------Program code: NS-080916-02507 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
09-16-2008 10:52
In 1997, a doctor at Peking University’s Renmin Hospital performed the first minimally invasive endoscopic surgery in China. The doctor’s name was Wang Yongguang.
 |
By the early 1990s in the United States, 80% of Cholecystectomy operations had been replaced by minimally invasive surgery, which had the advantages of requiring only a small incision and reduced the recovery period. But in China at the time, the traditional method of operating without resecting the cholecyst was still in use. Wang Yongguang’s pioneering work in endoscopic surgery would lead to the technique being widely adopted in China.
 |
As early as the fourth century B.C., Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was urging doctors that simplicity was a virtue in their profession. This is the guiding principle in minimally invasive surgery. In March 1987, French doctor P. Mouret successfully carried out the first minimally invasive operation in the world. His cholecyst-resecting launched a medical revolution.
Wang Yongguang went to work at Peking University’s Renmin Hospital in 1997, having returned to China at the invitation of the State Education Commission. He had been in Germany, studying for his medical PhD at Hamburg University. However, back in China, he found himself in an embarrassing situation.
Wang Yongguang had originally studied surgery. But after 6 years spent developing endoscopic techniques in Germany, he was out of practice in the operating theatre. So he couldn’t work for the surgery department. Minimally invasive endoscopic operations were employed chiefly in the treatment of alimentary tract disorders, which fell into the responsibilities of the pharmacology department. But Wang Yongguang, with his surgical background, wasn’t considered suitable for the pharmacology department.
So, what could he do? What was the future for a doctor, outside both surgery and pharmacology?
Wang Yonggang’s bold solution was to establish endoscopic surgery as an independent branch of medicine. But in China in the 1990s, there wasn’t a single minimally invasive surgery department; the technique was in its very early stages and was still to be accepted by most people. Would the hospital management accept his plan?
So Wang Yonggang was surprised and delighted when, after discussing the matter with the hospital director, he was promised 2 million Yuan in funding. Before long, in a small, shabby room, the first independent endoscopic surgery department in China was established.
But few patients visited the department. Even other physicians and surgeons were suspicious of the young man who had just returned from abroad, and his new minimally invasive technique.
In early 1998, Wang Yongguang developed two new medical appliances specially designed for minimally invasive operations, which won national patents. Even so, there was no increase in the number of patients coming for minimally invasive surgery.
On April the 2nd, 1999, a premature baby weighing just 1.4-kilograms was brought to Renmin Hospital. The baby, no bigger than the palms of two adults, was half the size of a normal baby. His skin was dark red, his excrement was black and he kept vomiting dark blood.
The baby had been diagnosed with gastrointestinal hemorrhaging, a common complaint among newborn babies. Slight gastrointestinal hemorrhaging could be cured by cutting the feed. But in this baby’s case, neither withholding food nor drip-feeding, had worked. And all the time, his blood platelet count was decreasing.
Conventional drug treatments wouldn’t help. What could be done?
But while the other doctors were preparing to give up, Wang Yongguang suggested using a minimally invasive procedure.
Could a minimally invasive operation be successful?
Using an endoscope to treat gastrointestinal hemorrhaging in babies had already been developed in hospitals overseas. However, all the babies had been over 6 months old. Never before, anywhere in the world, had such a low-weight infant been successfully treated.
And so Wang Yongguang organized a team of doctors to discuss the baby’s treatment.
Having assessed the baby’s condition, Wang Guangyong drew up three possible plans. First was to locate the source of the bleeding with the endoscope, and then stem the blood flow with a laser. If that didn’t work, they could use high frequency electricity. If neither worked, an external injection would have to be tried.
Editor:Yang
