271 Both Humans and Dogs Have Their Own Appeal (1/2)

Even though Ling Ran had never performed a tracheotomy on a human being, he had done it on dogs before.

In medical school, animal experiments were the main channel for students to learn surgical maneuvers. In Yun Hua Medical University, dogs were used by students to practice tracheotomy.

The anesthetist said, ”Propofol's usually used on pets. It was created by ICI Chemist, Roger James. But it has to be used together with another drug… It's called mido something.”

”Midazolam.” An anesthetist who had a dog at home jogged over. He petted the dog's head and said, ”It's a combination of sodium chloride, edetate disodium, benzyl alcohol, and sodium hydroxide. I'll concoct it. Can you examine the dog or something first? Give it oxygen…”

The dog-owning anesthetist went to the medication cabinet and began to look for the ingredients.

Ling Ran hemmed in acknowledgement and put his stethoscope on. He first performed auscultation, then percussion. Next, he checked the dog's lung function before he calculated its breathing rate. Even though he was performing a physical examination on a dog, he did it the same way he would on humans. Ling Ran did not know if there was any method of physical examination specifically designed for dogs, but under those circumstances, the physical examination for humans would have to do.

”Forteen breaths per minute.” After Ling Ran calculated the dog's number of breaths, he asked, at a loss, ”What is a dog's breathing rate supposed to be?”

A nurse looked it up on Baidu and said, ”Ten to thirty breaths per minute.”

”Then, what does fourteen breaths mean?” Ling Ran was still at a loss.

Doctor Zhou sauntered over with his hands clasped behind his back. He suddenly had the urge to laugh. He said, ”This is the kind of question a medical intern like you is supposed to ask.”

The medical staff around them could not help but laugh.

At that moment, the dog-owning anesthetist returned. After he heard the dog's indices from Ling Ran, he raised the syringe in his hand and said, ”I'll perform an intramuscular injection.”

After he said that, he moved next to the Labrador and lowered his head to look at its wound. He then injected the anesthetics.

Chestnut, the police dog twitched for a moment, but it no longer had enough strength to struggle.

Soon, the police dog's limbs relaxed, and its breaths also became softer.

”Get the dog's skin ready. If you can, secure the dog's limbs.” The dog-owning anesthetist started to order everyone around as he looked at his phone.

The nurse muttered as she stared at the large dog, which was more than forty pounds, with a troubled expression. ”Get the dog's skin ready?”

”Yes, get the dog's skin ready. Shave all its fur around its neck. Hurry up, it's already having difficulty breathing,” the anesthetist urged the nurse.

”Were you a veterinarian before this?” Doctor Zhou asked the dog-owning anesthetist.

”My friend's a veterinarian.” The dog-owning anesthetist had on a serious expression. He glanced at the image on his phone again, and was obviously conducting an on-the-spot teaching session for the group.

All the young doctors and nurses who were carrying out their tasks paused for a moment, but they resumed their work soon after.

What else could they do? It was already a fortunate thing to have someone provide guidance to them.

When faced with dire circumstances, all surgeons needed guidance.

Most doctors did not care about whether a dog lived or died. All doctors had caused the death of a few dogs when they were medical students. However, the current situation was different because the dog involved was a police dog, and it was a police dog who had saved human lives. The doctors were willing to put in an hour or two of effort to save it.

”It's ready.”

By the time the nurse got the dog's skin ready, the dog was already having serious difficulty in breathing.

Ling Ran carefully chose a scalpel and made a vertical incision along the dog's bare neck. He then put down the scalpel and performed a blunt dissection on the dog's muscular layer to expose the dog's trachea.

After making a horizontal incision on the dog's trachea, Ling Ran inserted the tube accurately and connected it to the oxygen tank. Chestnut's breathing immediately became a lot smoother.

Throughout the entire process, Ling Ran did not explicitly try to be quick.

Even though situations where the patients had difficulty breathing and almost suffocated were very urgent matters, as long as it was not urgent to the point that they could not breath at all, emergency tracheotomy was not necessary.

Tracheotomies always came with sequelae, and the sequelae of an emergency tracheotomy was even more troublesome. Hence, as long as the patient could still endure the difficulties in breathing, an ordinary tracheotomy instead of an emergency one could alleviate the symptoms for a while.

Of course, there should not be too long of a delay.

Doctor Zhou watched Ling Ran from the side with his hands clasped behind his back.

Even though it looked as if he was doing nothing, he was actually standing beside Ling Ran to prevent Ling Ran from making a mistake.

In the Emergency Department, a tracheotomy was considered an extremely minor surgery. One just had to make an incision, which spanned across four tissue layers, at the area above the trachea and make a small incision on the trachea between two cervical cartilages before one inserted the oxygen tube. The damage was considered very small, and it was not a dangerous procedure either.

Nonetheless, it was obvious that there were often medical interns who made mistakes when they performed such surgery.

Just imagine the things that happened during handicraft lessons for school children, or how some adults acted when assembling furniture at home. Those were the types of mistakes that medical interns could make.

There were at least standardized models for handicraft and furniture. Besides, the sizes of the parts were uniform, the steps were obvious, and they came with manuals. They were designed in a way where they could be easily assembled. Even so, those assembling something for the first time would still do so in an extremely unskilled manner. It would not even be a joke if a cardiothoracic surgeon was unable to assemble his own furniture well.

This showed just how important practice and experience were.

It was still all right for medical interns and housemen to practice procedures such as injections on patients. However, they may make unretractable mistakes while they carry out procedures such as tracheotomies and cardiopulmonary resuscitations if they did a step wrongly throughout the entire procedure. Medical interns and housemen would need to have practiced a lot in private to perform such procedures, and they needed an opportune moment for them to practice their skills.

The other medical staff only allowed Ling Ran to carry out the tracheotomy because the patient was a dog.