Let’s remember Academician Wu Mengchao today. Thank you for coming! On the third anniversary, great medicine helps the people
On May 22, 2021, 99-year-old Academician Wu Mengchao passed away. In those days, people's grief echoed along the Huangpu River through the drizzle.
Today, it has been three years since Wu Mengchao left us. In Qingpu Fushou Garden, the bronze statues of him and his lover Wu Peiyu stand quietly. The bronze statue is surrounded by blue and white balloons, and bouquets of flowers are placed below. Beside the flowers is a mold of Mr. Wu's right hand. The joints of the index finger and ring finger of this hand are different from ordinary people, which are the traces of his years of fighting side by side with scalpels.
Early in the morning, hundreds of doctors and nurses from the Third Affiliated Hospital of the Naval Medical University came here to carry out memorial activities. In front of the praying tree, everyone wrote their thoughts about Wu Mengchao on the balloons and released them together. Several hospital experts, professors and medical staff told their stories with Wu Mengchao at the scene and "reported" on their achievements.
"Just after the Spring Festival holiday in 2017, I accompanied Mr. Wu to see a clinic. There was a little girl over three years old who was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer with multiple lung metastases. She had been seen outside for more than half a year, but her condition kept progressing. The little girl should be very cute. , with big eyes, listened to her mother's words, and sat obediently on the stool in the consulting room. Mr. Wu invited the whole hospital for a consultation and gave her the best treatment plan. He also said to her mother, "There are really many drugs that can be used now." "It's too little. If there is a new drug, she will be the first to use it." Her mother was very grateful. Then Mr. Wu said to us, "It seems that the research and development of liver cancer drugs still have to keep up with the speed of surgery." , Sun Juxian, the attending physician of the Sixth Department of Hepatic Surgery at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University, recalled this incident.
Sun Juxian "reported" to Mr. Wu in front of his tomb. He always kept these words in mind, and his research direction changed to comprehensive treatment of liver cancer with lung metastasis. Last year, China's unique intravenous chemotherapy regimen was finally successfully improved, and both first- and second-line treatments for advanced liver cancer combined with lung metastasis were successful. Articles resulting from this project were published in SCI journals with an impact factor of 39, and a number of patents were applied for and successfully converted. He said: "Although we did not save that little girl, we can now save thousands of children and patients like her."
Liver cancer is Wu Mengchao's "big worry". He once said that his lifelong wish is "that there will be no more liver cancer in the world" and he has fought for this all his life. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Wu Mengchao's birth, Wu Ling showed reporters his diary. A diary records a year. Each diary is solid and every line is neatly written. It is full of his sincerity to the party and the army, and his love for the hospital and the people.
With more than 70 years of medical practice, Wu Mengchao has promoted Chinese liver disease medicine from scratch to perfection. He devoted his life to performing more than 16,000 surgeries and treating more than 20,000 patients. On his 90th birthday, the "Father of Chinese Liver Surgery" still performed two operations himself; at the age of 97, he also completed a difficult operation. He said: "Even if I fall on the operating table one day, it will be my greatest happiness."
The cemetery was quiet and solemn. At the memorial event, Mr. Wu's family members gently wiped the bronze statue and tombstone of Mr. Wu with silk cloth. In the eyes of her daughter Wu Ling, her father will never stop for the rest of his life. Continuous learning and continuous improvement have been his lifelong habits. When he was in his 80s, his family thought it was time for him to rest, but he refused and was still thinking about how to realize the fourth rapid development of the hospital. He traveled to many places in Shanghai. When the new hospital was finally completed in Jiading in 2015, he was already over 90 years old. He was still busy with the construction of the new hospital, the opening of the science center, and talent recruitment.
Wu Ling said: "My father has been very serious all his life. He writes diaries like this, lives like this, and works even more like this. He remembers clearly the condition of the patient, where each incision was made, and even the family situation. He remembers it clearly. They always say that to be a doctor, you should serve the people wholeheartedly. I have retired, but my father has not yet retired. Seeing that he is still working conscientiously at his age, we are very touched. "
On March 15, 2019, Wu Mengchao got up at around 9 o'clock as usual, and had an operation to remove a 3 cm tumor in the middle liver lobe in the afternoon. In the upper right corner of that day's diary, he marked "Operation Unit" and circled it with red and black pens. He may not have realized at that time that this operation would be his last in his 76 years of medical practice. Under the shadowless lamp, he was a thin man buried among a group of tall assistants. He stood firmly on the operating table, his hands still flexible and strong. After 40 minutes, the tumor was successfully removed. With the help of the nurse, he walked out of the operating room, his steps slightly staggering. At this time, he was 97 years old.
As he got older, the medical staff would always put a chair behind him during every operation so that he could take a rest when he was tired, but he never sat on it before the operation was over. Once after the operation, he sat silently on the chair and sighed: "My strength is getting less and less, I am really tired." The nurse advised him to do less when he was tired. He said: "No matter how tired you are, you have to do it! Look at this patient, he is only 20 years old and has just studied in college for one year."
The "Moving China" award speech described Wu Mengchao this way: With a knife in his hand and a fire in his heart, he was a tireless old horse, carrying patients across the river one by one. The younger generations have always kept his teachings in mind: "There is no lack of experts or authority in the world. What is lacking is a 'person' - a person who is willing to give of himself. When you help others, please remember that medicine is sometimes Exhaustive, only inexhaustible love can illuminate a suffering soul."
"Mr. Wu has always asked us not only to do well in clinical practice, but also to be able to speak and write in scientific research, to have the courage to challenge medical problems, and to have the courage to innovate and practice. We have no way to repay Mr. Wu's support and care for the younger generations, we can only To respond to this ardent expectation with even better results,” Sun Juxian said, “It is our generation that will continue to fulfill Mr. Wu’s wish of ‘Wu Mengchao Star’ tirelessly and forever. Guide us forward.”
