【Academician style】Wang Xuehao: The first patient of the doctor's benevolence

On August 19, 2018, at the first "Chinese Doctors' Day" celebration conference held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wang Xuehao issued an initiative on behalf of the 4 million doctors in the country: "Doctors are a sacred profession, more than 4 million doctors in the country, protecting the lives and health of more than 1.3 billion people, so that the average life expectancy of the people of the whole country has reached the level of moderately developed countries. As a doctor, Wang Xuehao has always warned himself: no matter how famous doctors, their primary duty is still to treat diseases and save people, and doctors must always put the interests of patients first.

Dare to take risks and carry out the first living donor liver transplant in China

Wang Xuehao grew up poor, but studied very hard. In the early 1960s, Wang Xuehao left his hometown to study in Nanjing, graduated from Nanjing Medical University with honors, and was assigned to the Department of Surgery of Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital after graduation. In 1983, Wang Xuehao, as a public student, came to the World Liver Transplant Center of the University Hospital of Pittsburgh in the United States for further study, under the tutelage of Dr. Dr. Professor Starzl.

At the end of the two-year period, Wang Xuehao resolutely returned to the motherland. In the mid-1980s, China did not have the soil to carry out liver transplants. Living body liver exchange, although to the advanced liver disease patients brought hope of life, but this operation is related to two lives at the same time, the technical requirements are quite high, and the risk is very large, many domestic counterparts regard it as a "forbidden area", but Wang Xuehao believes that living liver transplantation for liver sources are wide, high quality, low rejection rate, is bound to become the development direction of liver transplantation. He said to the students, "If one day I go to jail for this, just bring me food." ”

In January 1995, a man had to undergo a liver transplant due to illness, and his wife was willing to donate a liver and successfully matched. Wang Xuehao led the team to perform surgery for patients and families. The family's recovery after surgery was very smooth, and her husband recovered well in the first few days after the operation, showing that the new liver had survived. "Although the patient unfortunately passed away due to special circumstances two weeks after the operation, through this short clinical practice, it shows that we have the initial conditions for living liver transplantation, and as long as we continue to work hard, living liver transplantation will definitely be able to achieve in China."

Repeated defeats, setting three "most" for living liver transplantation

China is a country with a high incidence of hepatitis B, hepatitis and hepatitis B virus carriers reached about 10% at the peak, with the popularization of hepatitis B vaccine free vaccination, the proportion of children and adolescents with hepatitis B virus carriers has dropped greatly. However, there are still 440,000 to 500,000 new liver cancer patients in China every year, accounting for 50% to 55% of the world's new cases.

In 2005, when the "China Living Liver Transplant Research Institute" led by Wang Xuehao was established, Academician Tang Zhaoyou, director of the Liver Cancer Research Institute of Fudan University in Shanghai, said that the team led by Wang Xuehao had three "most" - the earliest living liver transplantation in China, the largest number of surgical cases, and the best surgical quality.

But few people know that behind the three "most" is the twist and turn of "failure-success-failure-success". His student Zhang Feng recalled that an operation took more than ten hours and used more than 10,000 milliliters of blood, so Wang Xuehao got a nickname called "Wang Ten Thousand". I remember the longest liver replacement surgery, which took 28 hours and used more than 20,000 milliliters of blood.

At that time, the patient's postoperative survival time was not ideal, coupled with various discussions from the outside world, Wang Xuehao was under great pressure. But Wang Xuehao knows very well that as a discipline leader, if he withdraws, all his efforts will be abandoned.

From 1995 to the present, Wang Xuehao led the team to complete more than 1,000 cases of liver transplantation, from the "Wang Ten Thousand" of that year, to now 3 to 4 hours can do a surgery, 1/4 of the patients do not need blood transfusions, the 5-year survival rate has reached 75%, and the longest survival time of patients has reached more than 20 years. He became the well-deserved first master of living liver transplantation in China, and created a series of records: successfully performed a transplant for a child with Wilson's disease; successfully performed 3 major surgeries for a 6-year-old child in 6 days; successfully performed 3 major surgeries for a 6-year-old child; successfully performed the first emergency adult right lobe donor liver live liver transplantation in Chinese mainland...

