A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 393

Chapter 76: Sprint (3)

The surgery observation room was bustling with people for the first time in a while.

The thirty or so seats provided were completely filled. It felt like tickets to a popular performance had sold out.

They were chatting in somewhat excited voices.

About how the surgery would proceed.

Whether the surgery would be successful, and so on.

Naturally, all the attendees were pediatric neurosurgeons.

There were surgeons from the top 10 hospitals in the United States, as well as those who came to observe from other hospitals.

The surgery on conjoined twins whose heads were attached was rare.

The opportunity to observe such a surgery and learn something from it didn’t come often.

Meanwhile, Chris, the director of the Mayo Clinic, with his impressive white beard, turned his head from side to side, scanning the surgeons who had come to observe.

Then, he spoke to Bruce, the head professor of pediatric neurosurgery, who was sitting next to him.

“In my 40 years as a doctor, this is the first time I’ve seen the observation room so full.”

“It’s no ordinary surgery. Both medically and in terms of the buzz surrounding it.”

“I don’t care about the buzz. The important thing is the patient.”

Chris’s eyes were serious.

“Is Austin’s decision truly prioritizing the patient?”

In Chris’s opinion, Austin’s decision—to save both children—seemed reckless.

It seemed like a decision that could lead to the misfortune of failing to catch either rabbit while trying to catch both [a metaphor for attempting two difficult tasks at once and failing at both].

Who wouldn’t want to save both children?

But still.

Wouldn’t a stable second-best option be better than a risky best option?

That’s what Chris thought.

In fact, pediatric neurosurgeons at other hospitals had refused the parents’ request to save both children.

“What is the highest priority for the patient? Isn’t interpreting that entirely up to the surgeon?”

“What are you trying to say?”

Chris’s brow furrowed.

His voice was curt.

“For Professor Austin, the highest priority is a surgery that produces the best possible results.”

“And he doesn’t care if the patient is endangered?”

“It’s not that he doesn’t care, but good surgery inherently involves risk.”

“Let’s be clear. A surgery with inherent risk isn’t a good surgery; it’s a dangerous one.”

Someone cut into the conversation.

It was a surgeon sitting to Chris’s left.

A sharp, pointed face like an inverted triangle. The owner of slender eyes was Michal.

A surgeon affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic and Austin’s rival.

Michal crossed his arms and looked this way.

“Professor Michal, what do you think of this surgery?”

“It’s not appropriate to say this in front of the director, but…”

Michal tapped the handout he was holding with his finger. It was a printed document briefly outlining today’s surgical procedure.

“The probability of failure is high.”

Was he speaking ill of Austin because he wanted his rival to fail?

Or was there another basis for his opinion?

Chris couldn’t easily discern Michal’s intentions.

On the other hand, Michal smiled knowingly, as if he had read Chris’s thoughts.

“The key to this surgery is to dissect the middle cerebral artery vessels that the twins share and transplant them to each other through anastomosis [surgical connection between two blood vessels].”

“That’s right. But why is that a problem?”

“I tried that myself this summer. Do you know what the result was?”

Sensing something ominous, Chris couldn’t bring himself to answer.

“The patient died due to a ruptured blood vessel. Moreover, my patient was older than the patient undergoing surgery today.”

“…”

“If it were a surgery that could succeed, I would have taken it on myself. That patient came to our hospital first, you know.”

Chris chewed his lip at the new information.

If it were the words of another surgeon.

He might have dismissed it.

But Michal was, without a doubt, Austin’s rival.

The two giants of pediatric neurosurgery.

The fact that Michal had failed in a similar surgery was impossible to ignore.

Chris glanced at Bruce’s face.

Bruce’s expression was stiff.

The story he had just heard seemed to be news to Bruce as well.

While they were talking.

The staff entered the operating room.

The eyes of the people in the observation room were all drawn to the staff.

Setting up surgical tools.

Central venous catheter insertion.

Connecting patient monitoring devices.

Since the other staff had already completed procedures such as general anesthesia, the surgery would begin immediately.

As the surgery drew near, the air in the observation room became heavy and tense.

The voices gradually decreased, and the volume became quieter.

Watching the staff take their places one by one, Chris felt an indescribable sense of unease.

It was like playing a spot-the-difference game. [referring to a game where you have to find the differences between two similar images]

Something was wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, which was frustrating.

And Michal was the one who accurately captured this.

“Come to think of it, Bruce.”

Michal stared at Bruce and asked.

“Yes, Professor.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m observing. I’ll be reporting the progress of the surgery to the director.”

“You could have left that to someone else. Shouldn’t Hector be the first assistant and you be the second assistant?”

As if agreeing with Michal’s opinion.

Chris nodded vigorously.

This was the true nature of the unease Chris felt.

Why was Bruce, who should be in the operating room, in the observation room?

If Austin was the pinnacle of Mayo’s pediatric neurosurgery.

The one-two punch was Hector and Bruce, respectively.

“Good heavens. What on earth…”

Michal checked the observation monitor and finally clicked his tongue.

Hector, who he had firmly believed would be the first assistant, had been relegated to the second assistant.

The first assistant position.

That is, the seat opposite the surgeon, was occupied by a young rookie he had never seen before.

“Who is that guy?”

“That’s Jun-hoo. He’s a trainee in the Boost Up program.”

“A trainee? You’re putting a trainee in charge of the twin separation surgery? In the first assistant position, no less?”

Michal wore an absurd expression.

Chris’s expression also became vacant.

Deep anxiety began to fill the space where expectations for surgical success had been.

* * *

‘Is someone talking about me?’

Jun-hoo muttered inwardly, looking up at the observation room.

His earlobes had been tickling since a while ago [an idiom that means someone is talking about you].

Most of the people sitting there were probably doubting Jun-hoo’s skills.

Who is he to be in charge of such an important surgery?

He couldn’t blame them.

It was true that the staff composition was logically difficult to accept.

Jun-hoo planned to answer their doubts with his skills.

He had practiced the surgery with the staff using 3D-printed models.

After clamping the optic nerve, he had repeated the actual practice in his head to the point of vomiting.

In other words.

Jun-hoo had the most experience with this surgery, including both the operating room and the observation room.

So he was more confident than anyone else.

Jun-hoo’s gaze swept over the staff one by one.

Austin was calmly looking at the patient monitoring device.

Hector was organizing the surgical tools set up on the dressing cart.

Raymond was looking down at the children lying on the operating table.

No one seemed particularly nervous.

This meant that the practice was sufficient.

It also meant that the staff gathered were strong-hearted.

Jun-hoo’s gaze finally turned to Emma and Sophia.

The children were lying vertically on the operating table. Their hairless scalps were smooth and shiny.

‘I won’t lose either of you. I’ll make sure you can face each other. I promise!’

Jun-hoo strengthened his resolve inwardly.

“We will now begin the separation surgery of the conjoined twins whose heads are attached.”

At Austin’s cry, the staff nodded their heads simultaneously.

Raymond was the vanguard.

Raymond disinfected the patient’s head and covered it with a blue drape.

Perhaps thanks to the hellish training over the past ten days.

The staff were communicating with each other silently, with just their eyes.

“Number 10.”

At Jun-hoo’s order, Raymond handed over the scalpel (knife handle) and blade.

Click!

The sound of the blade fitting into the knife handle was cheerful.

Swoosh.

With the scalpel in his hand, Jun-hoo vertically cut the center of the twins’ heads.

Since the surgical area was wide, the length of the incision was also long. It was as long as 7 centimeters.

While making the incision.

Jun-hoo’s hand did not tremble.

Since there was no trembling, the incision did not deviate to the side or curve.

The incision was a straight line itself.

After finishing the scalp incision, Jun-hoo raised the scalpel. Blood was oozing from the neatly cut scalp.

Raymond wiped away the blood with gauze.

“I always feel this, but I can’t keep up with your skill in using the scalpel.”

Austin admired, looking down at Jun-hoo’s incision.

The area where the incision was made was not flat. There was a section where the head bulged up and then went down.

Despite the difficult course, Jun-hoo succeeded in making a clean incision.

“You flatter me. I still have a long way to go compared to you, Professor.”

“You know that much.”

At Austin’s joke, the staff burst into laughter.

Jun-hoo held the stabilizer (fixed retractor) in his hand.

Then, after installing the stabilizer in the incision, he widened the incision to the left and right.

As the incision widened, the surgical field became as clear as a field.

The children’s skulls, which were connected as one, were visible.

From now on, it was the turn of the surgeon, Austin, to play an active role.

“Diamond drill.”

At Austin’s instruction, Hector surprisingly handed over two diamond drills.

Austin held a diamond drill in each hand.

Click!

Weeeing.

The drill emitted a loud noise as it rotated fiercely.

Austin’s left hand drew a semicircle to the left, and Austin’s right hand drew a semicircle to the right.

Each hand was creating an incision while drawing a circle.

‘He’s amazing after all.’

Jun-hoo couldn’t take his eyes off Austin’s dazzling hand movements.

Even compared to Jun-hoo, who had mastered martial arts, Austin’s two-handed technique was by no means inferior to Jun-hoo.

If skill and technique reach the level of a master, wouldn’t that itself become a kind of martial art?

That’s what he thought.

Every time the drill cut through the skull, skull fragments like slush particles scattered in all directions.

In response, second assistant Hector sprayed physiological saline solution from time to time to prevent overheating.

The work itself was simple, but the timing was artistic.

About 30 minutes passed.

Austin lifted the circular skull with a surgical tool.

Raymond picked up the raised skull with his hand and kept it separately. The skull in the curved tray looked like a small manhole cover.

“The surgery starts now. Remove the dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater [the three layers of membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord] in order to access the cerebral cortex.”

“…”

“Thoroughly check the intracranial pressure and vital signs, and do not allow even a moment of carelessness. Understood?”

“Yes, Professor.”

The staff answered vigorously at the same time.

Jun-hoo brought his eyes close to the microscope and examined the dura mater, which looked like a white milk film.

Emma and Sophia shared not only brain blood vessels but also meninges.

Separating the meninges was the first task of this surgery.