year-old Wu Lao personally led a team to Fugong County, Yunnan Province to relieve the pain of poor patients in remote areas.
After the operation was completed, Mr. Wu himself was admitted to the ward.
When foreign colleagues and journalists used the camera to focus on Wu Meng, his eyes were open and sharp; when he stepped on the special pedal prepared for him in the operating room, under the shadowless lamp, he leaned forward and his eyes became focused and cold.
This is a pair of "character" eyes.
When he was young, Wu Mengchao's big eyes were piercing and persevering.
After graduating from medical school at the age of 27, he was almost assigned to "pediatrics" because of his short stature.
Professor Zhao Baoqi, who has an insight and talent, once said that when Wu Mengchao was left in surgery, what he valued was the calm and firm temperament of this young man.
These eyes are "bright".
That year, Mr. Wu went to the "Tough Six Company", dressed in camouflage training uniforms, and stood in line with a group of young soldiers for morning exercises.
In the photo, he saluted a military salute in his spirits, and under his white longevity brows, a pair of pupils were shining.
The officers and soldiers didn't know that this 91-year-old veteran had just finished cataract surgery and had an intraocular lens just one month away.
These eyes are "sharp".
When looking at the doctor's order record sheet, Mr. Wu never glanced past ten lines in a hurry.
"He always uses the index finger of his right hand, pointing one finger at a time, looking at each line word by word, staring at each data one by one." Disciple Yan Yiqun said, "Almost no one can sloppy in front of him. "
These eyes are sometimes "tempered."
Occasionally, the hospital schedules fewer operations for Mr. Wu, and nurses who are familiar with him can see that——
Old Wu's gray eyebrows were twisted together, his eyes drooped, his face drooped, and he was unhappy: "I am a doctor, and it is my duty to treat illnesses and save people."
Although he is getting older, there are many things that Mr. Wu "cannot understand" with his eyes.
Sometimes sitting on the high-speed rail on a business trip, looking at the tall buildings and the increasingly congested city traffic outside the window, the old man will ask the secretary thoughtfully: "The more houses are built, the more cars there are, it must be Is it a good thing? Science and technology are the primary productive forces..."
"To tell these stories about my father, I want young people to have a direction and not to go forward in a muddle." Wu Mengchao's daughter, Wu Ling, told reporters that among the many photos of her father, she felt that one was the most photographed. it is good--
In the afterglow of the setting sun, Wu Mengchao in military uniform put his hands in front of his chest, his face was solemn, and he raised his eyes and looked into the distance, as if he was thinking deeply about something.
"I want to quickly build a platform and cultivate talents. There are people and platforms, and things will be done. So you will continue to study in the future. After 30 or 40 years, if you can solve the problem of liver cancer, then I will be in heaven. Look." The disciples did not dare to forget the teachings of Mr. Wu.
A pure heart
A good doctor sees disease in his eyes and people in his heart
"Medicine is a science that warms the soul with the soul." As soon as they stepped into the corridor of the Third Affiliated Hospital of the Naval Military Medical University, the medical staff could see Wu Mengchao's "motto" when they raised their eyes.
A good doctor sees illness in his eyes and people in his heart.
Reminiscing about Wu Mengchao, what remains in people's hearts is the clarity in his eyes, and even his pure heart.
Early in the morning, as soon as the car stopped downstairs in the hospital, an assistant doctor was waiting at the door with a white coat.
When he got out of the car, Wu Mengchao put on a white coat outside the military uniform and walked straight into the outpatient hall.
At this time, Wu Laohui deliberately speeded up the pace, one is not to let the patient wait, and the other is to boost the patient's confidence: "Look, I am in my 90s and I am still very healthy, and I can serve the patients well!"
From the day he became a doctor, he knew that his whole life "belongs to the operating room and the patient."
The sincere and simple heart of the great doctor supports Wu Mengchao in advancing firmly on the road to save the world——
At the age of 34, he attended the National Congress of Intellectuals and was cordially received by Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou; at the age of 56, he was received by Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the National Science Conference, ushering in the "spring" of scientific researchers; at the age of 74, He was awarded the honorary title of "Model Medical Expert" by the Central Military Commission; he was still active in the operating room in his 90s, and his story moved China...
Wu Mengchao’s students sometimes joked that Mr. Wu’s life is actually "not of quality": on business trips and staying in a fast hotel, three meals of light tea and light rice, several sets of military uniforms throughout the year, surgery throughout the year, and ward rounds on the first day of the new year.
