During the Tomb-Sweeping Day, all the staff gave up taking vacations to engage in intensely preparing medical reforms. Some may say that medical personnel must be accustomed to work during holidays, but everyone in the hospital put himself under stress and prepare medical reforms.
At that time, a special patient was admitted to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Beijing Changping District Hospital of Chinese Traditional and Western Medicne. The patient with 20 years’ schizophrenia was detected with an abdominal tumor 7 years ago. The growing tumor recently made the distention pains gradually severe. The patient was took by her family to visit many hospitals in Beijing but failed to receive any operation due to her severe schizophrenia. When the patient’s family member met Yang Xian, Director of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, in the outpatient clinic, he was close to despair with a look of weariness and a ray of hope. He asked, “Doctor, please save my wife’s life. Though she has schizophrenia, she doesn’t deserve the suffer. Please carry out the operation for her. We have visited lots of hospitals with no results. We come to meet you in particular while hearing that you can help us.” Director Yang examined the patient and found that her abdomen was as swollen as a complete pregnancy woman. The tumor made her suffer from abdominal pain which resided about three-finger-width above her belly button. According to the result of ultrasound, she carried multiple myoma of uterus. It would be a difficult operation, because the pre- and postoperative care would be crucial to the success of the surgery due to patient’s schizophrenia, and her high blood pressure also made the situation messier. To be frankly, no doctors want to do such a risky operation. However, when Director Yang saw the weary and old face of patient’s overburdened family member and the slim hope and expression of pray in his face, Yang decided that no matter how high the risk will take he’ll treat her and do the surgery for her. This surgery can only be successful. Such a huge myoma of uterus must severely deform her pelvic cavity structure, which is the same with a pregnancy woman carrying a baby for seven years. The patient must suffer pains same with those various sufferings in later pregnancy period. However, she cannot express her agony due to her mental illness. In order to make sure the success of the surgery, it was very important to make a full preparation for all possible risks and situation before operation. The other concern was the possible damage to patient’s ureter during the operation should be avoided, which need the support of Urology Department. During Surgical Department and Department of Operation and Anesthesia’s case discussions before the surgery, Ye Jing, Director of Surgical Department, made doctors much more confident to the operation by proposing to operate ureteral catheterization before the surgery, which would help to minimize the damage to her ureteral. Since the pre- and postoperative care was also very important, Cui Guoqin, Chief nurse, guaranteed that the nursing team would center their attention to make sure her safety during the perioperative care period. We also kept reporting the patient’s condition to her family while organizing the preoperative preparation. After working for ten consecutive days including overworking in the 3 days Tomb-sweeping Holiday, the operation was finally started on 5th April.
The patient went into the operating room at 8:55 and started to have her operation. Ye Jing, Director of Surgical Department, performed the ureteral catheterization at first. Since the sever deformation of patient’s ureteral and ureteral orifice, the catheterization faced challenges. Director Ye, with proficiency and patience, finally made it.
When doctors opened the patient’s abdominal cavity, they found that the irregular swollen of the tumor was the same size as the size of uterus of a complete pregnancy woman and destroyed the normal anatomy. Her uterus and the tumor looked like twins in place abreast. Due to a long history of the tumor case, uterine adherence to anterior abdominal wall made the surgery much more difficult. Doctors should separate uterine adherence bit by bit to make its normal anatomy discernable, otherwise it would be great difficult to lay the entire uterus bare out of the abdominal. Four doctors were doing the operation carefully to keep from sensitive capillaries of the tumor, otherwise it might lead to severe bleeding since a tumor in such size had adequate blood circulation.
Due to doctors’ hard work, the patient’s uterus was exposed entirely. Her uterus and the myoma were too similar to be distinguished. At this time, every doctor was sweating. Such an easy movement took four doctors about one hour’s cooperation.
The myoma removal procedure generally should be an easy movement after the full exposure of uterus. However, when doctors cut off ligament and blood vessels, they found the patient’s blood vessels were three times wider than the normal, which would lead to brisk bleeding by one touch. The anaesthetist kept fluid infusion and blood transfusion in order to maintain her stable vital and to guarantee that the surgery went well.
Doctors finally took out the tumor which suffered the patient for 7 years. The difficult uterus disease didn't baffle doctors of firmness and determination, whose weary face brightened with a sort of joy and victory. The scale read that the weight of this myoma is over ten catties, 2 catties heavier than a giant baby! The surgery ended successfully at 14:15 p.m.. Doctors and medical personnel didn't eat lunch yet due to the busy overtime work. Patient's family expressed lots of thanks to medical staff. With good postoperative care, the patient soon recovered and then left the hospital.
Doctors never forget their mission to heal the sick and save the dying. In the intense preparatory work on medical reforms, busy schedule was not the reason for doctors in Beijing Changping District Hospital of Chinese Traditional and Western Medicine to decline the patient's request. Although they had been working for more than 10 consecutive days and had to spend lunch time and time after work studying medical reforms knowledge and communicating matters needing attentions during the reform drive, they still ensured the high quality of medical services during surgical treatment. In the journey of implementing medical reforms, doctors’ practice interprets its focal point of "improve services for patients"; in the journey of saving lives, they never forget why they start their work and keep moving forward.
