Chapter 2345: The Attending Physician’s Skill
How did this idea come about? Wei Shangquan had a knot in his head and said worriedly, "Yingying, to untangle a knot, you have to see clearly what kind of knot it is, right? Even if you see it clearly, how can you untangle it without touching it? Wouldn’t you have to open up the abdomen and reach in to untangle it?"
It’s hard to untangle a knot through the belly. It’s like trying to untangle a tied knot with two hands through a thick layer; it’s like a magician performing magic from a distance—easier said than done. It’s different after opening the abdomen; your eyes can see, and the doctor’s hands can touch the knot, making it much easier to handle. That’s why, in clinical practice, most cases at this stage where specialists will recommend switching to open surgery. Otherwise, just thinking about how to untangle the knot remotely can drive you crazy.
Xie Wanying explained to her classmates, "It’s not completely impossible. It just requires more calculations. For example, if you’re untangling a knot through a plastic bag, you might be able to push the knot to loosen it before untangling it."
"Didn’t you just say that manual massage wouldn’t work?"
"It’s not that manual massage doesn’t work, but for the embedded area, manual massage might not be as precise as an air enema. With an air enema under fluoroscopy, we can see the forces and perform precise calculations, whereas with manual massage, to obtain these raw data for calculation, you’d have to try massaging the child several times, which would be quite an ordeal for them."
Huh? Student Wei was stunned that even the force of manual massage needed to be calculated by Student Xie. Those who hadn’t partnered with Student Xie before were surprised by her different level of logical thinking. Truly different. Who would have thought you’d need to calculate force and angles when massaging a belly?
Students have studied math, physics, and chemistry for many years in class. But when it comes to practical application, people generally forget all the formulas. You’d hardly find one out of a thousand non-engineering graduates who can accurately recall the formula for the area of a trapezoid after ten years. In everyday life, people habitually use brute force and luck to solve problems, as these are simple and quick and don’t require much thought. The results, predictably, either end in failure or result in damage to the object—in a clinical setting, this means harm to the patient.
Even if one might have scored high in math, physics, and chemistry in high school, having not practiced every day, this skill has clearly regressed. Student Wei felt his brain turning to mush and turned to ask Resident Duan, "Can you do it?"
Likely, this resident can’t keep up with Student Xie’s thinking either and would say no.
It’s up to the resident to make a decision.
The problem is this resident often adopts an ostrich attitude, afraid they have less confidence in using their brain than others.
Should they change people and have Student Xie enter the examination room instead? No, that’s not right. Student Xie said it was an air enema, not a manual massage; she should be in the operation room. Perhaps placing Student Xie in the operation room from the start was the correct decision that Resident Duan made?
Wei Shangquan was startled by his own thoughts and hesitantly looked at the resident: Is this what you were thinking?
It was probably what Resident Duan was thinking. Xie Wanying could sense that Resident Duan had foreseen this outcome, which is why he instructed her to stay in the operation room. This is also the reason she dared to propose her strategy to the resident.
One must admit, she is a top student from Guodu with special talents, which would soon become apparent like Doctor Song had shown before her.
"Doctor Duan, please speak." Xie Wanying proactively requested instructions from Guodu’s top student and resident.