Chapter 2570: Calm Response

Doctor Yao could only look for evidence from the interns now, insisting, "Tell me, what did you do to the patient? Didn’t I see you peel off the incision film to perform internal cardiac compressions? Did you change your gloves?" Maybe these interns concocted false alarms during the rescue.

Dai Nanhui was the first to reject such blame, nearly exploding, and shouted, "We ran over from next door to save the patient upon hearing the alarm."

"Cool and calm," two words burst out of Immortal Brother Cao Zhao’s mouth.

This was to make everyone think clearly. Including his own students, and Doctor Yao.

No matter what, priority as doctors is understanding what happened to the patient, whether there is a threat to the patient’s life. Responsibility can be discussed later.

Agreeing with Teacher’s words, Xie Wanying’s calm voice said, "I removed the incision protective film to confirm whether the pacemaker lead’s electrode was connected to the patient’s epicardium and hadn’t fallen off."

Pacemaker?

Pacemaker, maybe nowadays with more people undergoing interventional surgery, they only associate pacemakers with interventional procedures. However, when cardiac pacemakers were first used, they were installed using traditional surgical procedures, not interventional ones.

To be specific, installing a pacemaker through interventional surgery involves sending the lead’s electrode inside the heart chamber via peripheral vein, requiring no chest opening, thus reducing the patient’s pain and saving the trouble of surgical intervention; it’s widely welcomed clinically.

Installing a pacemaker through surgical procedures requires the doctor to open the chest cavity, the pericardium, and attach the electrode to the heart’s epicardium, which isn’t appreciated by the patients.

Intervention has many advantages, surgical installation is painful and seems outdated, possibly being replaced by advanced interventional methods; why resort to surgical installation?

Not like that. Clinically, the convenient method is used, whichever suits the patient’s treatment needs. Today, in pediatrics, surgically installing pacemakers remains the first choice for children under five due to pediatric characteristics: children grow. You need to leave longer leads to accommodate a child’s growth. Too long leads can’t be housed in the heart or peripheral vessels through interventional methods. Some children have heart deformities making electrode installation via interventional methods hard, so surgical installation is used. Active children, surgical methods unlike interventional procedures require fixation in regions of thin subcutaneous fat like the front chest, whereas fixing elsewhere with thicker subcutaneous fat is better.

Similarly, since Xiaohui underwent chest surgery today, if a pacemaker installation is required, why opt for interventional methods, install the electrode on the epicardium during the open chest surgery for convenience.

Speaking of this, why does Xiaohui need a pacemaker? She doesn’t have a condition requiring pacemaker treatment, right?

Clinically using pacemakers, a large category aims for therapeutic purposes, most patients opting for interventional surgery, using permanent pacemakers. Another category of pacemaker application is temporary pacemakers used in rescue and as backup, like last time Teacher Lu’s rescue.

Similar to Xiaohui, the surgeon prepared a pacemaker for her during surgery due to potential contingencies like Teacher Lu’s situation. Post-heart surgery patients often have unstable circulation. The heart might suddenly arrest during or after surgery, installing a pacemaker allows the pacemaker to save the patient’s life in emergencies when the doctor can’t reach the scene in time.