Chapter 2505: Empathy

Cao Zhao came to consult his younger brother, quietly listening to him speak first.

Cao Yong understood what his second brother was thinking.

Perhaps Cao Zhao had a patient who needed an organ transplant; otherwise, he wouldn’t suddenly come to ask about the brain death issue. Doctors generally dislike seeing their patients die. From this perspective, Cao Zhao’s anxiety over his patient and his desire to keep Zhu Xing alive is a very normal psychological response.

Similarly, Cao Yong hoped that the child Xiao Yu could survive since it was the child he treated on-site and advocated sending to Fang Ze to see if the child could be saved.

Regarding academic issues, communication between doctors must be based on facts and must not be influenced by emotions. Cao Yong righteously told his brother, "You know the international guidelines for organ transplantation. Setting aside the diagnostic standards, the attending physician of the organ transplant patient, that is, the attending physician of the recipient, must take the initiative to recuse themselves from the brain death determination of the organ donor."

"I know this," Cao Zhao said.

Not everyone can accept the concept of brain death, and some rumors of illegal organ trade internationally make this a sensitive issue in society. The guideline mentioned by his brother aims to avoid triggering public sensitivity.

If he had to ask, he couldn’t ask Doctor Fang Ze. If the media found out and exposed that he had been in contact with the attending physician of the child patient at Fang Ze, the consequences would be dire, causing an uproar. Public opinion would be intense, with suspicions that he colluded with Doctor Fang Ze to declare the child brain-dead just to donate organs becoming an unquestionable reality.

Since that’s the case, he could only ask his brother about it.

As Zhu Xing’s attending physician, anxiety was inevitable as the window of opportunity for the transplant was slipping away day by day. Student Xie’s comforting example of a heart assist device was merely words of comfort.

Heart assist devices primarily do not refer to ECMO, which is a modified heart-lung machine. Generally, heart assist devices refer to ventricular assist, including Left Ventricle assist, right ventricle assist, bi-ventricular assist, and total artificial heart. Currently, most research is focused on adult applications. More mature pediatric ventricular assist is in clinical trial stages abroad, so how could it possibly be approved domestically for a pediatric patient?

If nothing works, and they want to use ECMO, Shou’er doesn’t have one; they only have an operating room heart-lung machine. That day, Student Wei thought the instrument on the bedside of the neighboring child was impressive when it was actually because Student Wei had never interned in cardiology or cardiac surgery departments and didn’t know it was an IABP. Someone like Student Xie, who had seen and participated in IABP surgery before, was not surprised at all.

Pediatric use of IABP is mostly in cases of low cardiac output post congenital heart disease surgery, also in a few cases of myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, and for patients awaiting heart transplantation. Why did Student Xie emphasize heart assist devices but not mention the IABP that day? This is because we have previously understood the principle of IABP, which cannot actively assist the heart and heavily relies on the patient’s heart contraction. Zhu Xing suffers from severe cardiomyopathy with significant issues in heart contraction capacity, so the effect that IABP could achieve is quite limited.

From the above analysis, it’s clear that if this child’s heart contraction deteriorates completely, doctors might face a situation of being utterly powerless.