Freezing Point Feature No. 1121
Wu Mengchao and his 225 square centimeter battlefield
Even in the last few years of his life, Wu Mengchao insisted on performing one operation a week.
He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the "father of Chinese liver surgery". He has performed more than 16,000 liver surgeries in his lifetime.
Now, he can no longer stand on the operating table.
On May 22, Wu Mengchao died of illness at the age of 99.
For a long time, Wu Mengchao's "enemies" have been liver cancer.
The liver of an adult is like a right-angled triangle, with two right-angle sides about 30 cm and 15 cm long. The "battlefield" of Wu Mengchao's life is often this small 225 square cm.
He used to be able to perform 3 operations in a row and stand on the operating table for more than ten hours.
Later, something more tiring and harder than the operation itself was to stuff one's body into the surgical gown.
A few years ago, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital specially let him live in a suite of tens of square meters on the 15th floor of the ward building for the convenience of taking care of him. The inner room is a sleeping place and the outer room has a small desk.
As the dean, he handled documents and explained work in the ward. Sometimes young doctors went in to report and saw him in a loose hospital gown dozing off behind the desk, and his head was full of white hair.
When young people talk to him, they need to be "louder" and "bigger".
He used to walk fast, and few people could catch up. Later, he got slower and slower, even a little shaky, and he needed a wheelchair in the same building.
Once on the operating table, no one could tell that he was nearly a hundred years old.
The green surgical gown tightly wrapped up his wrinkles, and only a pair of eyes were exposed on the whole face. If you don't look carefully, it is difficult to find his white eyelashes.
After the operation, he would sit on his back on a mottled leather chair, cock his feet like a child, and try to separate the deformed toes.
That was his most relaxing moment.
On his 96th birthday, he still stood on the operating table, only put on a military uniform after the operation, put on a pink birthday hat made of paper, and ate a piece of cake in a hurry.
My Wu Mengchao has no patent
The hand is Wu Mengchao's "weapon".
He often said: “Hands are more important than face. It doesn’t matter if the face is old, but the feeling of the hands should be protected.” In the 1970s, he went to the Loess Plateau to be a “barefoot doctor”. He always wore gloves during collective work to prevent growth. Calluses.
Before the operation, he was used to bending and stretching with his hands crossed, and he could touch the ground when he was 60 or 70 years old.
When talking to someone, his fingers will unconsciously hold the teacup and rotate.
Because of holding the surgical forceps for a long time, the first joint of his right index finger curled up in the direction of the palm, and the middle finger was slanted toward the ring finger. The first section of the index finger and the middle finger formed a small "V".
The toes are deformed.
He was very nervous during the operation, and Wu Mengchao's feet would unconsciously grasp the ground hard.
If things go on like this, the second toe of his right foot is pressed tightly on the big toe.
He can only wear cloth shoes or loose sneakers. The slippers he wears during the operation are also specially made, and the front part of his right shoe is neatly cut off.
Wu Mengchao's hands have been clever since he was a child.
When he was 5 years old, he followed his mother to Malaysia and went to his father who was making rice noodles. He woke up at three or four in the morning every day to pound the rice with a mallet.
From the age of 7, he helped the family cut rubber.
"There is a water line in the middle of the rubber tree, which cannot be broken. It is like a human blood vessel and is the tree's nutrient line. When cutting, the knife should be deep enough, but it should be moderate. The water line should not be damaged, otherwise it will have a lump. It's like a tumor." In his later years, he sometimes couldn't remember what he did the day before, but he loved to recall his teenage years, thinking that it was his "earliest training in swordsmanship."
A rubber tapping knife that has been rusted has been preserved in his home.
During the Cultural Revolution, he witnessed his colleague committing suicide because he could not stand the criticism. During the rescue, his right hand had muscle necrosis and he could no longer hold a scalpel.
Someone threatened to cut off the hands of Wu Mengchao, a "reactionary academic authority," and that was one of the scariest moments in his life.
Some people say that he "has eyes on his fingers."
