Wu Mengchao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and "the father of Hepatobiliary Surgery in China", died on May 22 at the age of 99.
In 2019, Wen Wei Po's "Close Range" series of character features "70 People in 70 Years" recorded the touching story of Wu Mengchao's "being a good doctor and serving the people wholeheartedly".
I would like to reissue this article in memory of Academician Wu Mengchao!
Wu Mengchao sent a message: "Be a good doctor and serve the people wholeheartedly"
In the 1960s, Wu Mengchao was in an experiment
Wu Mengchao is known as the "father of Hepatobiliary Surgery in China". Some time ago, he accidentally fell down, although there was no major trouble, but for the sake of safety, Elder Wu was temporarily admitted to Changhai Hospital. In the ward, Wu Mengchao was never separated from the patient. Every day, young doctors in the hospital knock on his door with all sorts of tricky cases. Discuss the treatment plan with everyone, And Elder Wu is always happy to do so.
Since practicing medicine, Wu Mengchao has independently innovated more than 30 major medical achievements, created the theoretical basis of liver surgery in China, and completed 16,000 major liver surgeries including China's first liver lobectomy, and liver cancer patients have survived for 45 years after surgery. Today, more than 80% of the experts and doctors in hepatobiliary surgery in the country are his students.
When it comes to the treatment level of liver disease in China, Wu Mengchao is very proud. He said: "At present, the diagnostic accuracy, surgical success rate and postoperative survival rate of liver disease in China have reached the world's leading level. In the future, we should do better to make the people healthier. ”
Wanderers love their homeland and love the motherland
After several bumps in the search for truth, I found the party and found my mother. Wu Mengchao said: "With the support of faith, we are full of passion for struggle."
In the summer of 1922, Wu Mengchao was born in a small mountain village in Minqing, Fujian Province. At the age of five, he moved to Malaysia with his mother until he graduated from junior high school, and Wu Mengchao resolutely gave up the opportunity to learn to do business and returned to China to resist Japan. At that time, the still young Wu Mengchao deeply understood: "If the country is not strong, our waist rod is not hard!" ”
In the autumn of 1943, Wu Mengchao was admitted to the Tongji Medical College founded by the Germans and became a student of Qiu Fazu, the "father of Chinese surgery". His dream was lofty — to be a surgeon like Jufazu. But in the graduation exam, he usually studied the most serious surgery only 65 points, while the pediatrics score was 95 points. According to the custom at that time, which subject score was good, he would be assigned to the corresponding department to work. Moreover, for Wu Mengchao, who is only 1.62 meters tall, wanting to be a surgeon is indeed a bit "wishful thinking".
When Wu Mengchao went to the director of education with the notice of registration for the pediatric department and said that he wanted to go to surgery, the director in charge of the assignment said: "You don't look at your own height, what surgery can you do?" Besides, in terms of your grades, isn't it inappropriate to be a surgeon? ”
The young and vigorous Wu Mengchao was not convinced: "I must be a surgeon, and I must be the best surgeon!" ”
In August of that year, the People's Medical College of the East China Military Region of Shanghai (the predecessor of the Second Military Medical University) openly recruited doctors in the society, and Wu Mengchao, who went to apply, impressed the chief examiner with his confidence and sincerity. Since then, Wu Mengchao has embarked on the road of medical service to the country.
Decades after practicing medicine, Wu Mengchao recalled the scene when he first put on his white coat and said emotionally: "If it were not for my own motherland, I might have been rich, but I would not have had my career; if I had not been in the people's army, I might have been a doctor, but I would not have been where I am today; if it were not for the party organization, I might have been a good person, but I would not have become a member of the vanguard of the proletariat." ”
At that time, the challenge in front of the young doctor Wu Mengchao was not small. In 1956, a foreign liver surgery expert visited China and asserted that it would take at least 20 or 30 years for China's liver surgery level to reach the world's advanced level.
Wu Mengchao was not convinced, he led the liver surgery team, only seven years, from scratch, continuous innovation, to achieve a major breakthrough in the basic research of liver surgery theory and clinical treatment in China.
In 1959, Wu Mengchao's team founded the classic anatomical theory of "five leaves and four segments" of the liver Chinese, laying the theoretical foundation of liver surgery in China; in 1960, he successfully completed the first case of liver cancer resection surgery, invented the "intermittent hepatic hilar blockade method at room temperature", and created a precedent for hemostasis in liver surgery in China; in 1963, Wu Mengchao successfully completed the world's first case of hepatic lobectomy, making China enter the forefront of international hepatobiliary surgery...
