|
- 现金
- 62111 元
- 精华
- 26
- 帖子
- 30437
- 注册时间
- 2009-10-5
- 最后登录
- 2022-12-28
|
Age is no deterrent in dream to save lives By Yao Minji (Shanghai Daily) 08:09, September 17, 2013
Email|Print|Comments  [url=http://twitter.com/home?status=Age%20is%20no%20deterrent%20in%20dream%20to%20save%20lives%20http://english.people.com.cn/90782/8402197.html]twitter[/url]  facebook  [url=http://v.t.sina.com.cn/share/share.php?title=Age%20is%20no%20deterrent%20in%20dream%20to%20save%20lives%20http://english.people.com.cn/90782/8402197.html]Sina Microblog[/url]  [url=http://www.reddit.com/login?dest=%2Fsubmit%3Furl%3Dhttp://english.people.com.cn/907 ... 20to%20save%20lives]reddit[/url] 
| Wu Mengchao, 91 (Shanghai Daily) |
At age eight, Wu Mengchao first took a knife in his hands. Rising at 2am every day, he went to work in the rubber plantations of eastern Malaysia to tap sap from the trees and help support his poor family, who had emigrated from China’s Fujian Province.
Today, the 91-year-old is among China’s most renowned doctors in the field of liver cancer treatment and research.
He is the founder of the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, the first and largest hospital of its kind in China. In 2005, Wu was honored as a recipient of the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award, the nation’s highest scientific prize, and even had an asteroid named after him.
“After I received that prize from (then) President Hu Jintao, many people told me I could just retire and rest,” Wu says. “But how could I rest? My dream is to conquer liver cancer. We have achieved a lot, but there is still a long way to go. How could I retire?”
Liver cancer is the No. 2 cancer killer in China, with more than half of all new patients in the world Chinese.
“Liver cancer is very serious, but it is also preventable and treatable,” Wu says. “Do not eat food that has gone bad. Do not drink polluted water. Breathe in fresh air. Get exercise and regular physical check-ups.”
Wu donated his 5-million-yuan (US$816,927) award prize to assisting younger colleagues. He also wrote a letter to then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, stressing the importance of creating a liver cancer research center.
“With a scalpel, I can save only one patient at a time,” he says. “But with research, we can save thousands of lives.”
Construction of a new cancer research center is almost complete, and the Shanghai facility is scheduled to open next year. Alongside will be a new hospital with expanded bed numbers.
Wu holds up his right hand. The tip of the index finger is distorted, pointing toward the thumb. It is the result of concentrated use of a knife in the rubber plantations and a scalpel in the operating theater over so many decades. He picks up a pen and demonstrates how he has circumvented the deformity.
“See? My hand shakes if I hold the pen in the normal way,” he says. “So I invented my own way of holding a scalpel.”
He harks back to the grueling work on rubber plantations.
“There is a water line inside the rubber tree,” he says. “It’s like the bloodline of human bodies. It’s the nutrition line for the tree, and you have to be super careful not to damage that line.”
Wu left Malaysia in 1940. He and six classmates, fired up with patriotic zeal, made their way to the city of Kunming in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province. Their plan was to journey north to Yan’an in Shaanxi Province and join the Red Army in the battle against invading Japanese troops. But the routes to Yan’an were blocked by warfare.
“Since it was not possible for me to become a soldier, I decided to continue my education,” Wu says. “I wanted to become a doctor.”
Fortunately for Wu, many top Chinese universities relocated to Kunming during the war to keep out of harm’s way. Wu met his wife during studies there, and both passed the entrance exam for Shanghai Tongji University’s medical school.
In the 1950s, Wu was one of the first Chinese surgeons to operate on patients with liver cancer. At the time, such operations were considered dangerous because blood vessels are highly concentrated in the liver and hemorrhaging was a high risk.
The standard procedure was to soak patients in ice water to lower the temperature of the liver and inhibit bleeding.
The method greatly harmed the patients’ health, even when the operation was successful. Wu devised a system of putting stents on major vessels to control blood flow. The procedure is still used today.
He estimates he has performed about 14,000 operations, including more than 9,300 related to liver cancer. His success rate is 98.5 percent, with nearly 30 percent of the patients living for 10 years or more after surgery.
Factory worker Jiang Shenghe, who was treated by Wu in 1966 for five tumors in his liver, lived for 33 years after the surgery. Then tumors reappeared. Wu operated on him again, and Jiang thinks it is a miracle that he is still alive and healthy.
Wu laid extensive groundwork for research and development in cancer treatment, including translating some of the first medical textbooks into Chinese in the 1950s. He has helped train many of the top specialists now working in the field.
Despite his age, Wu still participates in more than 200 operations a year and holds office hours for patients every Tuesday.
In the late 1980s, when he was promoted to a management position, Wu stopped office hours because he was overwhelmed with work. Many patients, in desperation, waited for hours at the hospital gate, hoping to grab the chance to talk to him. No matter how tired he was, he always made time for them and later resumed office hours.
Wu says he has always tried to put himself in patients’ shoes and save them money when possible.
“Over-treatment is a big problem today,” he says. “Many doctors tend to prescribe liver transplants when they aren’t always the best step for a particular patient. It is very important to carefully examine the options and select the most appropriate treatment.”
In the early years, Wu often slept in the ward of patients who had just been wheeled out of surgery to monitor their conditions. He later explored the use of traditional Chinese medicine in post-operative treatment and opened a department in his hospital combining Western and Eastern methods.
“Treatment doesn’t stop in the surgery theater,” he says. “Post-op care is also very important.”
The interview with Wu was delayed by the sudden appearance of the son of a cancer sufferer from the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, who pleaded for “the godly doctor” to look at his father’s medical records.
Wu agreed to see the man.
“It happens all the time,” his secretary said. “I’m sorry, but do you mind waiting a bit?”
Wu later said a review of the father’s medical records suggested the cancer could be treated if the patient were transferred to Shanghai. The son left with an expression of great relief on his face.
“I did two operations this morning, three hours each and both very successful,” Wu says. “If a person can devote his life to what he wants to do, that’s rewarding. I would be quite happy if I died in the surgery room rather than on a deathbed.”
|
|
发表于 2013-9-24 20:57
