Chapter 121: Heavy Postpartum Hemorrhage
Yang Lei darted to the ward, and Zheng Ren saw the son of the middle-aged female patient, who had undergone an appendectomy yesterday, storming out of the ward as if the whole world had upset him.
Perhaps it was not a major issue at all. However, a nurse then yelled, “Chief Zheng, there is an emergency in the obstetrics department!”
“Yang Lei, will you be fine here?” asked Zheng Ren.
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. Off you go,” said Yang Lei after glancing at the situation upon reaching the ward entrance.
The obstetrics and gynecology department had recently become greedy. Initially, they rarely had any contact with the emergency department, so they had no choice but to brace for trouble encountered in their own department.
Once they had witnessed the true power of interventional radiology and realized that it could easily achieve great wonders unattainable by surgery alone, they began diverting all sorts of problems to the emergency department.
The chief resident on duty was almost in tears when Zheng Ren arrived at the obstetrics department. “Chief Zheng, please take a look at the patient.”
“Don’t panic, what’s wrong?” asked Zheng Ren.
“Twenty minutes ago, a patient with postpartum hemorrhaging after a caesarean section was transferred from Laohugang. After I finished her registration and examined her, all her family members had disappeared,” said the obstetrics chief resident in terror.
This was actually more common in the emergency department than in the obstetrics department.
Before the abolishment of the one-child policy, every family would treat a primigravida with the utmost care, which was why the possibility of a critically-ill pregnant woman being abandoned in the hospital had never occurred to the obstetrics chief resident.
However, based on years of experience in the medical field, she could tell that she had unknowingly walked a tightrope, and any mismanagement would lead to her inevitable demise.
Zheng Ren asked, “Where is the patient?”
The obstetrics chief resident immediately brought Zheng Ren to the treatment room.
A thick metallic scent assailed his nostrils before he even reached the door.
Zheng Ren’s heart sank immediately. If he could smell the blood from here, how serious was the patient’s condition?
Quickening his pace, he entered the treatment room and saw an ashen-faced woman lying on a heavily-bloodstained stretcher trolley.
“The patient was transferred to the obstetrics ward twenty minutes ago and was diagnosed with postpartum hemorrhage. Her blood pressure at the time was 50/30mmHg and heart rate was at 132 beats per minute. During physical examination, we removed the vaginal packing and noticed that the vagina—” The obstetrics chief resident, already in distress, was mechanically blurting out medical history as if Zheng Ren was her superior.
Zheng Ren presumed she had many negative outcomes on her mind at the moment.
“Your judgment,” said Zheng Ren.
“This is her second parity. We suspect the heavy postpartum hemorrhage was caused by an unligated uterine artery,” concluded the obstetrics chief resident neatly.
She was already agitated. How was she going to acquire signatures on the informed consent documents when the patient’s family had gone missing? Not every clinician knew how to handle this type of situation.
Anonymities were regularly seen in the emergency and general surgery departments, and was thus not considered a serious issue, but in the obstetrics department… This was actually her first time encountering an unidentified patient.
“Prepare for surgery.” Zheng Ren quickly made up his mind as he knew that time was not on their side. “There are a few things that require your immediate attention. First, send blood samples to the blood transfusion department and ask them to speed up blood compatibility tests. We need ten units of red blood cells and 1000mL of plasma, and another set with the same amount as backup.”
The obstetrics chief resident nodded vigorously.
Dazed and confused, all she could do was to obey commands.
“Secondly, call the medical administration division and tell them you’ve received an unidentified patient and failed to obtain informed consent for the operation. I’ll perform the surgery and you’ll handle these processes. Make sure the medical administration division is present on the scene, do you copy?!”
“Got it.” The obstetrics chief resident continued to nod.
“Third, find an obstetrics superior to take it from here,” Zheng Ren finally said.
Everything began to run smoothly as long as someone was in control of the situation. As the patient was being wheeled to the emergency operating theater, Zheng Ren called the interventional radiology suite to prepare the necessary surgical equipment.
Since this was a new project that had only been recently launched, the nurses on duty tonight were unfamiliar with it and could only perform basic tasks.
Zheng Ren had few complaints as the learning process required time. Besides, was it not the wrong time to do so?
When the stretcher trolley reached the emergency interventional radiology suite, an obstetrics junior doctor and a nurse from the suite began transferring the patient onto the bed.
They did so in a pool of crimson fluid. It was a bloody scene.
Without wasting any time on observation, Zheng Ren quickly opened up the storage room, searched for the required surgical supplies and passed them to the nurse. Then, he put on his lead apron, scrubbed up and applied the surgical drapes on the operative site.
‘Many hands make light work.’ Zheng Ren sighed.
Perhaps it would have been better if Su Yun was here.
It was easy to become extravagant if one had been frugal before, but the reverse was difficult. Once Zheng Ren had experienced the benefits of being a hands-off boss, he had grown unaccustomed to performing everything personally.
When preparations were complete, a bell rang out in Zheng Ren’s ears.
The fickle-minded System had appeared just in time to assign him a mission.
[Emergency Mission: Distortion of Human Nature or Loss of Moral Values
[Task: Save a patient with heavy postpartum hemorrhage.
[Reward: Passive ability—Luck +2.
[Time: 2 hours.]
Zheng Ren was taken by surprise in the middle of preparation.
The fickle-minded System had taken the unprecedented step of offering a passive attribute, and this time, it was the Luck stat.
Even though he had never played online games, he had read many novels involving them. Thus, he knew Luck was a godlike ability, unparalleled compared to all other attributes.
Why would the System award him Luck? That was strange.
Zheng Ren picked up an introducer sheath and an angiographic needle after applying the surgical drapes. The surgery officially began.
At the same time, it was broadcast live through the account in Xinglin Garde, which had gone silent for two days.
[Wow, the god hasn’t appeared for a long time.]
[Another emergency case; are there that many emergency surgeries in Canada? I’m starting to doubt that capitalism is the root of all evil. This host surgeon is on hand no matter what time it is.]
[I think something is wrong here. I just returned from studying abroad, and the situation seems to be different from what I’ve learned so far. However, it’s difficult to explain right now.]
Just like readers requesting chapter updates before the release of one, everyone leisurely gave their opinions before the surgery had even started.
Zheng Ren, who had acquired the Master rank in interventional radiology, could feel that his maneuvering had become more proficient, presumably due to the six to seven rapid main artery superselections during Zheng Yunxia’s surgery giving him a qualitative upgrade under pressure.
As the comments passed, the micro-guidewire was already in place. Zheng Ren then turned on the imaging system and began inserting the microcatheter.
[Postpartum hemorrhage, a diagnosis that gives me a headache.]
[There is a wall next to you, so go ahead and bang your head against it. You’ll feel better afterward.]
[Honestly, it isn’t really difficult. The only reason you feel that this case is tricky is that your hospital doesn’t have interventional radiology, leaving hysterectomy as your only option. In that case, communicating it to family members will require extreme skill. My heartfelt gratitude to all my colleagues working in the interventional radiology department. Salute.]
[Ninety percent of hospitals don’t have interventional radiology, alright?! Be careful, your boastful statement might bring you misfortune.]
Four to five comments floated past the screen, and in that time, the microcatheter was already in position. Then, Zheng Ren started creating angiographic images.
The patient had a malformed uterine artery with a branch running across the uterus, the reason for her heavy postpartum hemorrhage.
Perhaps the surgeons at the township hospital in Laohugang had failed to notice this mutated blood vessel.