In the 1980s, the first Sino-Japanese Gastrointestinal Surgery Conference was held in Shanghai. The film crew of the Japanese medical delegation requested to film the tumor removal surgery performed by the Chinese Chairman Wu Mengchao. Some people in China worried about the leak of the "Wu's knife method", but he was happy. agreed.
During the operation, he had to separate the tumor-bearing part of the liver from the surrounding normal tissues for removal. His hands were in the patient’s abdomen, but his eyes looked towards the ceiling. After a while, the tumor was taken out, and the camera only took pictures. To the image outside the abdominal cavity.
The blood vessels and nerves inside the liver are dense, and Wu Mengchao is very familiar with it. The operation depends more on the feel.
Some students have been by his side for more than ten years, and still can't learn his techniques.
Head nurse Cheng Yue'e felt that Wu Mengchao was not afraid of being photographed at the time because he "knows that others can't make it."
Wu Mengchao said, "Isn't it better for more people to learn this technology and serve more people? All my technologies belong to human beings, and Wu Mengchao has no patents!"
He understands that to save more people, his own hands are far from enough.
From 1979 to 2012, he taught 85 master students, 67 doctoral students, and 23 post-doctoral researchers.
When persuading Cong Wenming, a student who wanted to be a clinical student, to conduct a pathological study of liver cancer, he said: “A doctor can only become a'swordsman' if he only knows how to perform surgery. A knife can only save one patient at a time. But a set of theories can save tens of thousands of lives."
He put the "doctor" before all his identities.
At the age of 64, he was appointed as the vice president of the Naval Military Medical University of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, in charge of the medical and scientific research of the whole school, and concurrently served as the director of the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery at the Changhai Hospital Affiliated to the Second Military Medical University (hereinafter referred to as "Changhai Hospital"), but he still I feel that I am "a doctor first".
Cheng Yue'e recalled that Wu Mengchao would even "hide in the operating room" in order to get rid of some unimportant administrative affairs and entertainment.
A few years ago, someone adapted Wu Mengchao's story into a drama. After the performance, there was enthusiastic applause.
Wu Mengchao said calmly: "I'm not that tall, just a doctor."
The operating room filled with sterile water and bloody smell is the most comfortable place for him.
For him, Chinese New Year is the most difficult day because there is no schedule for surgery.
"He even went to the locker room next to the operating room to take a bath during the Chinese New Year. Right as if he had undergone an operation," Cheng Yue'e said.
It’s not a human disease, but a sick person
Cheng Yuee said that Wu Mengchao's patients were the "worst": "One is that they are very ill, and other places are unwilling to be admitted; the other is that they are very poor." Some patients from other places did not register and sat at the entrance of the clinic. , He can't see it, he usually adds a sign for them, and he has been busy until the afternoon without eating.
In the 1990s, after Wu Mengchao separated the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital from a department of Changhai Hospital into a "hospital-in-hospital", he became busier as the dean, but he still insisted on going out every Tuesday morning.
Hearing that he can cure liver disease, a patient who rushed to Shanghai from a rural village in Shandong "pumped" and fell to his knees when he saw him.
It was also because the old man who was on the wall left home alone to find Wu Mengchao, took out a handful of change from his pocket, and looked desperate: "Do you think it can be cured?" There are also patients who inquired about his home address, holding medical records and laboratory test reports. , Waiting at the door until late at night.
In the last few years, Wu Mengchao never took a wheelchair from the office to the entrance of the clinic, and he did not let others support him, fearing that the patient would see his aging.
During the operation, the medical staff always put a chair behind him so that he could sit down when he was tired, but he had never sat before the operation was over.
After an operation, he silently sat on a chair and sighed: "The strength is getting less and less, and he is indeed tired." Cheng Yue'e persuaded him to do less when he was tired. He said: "Look at this patient, who is only 20 years old. I have just studied for a year in university, and I have to do it no matter how tired it is!"
In order to save him from walking, the hospital specially arranged for him the operating room closest to the door, but this painstaking effort is often in vain.