How much "impossible" becomes "possible" in the hands of Wu Mengchao's team.
Wu Mengchao said: "A medical scientist should take the needs of the country and the people as a lifelong pursuit. Since Wu Mengchao started practicing medicine, he has continuously refreshed the record of relieving the pain of patients, reducing the mortality rate of liver surgery to 0.30%, the overall survival rate of 5 years after liver cancer surgery is 56.1%, and the 5-year survival rate of small liver cancer is 79.8%.
Angels protect the people and bless the heavens
In the 1960s, Wu Mengchao made liver vascular cast specimens
There is both the benevolence and kindness of the hanging pot and the magic skill of the liver and gallbladder. Wu Mengchao said: "The people's military doctors should take saving the lives of patients as a lifelong pursuit."
Since choosing liver surgery as his career, Wu Mengchao has formed an indissoluble relationship with the liver.
The liver is the "nutrient bank" and "chemical factory" of the human body, and because the liver is extremely rich in blood vessels and the anatomy is extremely complex, it has always been regarded as a forbidden area for surgery. In our country, liver surgery was a blank slate until the early 1950s. Wu Mengchao has the courage to take the road that others have not taken, is not afraid of risks, dares to challenge, and saves the lives of tens of thousands of patients with magical hands in the "forbidden area" of liver surgery.
Just after the Spring Festival in 1975, a man with a big belly, supported by his family, stepped into the Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University with difficulty, went straight to the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department, and named Wu Mengchao. It turned out that this cropper named Lu Benhai had come to the hospital from Anhui Province, and his abdomen had a tumor the size of a fist eight years ago, and after going to the hospital for examination, the doctor thought it was liver cancer. Two years have passed, and the tumor in Lu Benhai's stomach has grown larger and larger, and the stomach looks like a pregnant woman who is pregnant in October.
Wu Mengchao carefully examined the patient's "rattling" belly, and based on his knowledge of the liver, he confirmed that it was a rare extraordinarily large hepatic cavernous hemangioma. The examination showed that the diameter of the tumor was as high as 68 centimeters!
Hepatic cavernous hemangiomas are benign tumors of the liver, but their most dangerous risk is that tumor rupture can cause acute bleeding in the abdominal cavity, which can often lead to death. Surgery is the only way to relieve the patient's pain and save the patient's life, but the risk of such surgery is too great, and everyone advises Wu Mengchao to think twice.
"The people's military doctors should take saving patients' lives as a lifelong pursuit." In order to cure Lu Benhai's illness, the hospital mobilized more than 40 medical staff from 15 departments to fully cooperate with Wu Mengchao to ensure the success of the operation.
On the day of the operation, Wu Mengchao spent a full 12 hours to pull Lu Benhai back from before the ghost door was closed. Walking off the operating table, Wu Mengchao held the quilt and entered the ward with the patient. For a whole week, he watched over the sick day and night... In the following thirty or forty years, Lu Benhai often called Wu Mengchao and repeatedly expressed the gratitude of his family.
"If a doctor thinks too much about his fame and fortune in the face of risk, countless patients may die in the doctor's hesitation and sigh." Wu Mengchao said, "What I value is not to create miracles, but to save lives." Doctors should use their sense of responsibility to help patients get through the difficulties. ”
Hepatoblastoma is a rare pediatric tumor with a high probability of developing hepatocellular carcinoma. In 1983, Wu Mengchao successfully removed hepatoblastoma weighing 600 grams for a baby girl who was only 4 months old, setting a record for the youngest hepatoblastoma in the world.
In 1993, together with his students, he successfully performed the world's first laparoscopic liver cancer resection. After a week, the indicators of the little guy's body all tended to normal, and his weight increased by 1 kg. After 10 days, her parents thanked her for taking their children out of the hospital.
Influenced by Wu Mengchao's treatment and rescue of people, the girl graduated from junior high school and was admitted to a local health school to study nursing. Although she did not become a doctor, she could also send angelic love and warmth to patients.
Professor Yang Jiamei, director of the Special Needs Department, emotionally told reporters that Wu Mengchao cared for patients very much, and when he checked the room in winter, he always rubbed his hands first before starting to examine patients. After the examination, he will always pull the patient's clothes, tuck the corners of the quilt, and put the shoes in the most convenient position.
