During a minor surgery, the doctor actually asked for a genetic test!

Dr. Liu, 30, became the main force of the department right after graduation. The main force here does not mean that he is very skilled, but that he is the main force in work. If you think about it, this is normal. Everyone has been there. Young doctors need to grow up in clinical practice.

To be honest, his level is not as young as that of young doctors. Several senior doctors have been relying on their old knowledge and have not mastered new knowledge as well as him. However, age limits everyone's imagination of him. When they see that he is in his 30s, they feel that he does not have enough experience.

However, with the rapid development of medicine today, we can no longer look at things with the old perspective. Just a few days ago, an incident completely made everyone look at him with new eyes.

In the general surgery department, a patient with appendicitis was about to undergo surgery. Since young doctors needed to start their training with relatively low-risk small surgeries, the director arranged for him to be responsible for the anesthesia of this appendicitis surgery.

Currently, many hospitals perform appendectomy surgery under laparoscopy. The fundamental reason is that laparoscopy leaves almost no obvious scars on the abdomen and is the main choice for many patients.

Since laparoscopy is involved, it basically needs to be performed under general anesthesia. Some people say, can't it be done without general anesthesia? In fact, general anesthesia is mainly considered for the comfort of the patient. The compression of the patient's diaphragm by pneumoperitoneum is difficult for many people to adapt to. For some people with poor lung function, the respiratory restriction caused by pneumoperitoneum will greatly reduce the normal ventilation function of the lungs. In severe cases, there may also be a risk of related hypoxia.

Seeing that it was a general anesthesia surgery, he immediately perked up. You know, it was only this year that he started to perform general anesthesia independently. During the preoperative visit, he introduced the anesthesia process, relevant precautions and anesthesia risks to the patient.

At this point, the patient's face was almost green with anger. If he wasn't seeking medical treatment, he would have thrown his things and walked away. The patient was thinking, could this doctor have some other agenda? It's just a minor operation, why is he talking so scary?

In fact, Dr. Liu did not exaggerate, he just did not make adjustments. It is not okay not to mention the risks, but low-risk surgeries can be briefly introduced. It is really unnerving to repeatedly explain the risks in detail like he did.

Halfway through the explanation, the patient almost wanted to close his ears because the professional medical knowledge was too difficult to understand. He couldn't close his ears, so he simply squinted his eyes.

At this time, Dr. Liu didn't care about all this and continued with his responsible instructions.

Suddenly, when Dr. Liu talked about the complications of malignant hyperthermia, he stopped. Because a malignant hyperthermia rescue incident happened in a certain place a few days ago. So he raised his voice and said: Wake up, I want to ask you a question: Has any of your immediate family members ever had a rescue during surgery?

When asked this question, he was immediately surprised and said: How do you know?

Dr. Liu smiled and said: I don’t know, I know I asked this question.

Afterwards, the patient told Dr. Liu everything about his father’s experience of being rescued in the operating room.

According to Dr. Liu's judgment, since such a severe high fever occurred during the operation, it is very likely malignant hyperthermia.

A large number of studies have shown that malignant hyperthermia is a genetic disease. This means that if a direct relative has a history of malignant hyperthermia, the patient may develop such life-threatening complications. Although some hospitals are now equipped to provide treatment, prevention is still the most important thing.

Since it is a genetic disease, genetic testing will definitely detect it. Thinking of this, Dr. Liu slapped his thigh and said: Yes, let's do genetic testing!

The word "genetic testing" blurted out immediately confused the patient: This can't be a mistake, such a small operation, but they asked me to do genetic testing!

Seeing the patient's stunned expression, Dr. Liu also felt that he needed to explain more. So, he slowly explained: This is a genetic disease with defective receptor expression. Clinically, it is characterized by rapid onset of muscle rigidity, high fever, and elevated muscle enzymes after exposure to inducing drugs. Because skeletal muscle is in a state of continuous tonic contraction, it consumes a lot of energy, resulting in a continuous and rapid increase in body temperature. If there is no specific therapeutic drug dantrolene, and general clinical cooling measures are difficult to control the malignant increase in body temperature, it will eventually lead to a life-threatening outcome for the patient. Inhaled anesthetics and muscle relaxants in anesthesia may lead to this complication.

After hearing this explanation, the patient began to take it seriously and murmured: Can we do such a test here?

At this point, Dr. Liu realized that not all hospitals can perform this test. In fact, many provincial hospitals do not have such medical capabilities.

In the end, the surgeon changed the surgical procedure and chose to perform the operation under spinal anesthesia.