After the operation, he was still used to walking around the 50-meter-long corridor of the operating room. When someone was napping in a chair, he would yell, "You really have the status of a big doctor!" He couldn't even bear the weight of the surgeon. When he sees a doctor who is out of shape, he will whisper to the person next to him: "Who is this? He is too fat. I have to find a way to replace him."
He felt that the surgeon was fat and he was far away from the patient during the operation.
He is 1.62 meters tall and weighs more than 50 kilograms throughout the year, and his body is always close to the patient during the operation.
"Old Wu can't see that the patient is wronged." Cheng Yue'e said.
Before the operation, he would lose his temper as long as he saw the anesthetized patient lying naked on the operating table: "Is the patient so cold?" He is known for his speed in performing operations, but his consultations and rounds are surprisingly slow. .
In each round, he always warmed his hands before touching the patient's body.
After the examination, I didn't forget to put the patient's shoes in a place that is convenient for getting out of bed.
He always tells his students: "What we want to treat is not a human disease, but a sick person."
His student Yang Guangshun recalled that when he first performed surgery with Wu Mengchao in the 1970s and 1980s, the conditions in the operating room were extremely difficult.
Without an anesthesia machine, Wu Mengchao would squat aside during the operation to measure the patient's blood pressure and listen to the heartbeat, stick the fluff on the cotton swab under the patient's nostrils, and monitor the patient's breathing by watching the movement of the fluff.
At that time, there was no B-ultrasound, only the waveform formed by the A-ultrasound. It was difficult to grasp the location of the tumor. Many doctors found that they could not do it after laparotomy, so they had to manually suture the incision again.
Today, the device suture technology has long been mature, but Wu Mengchao still insists on hand suture.
“It’s easy to sew with the instrument, but with a click, it costs more than 1,000 yuan.” He said, “My Wu Mengchao’s hand stitching can not be collected.” When he sits in the clinic, if B-ultrasound can solve the problem, he will never let the patient go. Do more expensive CT or MRI.
He told the students: "To solve the problem of difficult and expensive medical treatment, hospitals and doctors must start by themselves, and they must not turn hospitals into pharmacies and treat patients as cash cows."
Because he knows what it's like to be poor, he often didn't have enough to eat when he was a child.
A few years ago, the documentary "I Am a Doctor" based on Wu Mengchao was released. Fang Honghui, who wrote a biography of him, saw at a glance that there was a scene that did not match the facts: "The actor who played his childhood dressed too well!"
When cutting rubber in Malaysia, Wu Mengchao usually wears only a pair of shorts, not even shoes.
The family often eats the cores left over after the old banana trees are cut down. This is usually the food used by the locals to feed the pigs.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he returned from Malaysia and was stolen all his belongings in Kunming. He couldn't even eat, and he suffered from stomach problems ever since.
In the 1990s, when the Oriental Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital was planning to build a new building, there was a funding gap. Some people suggested that the hospital increase medical expenses.
Because compared with other hospitals, the cost of liver cancer treatment at Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital is too low.
Wu Mengchao firmly disagreed: "If the building is built and the people look down on the disease, I won't be at ease."
A few years ago, Wu Mengchao's second daughter had bowel cancer, which had metastasized to the liver. He insisted on performing surgery on his daughter himself.
He said: "Usually I treat the patient as a relative, and then I need to treat the relative as a patient." Sometimes, in order to observe the patient's postoperative condition, he sleeps in the ward with a blanket for several months.
For the convenience of patients and their families, the hospital still has employees pushing the dining car until three or four in the afternoon, selling hot steamed buns, soy milk, and siu mai.
I'm so sorry to make you wait for me
Over the past few decades, many recovered and discharged patients gave Wu Mengchao red envelopes, and some overseas Chinese and foreigners gave foreign currency and gold rings, but he declined.
Red envelopes that cannot be pushed off had to be accepted, and the patient discovered when they were discharged from the hospital to check out that the amount in the red envelope had already become their pre-paid hospitalization expenses.
In 1991, in order to thank Wu Mengchao for "giving a second life", an overseas Chinese in Indonesia drove a Santana car to the hospital and left a note: "Voluntarily donate a car."