At the age of 82, Wu Mengchao accepted a special patient.
The patient had a tumor the size of a basketball, and it was very difficult to remove it.
Before, the patient went to many large hospitals and was rejected.
No doctor dared to perform this operation for fear of being careless and gaining his own reputation.
Someone advised Wu Mengchao not to perform this operation: "You are now a leader in liver surgery. If something happens, your reputation will be ruined." Wu Mengchao only replied: "What is my reputation? I'm just a Wu Mengchao. ."
What is the most important award in the field of science and technology in China?
The highest national science and technology award.
After Wu Mengchao was recommended to participate in this award in 2005, the Ministry of Science and Technology sent a working group to evaluate him.
The hospital leaders considered that "organizing the conversation" was a major event, so Wu Mengchao's surgery the next day was cancelled.
After Wu Mengchao learned about it, he insisted on resuming the operation: "The patient is a farmer in Henan. He is in his 60s. He is very sick and his family is poor. The villagers pooled money to come to Shanghai. It would be for them to stay in the hospital for one more day. Burden. I can't let them wait for me anymore."
This heart cannot pretend to be fame and fortune, but it is filled with great love.
"Using the best technology, the most scientific method, the cheapest medical equipment, and the simplest and most effective means to cure the patient's disease." This is Wu Mengchao's standard of "a capable doctor": "A patient is a book. Healing a patient will accumulate a point of wealth." Old Wu feels that such a life is truly enjoyable.
"Relieving the pain for the patient is my greatest achievement." Looking back on his life, Wu Mengchao once had this feeling: "I have suffered too, I have also been troubled, hesitated, and hesitated, but I did not shrink back and insisted on doing it. Up."
When a person is young, he must have the mountains and rivers he admires in his heart.
In the chaotic world of war, Wu Mengchao's bravery and blood failed to spread on the battlefield, but thrived in another way.
——At the age of 17, Wu Mengchao, who was studying at Tan Kah Kee Overseas Chinese Middle School, called on his classmates to donate the dinner money to the soldiers in front of the motherland who was fighting the bloody war.
At the graduation ceremony, they received telegrams of thanks in the name of Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
It was this telegram from the Eighth Route Army headquarters that strengthened his determination to return to China.
——During the years of flames, the young Wu Mengchao also "chased stars" and stepped into the Sichuan Lizhuang Chinese Academy of Construction to help Liang Sicheng and his wife draw.
"It is love, warmth, and hope. You are the April of the world." He took the chocolate from Lin Huiyin and also took over the responsibility of that generation of intellectuals for the country and the people.
——When Shanghai was liberated in 1949, the day was just bright. Wu Mengchao, a young doctor who was intern at the Nanjing Road China-American Hospital, opened the windows of his dormitory and found rows of People’s Liberation Army soldiers sleeping on the side of the road.
The disciplined and innocent army in front of him deeply shocked his heart: "I want to join the Communist Party of China! I want to be a member of the People's Liberation Army!"
——On June 12, 1956, Wu Mengchao put on military uniform and the rank of lieutenant of the People's Liberation Army, and officially became a people's military doctor.
At that moment, he was so excited that he couldn't help but shed tears...
Don't forget the original intention, always have to go.
In the thorny wilderness, Wu Mengchao stepped on a path, going wider and wider.
"Choose to return to the country, ideals have deep soil; choose to go to medicine, to pursue a platform for struggle; choose to join the party, life has a lofty belief; choose to join the army, grow up a great school." Wu Mengchao once said, this The 4 correct choices determined his lifetime happiness.
A capitalized person
There is no shortage of experts and authority in this world. What is lacking is a "person"-a person who is willing to give himself away.
"Many people see you as a legend, but only I have seen you lying on a chair after the operation. The surgical gown on your chest is soaked, two arms are resting on the armrests, and your palms facing up are shaking slightly. ..."
In July 2018, on CCTV's "Reader" program, the letter from the head nurse who has been cooperating with Wu Mengchao for a long time made the host Dong Qing tears like rain.
In the heart of the patient, Wu Mengchao is a benefactor who can entrust his life.
The comrades and relatives who know Wu Mengchao know that Mr. Wu is not a superman, but a respectable and lovely person.
Wu Mengchao is known as the "father of Chinese hepatobiliary surgery". In fact, as the father of three daughters, he does not spend much time with his family.
His wife said that he was "a simple mind that only knows how to heal and save people."
When she was young, Wu Ling was afraid of her father.
