Tumors of the skull base, especially those near the brainstem, have always been considered the most challenging type of brain tumor resection.
For Yan Feifan, this was business as usual.
Neurosurgeons could handle less difficult brain tumor surgeries on their own; they wouldn’t call in for backup.
For Yan Feifan, the most difficult part of a skull base tumor surgery was designing the puncture trajectory.
Some trajectories required piercing through healthy, functional brain tissue, which would inevitably cause some damage.
Torn between two evils, Yan Feifan had to design a puncture path that would cause the absolute minimum amount of damage.
Under the watchful eyes of Dr. Kevin Vega, Yan Feifan openly, without any attempt to hide his methods, performed a dehydration denaturation test using absolute ethanol on the biopsied tumor tissue.
An hour and ten minutes later, Yan Feifan had his results.
With Dr. Qiu Ge’s assistance, Yan Feifan made a total of five punctures in different areas of Zhou Yan’s head, injecting carefully calculated doses of absolute ethanol.
With that, Yan Feifan’s part in the procedure was complete.
After another forty-five-minute wait, Dr. Qiu could begin the craniotomy on Zhou Yan to resect the tumor.
"Mr. Yan..."
Vega called out to Yan Feifan as he was about to leave. "Seeing is believing. Putting everything else aside, these five puncture trajectories alone are enough to leave me in awe."
"The design of these trajectories is brilliant. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any routes that could be more precise while causing less damage."
Yan Feifan smiled smugly. ’If you could think of a better puncture path in such a short time,’ he thought, ’then what was the point of the hundreds of simulations I ran in my mindscape? It would have all been for nothing.’
Vega’s eyes glinted as he continued, "Mr. Yan, to be honest, you’re so young that I had a hard time believing you could do what even the most experienced neurosurgeons in the world cannot."
"It requires an almost unimaginable understanding and mastery of the brain and spinal cord."
"But you, Mr. Yan, have done it."
"You’ve made me believe that true, innate geniuses really do exist in this world. An unparalleled genius."
This foreigner’s praise was making Yan Feifan feel a little light-headed.
However, he knew foreigners were often more emotionally expressive and weren’t stingy with their praise, even to strangers.
It was best to just take it with a grain of salt.
"Mr. Vega, thank you for your praise."
Yan Feifan got straight to the point. "If you have something to say, it’s best to be direct and brief."
"I have a surgery scheduled for tomorrow."
Vega quickly got down to business. "Mr. Yan, it’s like this: I would like to establish a collaborative partnership with you."
"I have several patients with extremely difficult brain tumors, and I can’t guarantee a successful outcome."
"If we were to collaborate..."
Vega paused before adding cryptically, "My patients are all wealthy individuals, worth millions of US Dollars at the very least."
"To them, nothing is more important than their health."
Yan Feifan couldn’t help but be amused.
’This Vega is pretty sharp. He knows the best way to get my attention and persuade me.’
Yan Feifan feigned hesitation, pretending to mull it over.
Just then, Qiu Ge, who had been standing quietly to the side, cleared his throat again.
This foreigner, Vega, knew how to take a hint. He quickly added, "I can’t make any guarantees about medical exchanges at the hospital-to-hospital level."
"But I am confident I can facilitate exchange visits and short-term training internships between our departments."
He then extended another invitation. "If you, Mr. Yan, were willing to come to Johns Hopkins Hospital to give a presentation and perform a demonstration surgery, I would extend a warm welcome on behalf of the entire neurosurgery department."
Yan Feifan waved a hand. "Mr. Vega, thank you for the invitation, but I don’t have the free time to fly to the United States right now."
"As for the international medical collaboration, I am in favor of it in principle."
"I should also point out that, given my schedule, I can only arrange one such collaborative surgery every two weeks at most."
"One every two weeks?"
Vega considered this for a moment before nodding. "That’s acceptable."
"If it were one per week, I wouldn’t be able to handle flying back and forth between the United States and China every week either."
Yan Feifan smiled. "Now that we’ve agreed on the principle of collaboration, as for the specific details..."
His gaze shifted to Zhou Yan on the operating table as he continued, "Let’s wait until tonight’s surgery is over, then find some time to discuss the details, either face-to-face or via video conference..."
Yan Feifan returned to his apartment before nine-thirty that evening.
Du Qiu cooked him a bowl of seafood wontons for a late-night snack.
"Feifan, that neighbor of mine called this afternoon..."
Du Qiu brought the bowl of seafood wontons to the living room, setting it on the coffee table with a broad smile. "They followed your instructions and took their son for a spinal alignment massage, and they also performed Gua Sha on his neck."
"He hasn’t had a migraine for a week now."