Wu Mengchao couldn't help but handed the car and the papers to the school.
He was about to turn 70 that year, still riding a bicycle that didn't ring to get off work.
Sometimes a colleague looked at him with tape on his body, and only asked when he asked, "He fell again."
Later, for safety, his family changed a women's bicycle with smaller wheels, and he rode it until he was in his 80s.
In the eyes of student Zhou Weiping, Wu Mengchao's life is "too careless".
He has hardly seen the teacher wear casual clothes, "the favorite thing to wear is the military uniform."
Wu Mengchao's "bag" is usually a paper bag, and he doesn't even have a wallet.
You only bring cash when you are on a business trip.
He never took first class because he was "too small and it was a waste of first class."
In 1979, he and his colleagues participated in an international surgical conference in San Francisco, USA. He reported that from January 1960 to December 1977, a total of 181 cases of primary liver cancer were treated by surgical resection, including the first successful liver surgery in Changhai Hospital. Surgery, and the world's first successful middle liver resection.
The success rate of liver cancer surgery has reached 91.2%, and 6 cases have survived for more than 10 years.
In addition, there were 18 cases of liver cancer resection performed by two Western experts who had previously reported.
At that time, there were media reports that "Wu's whirlwind was blowing in San Francisco", and 10 years ago, the mortality rate of external hepatectomy in China was still more than 30%.
He said he was not used to living a high class life.
In 1963, as one of the speakers who won the most applause at the Eighth National Surgery Conference, Wu Mengchao entered the Great Hall of the People for the first time to attend the National Day reception.
But he patronized the speech and didn't even dare to move his chopsticks. "I didn't eat enough that night, it was a joke!"
Not only did he "deadly pick up" himself, he also demanded that the entire hospital be like him.
The lights in the corridor are only half on, but the paper is used on both sides.
In an internal meeting, someone poured water from a disposable paper cup. His eyes seemed to "shoot out": "Everyone has their own cup, why waste it?"
In the winter of 2005, Wu Mengchao was recommended to participate in the National Highest Science and Technology Award. The time that the assessment team talked to him conflicted with the time of his operation.
Wu Mengchao insisted that the operation should not be postponed and asked the assessment team to wait until the afternoon.
When I met, Wu Mengchao said, "I'm really sorry, let you wait for me. The patient is an ordinary farmer from other places, and it will be a burden for him to stay in the hospital for one more day."
He was awarded the highest national science and technology award that year in the Great Hall of the People.
This is the first time since the establishment of the highest national science and technology award in 2000 that it has been awarded to a medical scientist.
The sign with "Bonus 5 million yuan" is wider than his body.
At this time, he was generous and scary.
Wu Mengchao said: "I don't get a penny of the bonus. Part of it is used to strengthen basic research, part of it is used to increase the training of discipline talents, and the rest is put into the foundation to speed up the development of hepatobiliary surgery. Now My monthly salary is more than 3,000 yuan, plus academician allowances from the state and the General Logistics Department, as well as hospital subsidies, enough to guarantee three meals, food and clothing, and worry-free food and clothing."
He set up the "Wu Mengchao Hepatobiliary Surgery Fund" in 1995, and used the more than 300,000 yuan accumulated over the years and the more than 4 million yuan donated and commended by all sectors of society over the years.
In the rest room outside the operating room, he kept his cup-a glass jar originally used for coffee.
The chair has been used for more than ten years, and he hunched down inside, looking extraordinarily thin.
In his later years, almost all of his group photos stood in the middle. Because of his short stature, the crowd would always sink abruptly in the middle.
During the operation, he always had to put a table nearly 20 centimeters high.
Because of his size, he almost never became a surgeon, but he always felt that he was smaller and more flexible. "The surgeon depends on his ability, not his height."
The obstacles he faced in his life went far beyond his height.
During the Anti-Japanese War, he was studying in the ruined temple under artillery fire.
During the Great Leap Forward, he and two colleagues formed a "three-person research group" to make liver specimens in a cowshed.
During the "Cultural Revolution", his associate professor and party positions were removed, his attending physician was reduced to a resident doctor, and the "three-person research team" was also ordered to be dissolved.