Wu Mengchao's medical skills are superb, and the surgical expenses and treatment costs of removing a liver tumor are far lower than the national average. He always finds ways to reduce the burden on patients and tries every means to "save money" for patients. Every time the surgery was sutured, he used the thread by hand. He said: "We have to use more brains and hands to serve patients, use the instruments once, 'click' a sound of more than 1,000 pieces, I Wu Mengchao stitched by hand, not a penny." ”
Life has an end to struggle endlessly
Wu Mengchao, who is 90 years old, still personally went on stage for surgery
Like a fighter who never tires, like a warrior maintaining a charging posture. Wu Mengchao said: "If I fall on the operating table one day, that is my greatest happiness."
The reporter checked the surgical records in the hospital, and in 2010, Wu Mengchao completed 196 surgeries. As long as the patient needs, he always rushes to the front line. At that time, Wu Mengchao, who was already more than 90 years old, as long as he did not travel, he personally went on stage every day to operate, sometimes even three or four times, often standing at the side of the operating table for five or six hours in one breath.
In 2018, 96-year-old Wu Mengchao was invited to take the stage of CCTV's "Readers". The host Dong Qing choked up several times and read out the letter written by the head nurse to Wu Mengchao: "Many people see that you are a legend, but only I have seen you lying on a chair after the operation, the surgical gown on your chest is soaked, your arms are supported on the armrest, and your palm-facing hands are trembling slightly..."
People familiar with Wu Mengchao know that the hospital is like his home.
He arrives at the office at eight o'clock every day to receive patients who seek medical treatment while dealing with official business. At about nine o'clock, Wu Mengchao took out his surgical glasses and prepared to start the hardest and happiest job of his day - surgery.
As soon as he stepped into the door of the operating room, Wu Mengchao would immediately be much more excited. On stage, abdomen opening, probing, excision, knotting, rinsing, suturing, each of Wu Mengchao's surgeries is like computer programming and control, without a single superfluous action, so that everyone around him marvels at his smoothness and lightness. After several surgeries in a row, Wu Mengchao had no intention of resting. He said a qualified surgeon should have "three skills" — standing (being able to stand for hours at a time), starving (being able to endure hunger during surgery) and holding back (never going to the toilet on the operating table).
"If I fall on the operating table one day, that's my greatest happiness." Wu Mengchao said. There are often liver cancer patients who have been "sentenced to death" all over the country, who will rush to the hospital for Wu Mengchao's fame, "Letting Elder Wu open the operation is my greatest hope, even if I let Elder Wu touch it, I will die without regrets"!
Until last year, 96-year-old Wu Mengchao insisted on completing at least three surgeries a week, and it was a relatively complex operation. "I'm still in good health, and it's mainly to teach young people and train young doctors." Wu Mengchao knows that the first priority to promote the development of medicine is talent.
In 2006, in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of hepatobiliary surgery, Wu Mengchao was awarded the highest national science and technology award and a prize of 5 million yuan. The General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army also rewarded him with 1 million yuan.
Wu Mengchao said: "All my knowledge and honors are given by the party and the army, and I have paid too little to the motherland and the people." 6 million yuan is of no use to me, it is better to take it out to cultivate talents. He spent 5 million yuan in prize money to cultivate scientific and technological talents, and 1 million yuan to reward medical staff who have made significant contributions. At an annual meeting of the Sino-German Medical Association, Wu Mengchao found that Wang Hongyang had a quick mind and recommended her to study in Germany. After returning home, the best laboratory was built for her. Later, Wang Hongyang made a major breakthrough in the study of signal transduction of liver cancer and other diseases, and was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
"Cultivating a successor who surpasses me is my greatest wish and my greatest reward." Wu Mengchao said. At present, a group of academic talent echelon composed of academicians and Yangtze River scholars has stood out, and more than 250 doctoral and master students he has trained have become the backbone of Hepatobiliary Surgery in China.
In January this year, Wu Mengchao announced his retirement from the post of academician. At the academician retirement ceremony, he said emotionally: "Now it seems that the correct choice of these four roads of returning to China, studying medicine, joining the army, and joining the party has allowed me to truly realize the value of my life." Therefore, I am glad of my choice, and I am always grateful to the party and the state, and to the big family of the army for educating and cultivating me. ”
It is the admiration and trust of patients that makes Wu Mengchao still stick to the front line of hepatobiliary surgery. He said: "Although retired, as long as the organization needs, as long as the patient needs, I can enter the battle position at any time and enter the battle!" I feel like I'm physically okay, so I have confidence and determination. ”
Author: Chen Qing Zhang Peng
Editor: Gu Jun
Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee