[Foreword]
Seven years apart, an old couple underwent surgery one after another at Li Hecheng, director of the thoracic surgery department of Ruijin Hospital. Surgical technology is changing with each passing day, but what has not changed is the trust that patients have in ruijin, and even more so the care that doctors give to patients.
In the minds of doctors, they have chosen medicine. It is their bounden duty to treat illnesses and save lives. The ultimate goal of the advancement of medical technology is to better help patients relieve their pain.
1
After seven years, I come to Ruijin again
I am Aunt Wang, I am 76 years old this year. In the past June, my 81-year-old husband underwent a da Vinci robot surgery at Ruijin Hospital. On the day I was about to be discharged from the hospital, Li Hecheng, the director of thoracic surgery, saw me and smiled in surprise: "You look a little familiar." I also smiled and said, "Dr. Li, you have a really good memory. You still remember me."
It was May 2015. I had a thoracic surgery at Ruijin Hospital, and Dr. Li was also the surgeon at that time. Unexpectedly, I would meet Dr. Li Hecheng again 7 years later, and he would perform surgery on my husband. We, the old couple, and Dr. Li are really destined! The same Ruijin Hospital, the same Dr. Li Hecheng, the same early stage lung cancer surgery for pulmonary nodules, but the difference is the advancement of surgical technology.
In 2013, during a physical examination, I found a small mushroom-like 0.75cm nodule in my lungs. It was diagnosed as a "lazy cancer". It was not a big problem, but I needed to have a CT examination every six months. In 2015, my fourth CT scan showed that this "lazy cancer" had grown to 1.7cm. Dr. Li told me that it would be best to get rid of it.
"It was very good, but I just made a cut here." Thinking about it today, I still feel very lucky to have met a good doctor like Li Hecheng. Before I was discharged from the hospital, I specifically asked Dr. Li what medicine I needed to take to stabilize my condition. Dr. Li told me that I didn’t need to take any medicine and my body would slowly return to normal.
It was precisely because of this fate that my wife also developed lung nodules this time. I took him to Ruijin Hospital without hesitation. Unexpectedly, Dr. Li still remembered me.
2
First introduction to Da Vinci robot
My wife also discovered lung nodules during a physical examination. Because there was no reaction, neither chest pain nor cough, we did not pay attention to it. The examination results showed that the nodule was about 1cm in size, and the doctor also recommended that he undergo surgery. However, what worries me is that my wife is 81 years old and I was not yet 70 when the surgery was performed. The risk of surgery will definitely be higher as you get older.
But Dr. Li told me that age is not a contraindication for surgery. Among the surgeries he has performed so far, the oldest patient is 86 years old, and the postoperative recovery effect is good. Dr. Li also arranged a joint consultation with experts from the Department of Radiology, Department of Respiratory Medicine, etc. The result of the multidisciplinary discussion was that he recommended surgery to treat my husband's pulmonary nodules.
After two days of consideration, we both decided to have the surgery. After further communication with Dr. Li, we set the time for the surgery in mid-March. However, the sudden epidemic broke the planned plan. On March 29, taking advantage of the short time before the lockdown, my wife and I rushed to Ruijin Hospital to do a three-dimensional CT reconstruction and sent the results to Dr. Li. Dr. Li still recommends that we have surgery, but we can postpone the surgery until the epidemic is over. This push brings us to early June. After Shanghai basically fully recovered, we contacted Dr. Li again and determined a new surgery time.
Different from the surgery I had 7 years ago, my wife underwent the most advanced da Vinci robot surgery in China. Dr. Li told me that da Vinci robotic surgery refers to a surgery in which the doctor sits at a console outside the sterile area of the operating room and uses his hands and foot pedals to control instruments and a three-dimensional high-definition endoscope. With a larger surgical field of view, doctors can perform more precise mechanical movements. Compared with other surgeries, this surgical operation is more precise, has a shorter curve and is less invasive than thoracoscopic .
Dr. Li Hecheng introduced that Ruijin Hospital is one of the first hospitals in China to carry out robotic surgery. Since May 2015, the team of Thoracic Surgery Li Hecheng has completed nearly 2,000 da Vinci thoracic tumor surgeries.Among them, there are many complex and difficult surgeries such as da Vinci sleeve resection, precise segmental/combined subsegmentectomy, and esophageal cancer combined with descending aortic aneurysm.
For surgeries on elderly patients, Dr. Li reminds everyone: “Preoperative cardiopulmonary and other aspects must be assessed in advance to ensure that the patient has a certain tolerance for the surgery, and then conduct multidisciplinary consultation and discussion. Secondly, it is recommended We use single-port thoracoscopic surgery or da Vinci surgery, which can not only ensure less trauma, but also help patients recover as quickly as possible.”
After listening to Dr. Li’s introduction, I feel that scientific and technological progress is really advancing, and the same is true for pulmonary nodules. , it was also a thoracic surgery, and my wife was luckier than me. Not only did I meet Dr. Li, but I also met " Leonardo da Vinci ".
Written by: Li Dong Zhang Ziqing
Editor: Han Connie