"He was very serious and didn't smile at all when he went home. I took my three-good student certificate home and he only had one word-OK! He was so happy when he saw the patient. He was not so good until my mother passed away. Up."
At the age of 95, Wu Mengchao was invited to participate in the 2017 spring evening performance at the Hai branch, and sang the song "Zizhu Tune·The Taste of Home" on the same stage with his daughter and son-in-law.
In the morning of the Spring Festival Gala rehearsal, Wu Mengchao also performed an operation.
The patient was a woman infected with hepatitis B virus and showed tumors in her liver.
Some people suggest whether to have surgery after the Chinese New Year.
"Such patients can't wait a day." Wu Mengchao insisted on entering the operating room.
After more than two hours of surgery, after taking off his white lab coat, Wu Mengchao put on his daily military uniform and hurried to the performance site.
Later, he said with satisfaction, "After today's operation, this young girl can go home before the Lantern Festival." In his mind, another patient went home for the New Year, which was like saying "all the best" , Can warm people's hearts.
On January 8, 2016, Wu Mengchao performed the first operation for a patient in the newly built new hospital area.
This new campus was the project that Mr. Wu was most concerned about in the past few years.
The secretary said: "He is like an old hammer, one hammer to hammer the progress." Mr. Wu asked the driver to put a helmet on the car so that he could go to the construction site after the operation was completed.
In Wu Mengchao's office, there is a wood carving of an eagle.
The eagle's eyes are sharp, the eagle's claws are powerful, and the eagle's wings are wide, spreading its wings to fly.
"Elder Wu has two strong and powerful wings to protect us." said Ye Zhixia, director of the nursing department. "The time to study and work around Wu is the most fulfilling and happiest time in my life." She said: "Elder Wu is like It’s holding a small whip and rushing everyone forward.” In the weekly meeting in the conference room, Wu Mengchao never used a microphone: “I speak very loudly, and you can all hear it. I am also a post-90s, and we are more energetic than anyone else. ."
Many students said that Mr. Wu seemed to have a magnetic field in his body, and he was good at "attracting you with his career and condensing you with feelings."
Hospital funding was tight, but he sent nurses to Stanford and Singapore for further studies. To his granddaughter who studied medicine in Europe, he also expected: "Come back? Our platform is very good."
"Homesickness is a tree without annual rings, which never grows old." Wu Mengchao once wrote Xi Murong's poems on paper.
In 2014, Wu Mengchao returned to his birthplace of Fujian Minqing free clinic, and more than 15,000 folks came to the small mountain village.
Under the century-old banyan tree near the ancestral house, he took his granddaughter's hand and said, "You must remember that our roots are here."
As the son of his parents, Wu Mengchao has many regrets. In 1956, his father in Malaysia died of gallstones.
At that time, there was no information, so he didn't know. Later, when he contacted overseas family members, he asked his brother to bring a letter and a package to his mother.
Only then did the mother know that his son had done so many things for the country!
Wu Mengchao’s students are all over the world, and many of them are already famous experts and professors, but Wu Mengchao still teaches them over and over again as children: “There is no lack of experts, no lack of authority in this world, but a person who is lacking— -A person who is willing to give himself away. When you help others, please remember that medicine is sometimes exhausted, and only inexhaustible love can illuminate a suffering soul."
If it weren't for her father, Wu Mengchao, to pack things, her 70-year-old daughter Wu Ling would have entered the hospital only a few times.
The date when Mr. Wu started to flip through the desk calendar was fixed on January 4, 2020.
This is the last time he has returned to the office.
"You guys are so happy." Wu Ling said with a sigh, "Sometimes, I really envy you reporters for being able to go into the operating room to see my father perform an operation. In fact, I really want to see it once, but I never had a chance. "
Many of the objects used by her father, Wu Ling was also the first time I saw—
A dark red leather surgical swivel chair was moved into his office from the operating room No. 6 where Wu Lao had surgery on weekdays. Because of the long standing operation, Wu Lao put the two toes of his left foot together all the year round in order to make it easier to hold the ground firmly. You can only cut off part of the instep of the green surgical slippers you often wear; an old-fashioned thick glass water cup filled with instant coffee, Wu has used it for more than 20 years, and it is his habit to make a cup of green tea after the operation; in the basin, there is a bottle of Dabao Body lotion, a bottle of Rejoice shampoo, an enamel toothbrushing cup with red letters on a white background...
In the office, all the furnishings are as usual, as if Academician Wu Mengchao never left...