TAIPEI, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen operations each lasting more than eight hours, with four-hour sleep at most everyday, was the timetable of 68-year-old Taiwan surgeon Chen Chao-long and his colleagues, when they conducted liver transplant operations for six children in four days in Beijing last year.
Now serving as the superintendent emeritus at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chen is well known for conducting Asia's first liver transplant surgery in 1984, and has since been dubbed as "the father of liver transplants in Asia."
In 2007, as recognition of his extraordinary work, Chen was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
"Surgeries demand hard work, but when you see patients, once on the verge of death, recover under your treatment, and reckon they will return and contribute to the society again, you feel the utmost joy and fulfillment," Chen said.
CROSS-STRAIT RESCUES
In November 2001, Chen received an emergency call from the Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, asking for medical assistance for a 12-year-old girl who suffered from congenital hepatic fibrosis and was in urgent need of a liver transplant.
"The political situation across the Taiwan Strait then was not at a good time, and even among our peers there were doubt about exchanges with the mainland. Also, the airplane tickets for our 14-strong team would cost a fair amount of money," Chen said.
However, thanks to the support from Wang Yung-ching, founder of Chang Gung Medical Foundation and Formosa Plastics Group, Chen and his team finally made the journey to Beijing.
With help from Chen and his team, the operation turned out to be a huge success, and was praised as the largest medical emergency cooperation across the Strait, and marked the beginning of Chen's continuous cooperation with his mainland counterparts.
In 2002, Chen, with his mainland peers, conducted a successful operation on a girl from Shandong Province named Dong Guonyu, who was caught by the so-called "Wilson's disease." She received part of her mother's liver in a tough operation, which took 50 medical staff from across the Strait 14 hours to finish.
Four years later, Dong and her parents visited Chen in Taiwan to express their gratitude. Now she is the mother of a 10-year-old child in a happy family.
In Chen's office, there is a picture drawn by one of his little patients, Liu Mingrui -- a pair of hands tending to a heart, with words of "in love we become stronger" on the canvas. Liu received a liver transplant surgery led by Chen in 2006, when he was only nine months old.
"When I was making a speech in 2014 in Shanghai, Liu came all the way to give me the picture. Now he is an excellent student and a runner in school," Chen said.
SOWING SEEDS OF MEDICAL SKILLS
The diameter of the hepatic artery is as thin as 1.5 to 2 mm, which makes liver transplant operations very complex and highly risky. However, Chen is famous for his delicate, precise skills with an extraordinary control of bleeding.
"Maybe chopsticks give our hands a better flexibility training than knives and forks," Chen joked.
Invited by Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences, Chen made his first journey to the mainland in 1995. Since then, he has visited the mainland over 100 times to help with liver transplant operations and train doctors in hospitals, including those in remote areas.
"I believe that medical science is a discipline of saving lives rather than a property kept to oneself," he said.
In 2006, Chen visited Renji Hospital at Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and showcased a model operation there, which was recorded by cameras as a valuable reference. With years of meticulous learning and practice, surgeons at the hospital accomplished 803 successful liver transplant operations last year.
For many mainland doctors, Chen is not only a treasure chest of skills to draw from, but also a bridge of medical exchange and friendship from the other side of the Strait.
"HELP OUR ANCESTRAL HOME"
"Mr. Wang Yung-ching always told me that as long as we had the capability, we should try our best to help our ancestral home. His idea deeply touched me," Chen said.
Now on the mainland, Chen is assisting the Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital with upgrading their medical skills and building another liver transplant center.
He also helps mainland doctors receive training at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and mainland patients to receive treatment there.
Chen Zheng, an anesthetist from Hunan Children's Hospital who is studying at the hospital, said Chen has been very supportive and he was treated like he has always been a part of Chen's team.
So far 24 mainland patients have received liver transplant operations, and over 300 doctors from the mainland and across the world engaged in advanced studies at the hospital, said Wang Chih-chi, current superintendent at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and a core member of Chen's team.
"One doctor's capability is limited, but passing on one's medical skills to more might save a life on the other side of the world," Wang said.
At the age when most people retire, Chen still works in the field with a tight schedule: every Monday and Friday he works on outpatient medical care, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on surgeries, and every weekend on academic exchanges.
In the past two years, Chen also traveled to Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province to help establish medical centers and supervise complicated surgical treatments.
"Until now, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital has given over 1,700 liver transplant operations on patients who had been in critical condition. These heart-warming and powerful stories make me realize the depth and greatness of humanity," Chen said.
