182: Chapter 182: That dissection technique is pretty amazing!

At 8:00 PM, a message was sent in the training group chat.

It was the list of group assignments for tomorrow's anatomy class.

Fifty trainees were divided into ten groups, five people per group, with each group sharing one cadaver specimen.

Lu Chen was in Group 3.

Fellow group members: Lu Chen, Zhou Haoran, Chen Hao, and two other Attending Physicians from Sichuan and Hebei.

Seeing Chen Hao's name, Zhou Haoran clicked his tongue.

"What a coincidence, we got assigned to the same group."

"Yeah."

"You don't care?"

"Why should I care?"

"What if he gives you trouble at the dissection table?"

"Then let him."

Zhou Haoran looked at Lu Chen's calm expression and couldn't help but laugh.

"Fine, then I'll be watching the show tomorrow."

10:00 PM.

Lu Chen closed his textbook.

He had read everything he needed to.

He took out his phone and sent a message to Shen Xiaoning.

[Lu Chen: Registration finished today, everything went smoothly.]

Shen Xiaoning replied very quickly.

[Xiao Ning: That's great! How is the place you're staying? Is there air conditioning? Are the blankets clean?]

[Lu Chen: Yes to all, it's very good.]

[Xiao Ning: That's good! Have you had dinner?]

[Lu Chen: I ate at the Cafeteria.]

[Xiao Ning: Is the food at the Cafeteria good?]

[Lu Chen: Average.]

[Xiao Ning: Hmph, I knew it. Food outside definitely isn't as good as what I make.]

Looking at this message, Lu Chen typed a few words.

[Lu Chen: Indeed.]

About five seconds passed.

[Xiao Ning: !!!]

[Xiao Ning: You said indeed???]

[Xiao Ning: You admit that my cooking is good???]

[Xiao Ning: Wait, I need to take a screenshot and save this!!!]

The corners of Lu Chen's mouth twitched.

[Lu Chen: Go to sleep, we have to work tomorrow.]

[Xiao Ning: Alright, alright, Dr. Lu, goodnight!]

[Xiao Ning: Good luck with the training tomorrow!]

[Lu Chen: Goodnight.]

He put his phone next to his pillow and closed his eyes.

7:30 AM.

In the Training Center's Cafeteria, trainees were sitting in twos and threes, eating breakfast.

Lu Chen and Zhou Haoran found a seat by the window and sat down.

The Cafeteria breakfast was a standard buffet; there was a decent variety, but the taste was indeed average.

Lu Chen ate two eggs, a bowl of porridge, and two steamed buns.

Zhou Haoran was flipping through an anatomy atlas on his phone while eating.

"Aren't you nervous?"

"Not nervous."

"I'm really nervous. I spent two hours flipping through an anatomy book last night, and I was even dissecting mesentery in my dreams."

"Did you succeed in the dream?"

"No, in my dream, I tore the specimen's small intestine and then got scolded by the instructor."

Lu Chen didn't speak.

Zhou Haoran put down his phone and looked at him.

"Are you really not nervous, or are you just pretending?"

"Really not nervous."

"Fine, I give up."

8:45 AM.

The ten groups of trainees followed the assignment list and entered the Training Center's anatomy laboratory.

The laboratory was large, covering about 300 square meters, with ten stainless steel dissection tables arranged neatly in the middle.

Each table was covered with a blue sterile drape.

The air was filled with the smell of formalin.

The scent was pungent; several trainees visibly wrinkled their noses as they walked in.

But Lu Chen's expression didn't move an inch.

He had already been exposed to cadavers during his standardized residency training in the General Surgery Department, so this smell was already normal for him.

The five people in Group 3 gathered in front of Dissection Table No. 3.

Lu Chen, Zhou Haoran, Chen Hao, as well as Huang Zhiyuan from Sichuan and Li Minghui from Hebei.

The five of them stood in a row, with a well-preserved adult male cadaver specimen on the dissection table in front of them.

Chen Hao stood on the far right, having changed into surgical scrubs and gloves, his expression serious, and he didn't look at Lu Chen once from start to finish.

9:00 AM.

The instructor in charge of the anatomy class walked to the front of the laboratory.

It was an elderly professor in his sixties, an authority in the field of anatomy, surnamed Yu.

Professor Yu spoke.

"Today's operation requirements are very simple, but also very difficult. Each of you must independently complete the complete abdominal organ retrieval and dissection of one specimen."

"The time limit is four hours."

"The evaluation criteria cover three aspects: organ integrity, preserved vessel length, and the clarity of nerve dissection."

"Five people per group will share the tools and instruments on one dissection table, but the operation is graded independently; each person will be assigned to a different region of the specimen."

Professor Yu paused for a moment.

"I want to remind you of one thing: this is not a routine procedure, but a thorough test of your anatomical foundation. Bring out all the anatomical knowledge you have accumulated in clinical practice."

"Alright, begin."

Following Professor Yu's command, the ten groups of trainees began the operation simultaneously.

The region assigned to Lu Chen was the upper abdominal area, including the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, as well as the dissection of the celiac trunk and the vessels and nerves within the hepatoduodenal ligament.

This was the most difficult region in the entire abdominal dissection.

He did not rush to start.

He spent about thirty seconds carefully observing the overall state of the specimen.

The cadaver was well-preserved, the tissue elasticity was acceptable, but due to the long fixation time in formalin, the color differentiation of some deep structures was significantly worse than that of a fresh specimen.

This meant that identifying deep vessels and nerves required more experience and tactile feel.

Lu Chen picked up the scalpel.

His first incision landed on the falciform ligament of the liver.

His movements were light and steady.

The blade cut accurately along the attachment line of the ligament, without a hint of unnecessary deviation.

Immediately following that was the dissection of the coronary ligament and triangular ligament.

His speed was neither fast nor slow, and every incision cut into the most precise plane.

Zhou Haoran, who was standing to the side operating on his own region, caught a glimpse of Lu Chen's technique out of the corner of his eye and whispered a sentence.

"My god."

He had only made two cuts and was already struggling with the issue of the plane, while Lu Chen had already completely dissected the liver ligaments.

On the other side, Chen Hao was dealing with the small mesenteric area.

His technique was not bad either; after all, he was an Attending Physician with eight years of experience, so he had the anatomical foundation.

But his speed was significantly slower than Lu Chen's.

About forty minutes later, Lu Chen had finished the entire dissection of the liver and began to handle the hepatoduodenal ligament.

This was one of the most critical regions in abdominal dissection.

The hepatoduodenal ligament contains three ducts: the proper hepatic artery, the portal vein, and the common bile duct, as well as some lymphatic tissue and nerve fibers.

To completely isolate the three ducts in this narrow space and preserve sufficient length required extremely delicate operation.

Lu Chen swapped the scalpel for micro-dissection forceps and scissors.

His finger movements became even gentler.

Every clamping and every separation was precise to the millimeter level.

The portal vein was completely exposed from the adipose tissue behind the mesentery, its wall smooth and without any damage.

The proper hepatic artery was dissected immediately after; he even clearly dissected out the bifurcation point where the proper hepatic artery splits into the left and right branches.

The dissection of the common bile duct was equally clean and efficient.

When Professor Yu patrolled to Table No. 3, he stopped behind Lu Chen.

He looked down at the region Lu Chen was operating on.

Then his eyebrows raised.

Then he bent down and leaned in to look closely.

After watching for about ten seconds, he straightened his body without speaking.

But his gaze had changed.

It had shifted from a casual patrol to a serious examination.

He did not interrupt Lu Chen's operation, but instead took a step back and stood at the side of Table No. 3 to continue observing.