For more than 20 years, Wang Xuehao has led his research team not only to build a first-class liver transplant center in China, but also to break a new path in living liver transplantation, creating a number of national firsts.

Life is greater than heaven and must be done to the fullest

Wang Xuehao's enthusiasm and sincerity have made many patients regard him as a relative and good friend. In Wang Xuehao's office hung a large group photo, nearly a hundred people in the group photo are liver transplant patients, behind each face there is a touching story. Chinese mainland the first patient who got married and had children after changing his liver, Qian Hua was like this. After the operation, he and Wang Xuehao got along like a family, talking about love and getting married were discussed with Wang Xuehao, and usually some major events in the family also asked him to counsel. After being overjoyed, he also took his wife and children to the hospital and thanked him in person.

On Wang Xuehao's calendar, there are no holidays and no weekends. His mobile phone is turned on 24 hours a day, and as soon as the hospital phone arrives, he rushes to the hospital. Because the timing of liver transplant surgery is determined by many external factors, everything obeys the needs of patients and the needs of surgery, which is the basic quality that Wang Xuehao requires every member of the liver transplant center to achieve.

The strenuousness of liver transplant surgery can only be experienced by the doctors who participate in the surgery. As soon as Wang Xuehao and the members of the surgical team came to the stage, from morning to night, the operation was done at the end, the legs were swollen without a little consciousness, and the spirit was so high that there was not a drop of urine from morning to night. Many people are so tired as soon as the operation is over that they find a random place in the operating room or even fall asleep on the ground. Many patients undergo surgery are hepatitis patients, there is a danger of infection at any time, and there is often a situation where the hand is punctured by a needle on the operating table, and the patient exuds a lot of fluid, making the surgical gown everywhere, they can not avoid, can not avoid. During the critical period of 1 to 3 weeks after the operation, Wang Xuehao and his colleagues almost soaked in the hospital and appeared around the patient at any time.

Someone asked Wang Xuehao whether the pressure of doing liver transplantation was great, and he humorously replied: Of course! During the operation, when the patient's blood pressure dropped, my blood pressure went up; when the patient's heart beat slower, my heart beat faster.

Carry forward the team spirit, the crowd collects firewood and the flame is high

Liver transplantation is a "systematic project", and the success of the operation requires everyone to work together and work together. As a discipline leader, Wang Xuehao attaches great importance to cultivating the team spirit of the whole department, and at the same time attaches importance to giving full play to everyone's wisdom and talents to create opportunities for young people to grow rapidly and become talents. Under his leadership, a group of backbones of the Institute, such as Professor Zhang Feng, Professor Li Xiangcheng, Professor Kong Lianbao, etc., have become powerful "cadres" of liver transplant surgery and formed their own strengths. Because of the excellence of this team, the quality and quantity of liver transplants done by the center are at the forefront of the country and at the advanced level in the world.

Wang Xuehao was very proud of his students, and everyone said that without them, this cause could not be done. A liver transplant reflects the spirit of a subject group, a subject group, we have arguments, even students and teachers have arguments, but the end of the fight is over, no one goes to the heart.

Wang Xuehao has always believed that liver transplantation is the embodiment of the comprehensive ability of a hospital, which involves the coordination and cooperation of multiple departments such as anesthesia, intensive care, heart, breathing, kidney, infection testing, instruments, blood banks, etc., and is the concerted efforts of the whole hospital to participate in the completion of this living liver transplant operation with the world's top difficulty.

"What we carry on our shoulders is not only a life and a family, but also our cause promotes the continuous development of Liver Transplantation in China, especially the living liver transplantation technology." What we are diligently pursuing is to climb the modern medical peak of living liver transplantation to benefit more patients. To this day, Wang Xuehao is still working hard and making unremitting efforts on the climbing road. (Author: Zhao Xue, He Jiarui Editor: Xie Changmei)