The rebels confiscated all his diaries, but found no complaint.
When reconfirming the identity of the party member on the red list, he did not find his name in the first batch and wept bitterly.
In the 1980s and 1990s, limited by conditions, Wu Mengchao could only build the laboratory in an abandoned warehouse. When the rainy season came, he always moved the instrument to a high place and swept the water out with a broom.
Some foreign guests came to visit and said bluntly that they were "very disappointed", while others sighed with emotion: "How can there be results under such bad conditions!"
He took this opportunity to report to the school party committee and planned to build a hepatobiliary specialist hospital and research institute integrating scientific research and clinical research.
Like building a house for his own family, Wu Mengchao asked acquaintances to invite experts from East China Design Institute to put forward design requirements, covering almost every room.
In his vision, the windows of the wards are all facing south, and there is a "sun room" on each floor, with tall French windows and chairs for the patients to rest and activities.
In the second half of 1992, the price of building materials soared and hospitals were almost shut down.
Wu Mengchao went to Beijing many times to ask for help and raised funds everywhere. The original budget for the entire project was 8 million yuan, which was later increased to 23 million yuan.
The bosses of many donor organizations were his patients.
Up to now, the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital is the only hospital that specializes in hepatobiliary surgery at home and abroad.
I have been drunk twice in this life: one was the victory of the War of Resistance, and the other was the liberation of Shanghai.
In his old age, in order to treat more patients, he built the new hospital in Anting Town, which is nearly 40 kilometers away from the center of Shanghai, despite the opposition. He still went to the construction site to supervise the construction progress when he was over 90 years old, and he even had a roof on the car for a long time. His special hard hat, every time he went, the workers said "this short old man is here again".
The total investment in the construction of the new courtyard is hundreds of millions. In order to raise funds, this "short old man" will drink with people, but no one has ever seen him drunk.
He said that he had been drunk twice in his life: one was the victory of the War of Resistance, and the other was the liberation of Shanghai.
The Oriental Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital has a hospital history hall dedicated to the honors Wu Mengchao has won. The room of nearly 100 square meters is almost full. Some medals and calligraphy works presented by others can only be stacked on the ground. .
In recent years, some students have begun to call him "old man" and "old man", and some brave ones will call him "old man" behind their backs.
More people are accustomed to calling him "Old Wu". Since he became an academician in the 1990s, this name has been called for more than 20 years.
Before him, he was called "Old" by his teacher Qiu Fazu, who was 8 years older than him.
He always remembered Mr. Qiu telling him "to carry the patient across the river", "the surgeon must be able to speak, do, and write."
This "six-character maxim" is still in his office.
If he wants to attend a meeting with Mr. Qiu, he will always buy an earlier flight than the teacher and wait at the airport in advance.
At the meeting, people could always see an 80-year-old man supporting a 90-year-old man.
Later, many of Wu Mengchao's students had already passed the retirement age, but they were still working as usual, "How dare we retire if Mr. Wu hasn't retired".
It's just that his peers are basically gone. Sometimes he asks an old friend, and the students will lie to him "well," he has actually passed away for many years.
In Zhou Weiping’s impression, the teacher shed tears only twice. Once when his colleague and friend Chen Han passed away, he held his body and cried loudly at the memorial service.
In the diary of the day, he wrote multiple exclamation marks heavily.
In the old album in his bookcase, there are still several photos of Chen Han, which have turned yellow, but are still well preserved.
The other time, when his wife Wu Peiyu passed away, he whispered from the side.
There is still a cross-stitch hung in his home now, with a pair of puppies on it-he and his wife were born in 1922, both of which are dogs.
He is always reluctant to admit that he is an old man.
He doesn't like being helped by others, refuses to use crutches, and doesn't want anyone to follow him.
"I'm not old yet, and my strength is okay." He said every word.
After an operation, he quietly told Yang Guangshun that he should try to "eat less and move less" and maintain a low level of metabolism. "I can still work until 120 years old!" A few years ago, he was hospitalized with illness and insisted on himself. Wash your face and go to the toilet.
Ye Zhixia, director of the nursing department, recalled that he said at the time: “Only my mother has washed my face in this life.” The last time he saw his mother was 78 years ago.
When he was 35 years old, his father suffered from gallbladder stones. Due to poor local medical conditions, the operation was not completed, causing bile leakage and jaundice and died.
He was in pain. As a hepatobiliary surgeon, he couldn't even save his father.
Since then, he has treated every patient as a father and desperately saved him.
A few years ago, the second son-in-law was suffering from liver cancer. He was so angry that he slapped the table: "Knowing that I am treating liver cancer, I have to look for it!"
In this world, he became more and more lonely.
Zhou Weiping feels that this is also the reason why he loves to run to the operating room.
"Once the operation was performed, I forgot everything." The day after the wife died, he walked into the operating room again as usual.
People are always going to die, but they have to live with quality
Wu Mengchao doesn't love birthdays, and sometimes tells Yang Jiamei in private that he "can't do it, I've been alive in a few years."
In the past, Wu Mengchao was always the first to come to the operating room. He looked at the doctor next to the operating room before he came. He would say as a child: "Let’s do it quickly and show off at that time. They will come only after I have done it." In recent years, he used to get up and go to the operating room after sleeping.
It was from then that Cheng Yuee began to feel that Wu Mengchao was "an old man."
Student Yang Jiamei remembered that two or three years ago, they went to Dubai to attend an academic conference together, and the teacher needed to bring a chamber pot and a wheelchair before going out.
Many people told Wu Mengchao to "stop the operation", and even those who have been around him for a long time did not understand "what the old man did."
In order to keep up with the times, he insisted on reading more than a dozen newspapers every day.
When he was more than 80 years old, he still insisted on standing to teach undergraduates.
He said that he is still performing surgery, one to treat patients, and the other to bring more young people.
In 1960, Wu Mengchao's "five-leaf and four-segment" liver anatomy theory provided a key anatomical mark for liver surgery and became the theoretical basis for exploring liver surgery.
The following year, he invented the "Intermittent Hepatectomy at Normal Temperature", which greatly improved the success rate of the operation. It is still considered by the academic circles to be the simplest, most effective and safest method.
These theoretical studies and clinical methods have long been compiled into the textbooks of medical students and are still used today.
Sometimes he would teach undergraduates himself, and use two class hours to pass on the research results he has spent several years on to those immature latecomers.
Until now, after freshmen enrolled in the Naval Military Medical University, the school will also organize to watch the documentary "Marriage to Hepatobiliary Surgery" filmed with Wu Mengchao as the protagonist in the 1960s.
In the film, Wu Mengchao has thick black hair, a straight waist and no glasses.
Wu Mengchao lived for almost a century and was close to death countless times.
During the war years, artillery shells exploded beside him.
As a doctor, his finger was pierced during the operation, and he is very likely to be infected by the virus.
He has saved countless people, and there are always some people he cannot save.
He sometimes lied to the patient to "get better", but sighed when he got out of the ward.
He told the people around him, don’t tell patients how long they have to live, and don’t calculate their age.
"People are always going to die, but they have to live with quality." He said, "As long as I live one day, I have to fight liver cancer for one day."
Only in the operating room did Wu Mengchao feel that he was young.
Cong Wenming said: "Retirement can never be said from his mouth. Those who persuade him are people who don't know him."
After an operation a few years ago, the tired Wu Mengchao told Cheng Yue'e: "If I fall in the operating room one day, don't panic, remember to wipe it for me. You know I love to clean, don't let people see my sweaty face Look like."
bibliography:
"Heart to Heart: The Biography of Wu Mengchao" Fang Honghui/Shanghai Jiaotong University Press
"The Biography of Wu Mengchao" Wang Hongjia, Liu Biaojiu/Chinese Publishing House
"Huang Jiasi Surgery" Wu Mengchao, Wu Zaide / People's Medical Publishing House
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xuan Zengxing Source: China Youth Daily
May 26, 2021 05 Edition