Famous Among Top Surgeons in the 90s
Chapter 1140: [1140] Postoperative Issues

The head nurse, Yao Jie, opened the door for them and said, "Teacher Lu just fell asleep."

"How is the patient feeling now?" Tao Zhijie asked.

"If you want to see the medical records, you need to go to the doctor’s office," Yao Jie told them.

They planned to review the medical records, but they decided to evaluate the patient’s condition firsthand before doing so.

The trio walked into the room and saw Zhang Shuping dozing off on the nursing bed in the corner. As a family member worried about his grandmother’s postoperative condition, he naturally seemed exhausted from watching over her day and night for several days.

Besides Zhang Shuping, there was a man sitting alone on a chair with armrests by the patient’s bed, with his arms crossed in front of his chest, leaning slightly to one side, lounging as if he were sitting on a beach chair, lazily basking in the sun. However, his half-closed grey eyes betrayed the simmering concerns hidden within. His sharp gaze moved back and forth across the electrocardiogram curves displayed on the bedside heart monitor.

It was Uncle Zhang, Zhang Huayao. As always, Boss was wearing his white coat loosely, without fastening the buttons.

Yao Jie was quite afraid of this man, and it could be said that people throughout the hospital felt the same. Yao Jie had classmates working at Guoxie Hospital, who told her that even the Guoxie Emergency Department staff were very afraid of Director Zhang. They had even given this man a nickname: King Yama Zhang.

The fear wasn’t about him losing his temper; it was that his words could hit like a hammer, finalizing matters, humiliating someone to death. Doctors and nurses have to be professional, and they most dread a professional Boss exposing their shortcomings.

"Who’s there?" Zhang Huayao asked in a languid voice, seemingly too lazy even to turn his head to see who it was.

Hearing the noise, Zhang Shuping opened his eyes slightly. Seeing his uncle there, he comfortably closed them again to continue sleeping.

"Doctor Zhang," Tao Zhijie approached the bed with two young doctors, hands in the pockets of his white coat, observing the values on the heart monitor just as cautiously.

Xie Wanying and Song Xueling looked over at Teacher Lu lying asleep in the bed.

The patient’s complexion was average, with an oxygen mask on his face, and it was evident that his breathing was not smooth.

The heart monitor occasionally emitted the beeping sound of an alarm, hinting that the heart and lung functions might have been affected by the surgery.

Perhaps due to this, a trace of displeasure seemed to flicker in Zhang Huayao’s eyes.

His adoptive mother was stubborn, adamantly refusing to have the surgery at his workplace, Guo Zhi Hospital, and also unwilling to let him be the Chief Surgeon. He had no choice but to stand by in the operating room of Guoxie Hospital and watch.

It turned out that like any minimally invasive surgery, the problem was that it became difficult to expectorate sputum. If it was not the reason for the surgery, it was typically because of the anesthesia.

For thoracoscopic lung surgery, anesthesia is used to collapse one side of the lungs to provide space for the surgical instruments, allowing the insertion of the thoracoscope to perform the surgery. The collapsed lung would accumulate a lot of tracheal secretions during surgery, commonly known as phlegm. If these secretions continue to accumulate in the lungs, they would inevitably lead to a severe lung infection, so it is essential to encourage the patient to cough up sputum after surgery.

Older patients generally have poorer constitutions, more postoperative complications, and a stronger sense of pain compared to younger individuals, with a higher chance that the collapsed lung will not re-expand. These are all situations that the surgeons could anticipate before the operation.

His adoptive mother, being medically educated herself, was well aware of these issues and was full of confidence, believing that she could overcome the pain and expectorate the phlegm on her own.