Although most surgeons wear surgical gowns during surgery, some of them must wear a heavy set of lead dressings and save the patient’s life by working under the radiation.
This set of lead devices, about 15 kg, includes lead caps, glasses, collars, gloves, aprons and even underwear. But the doctor’s head, face, legs and arms are not protected, to help them in the operation process easy to operate.
Liu Yayi, a 38-year-old doctor at Chongqing Cancer Hospital’s imaging department, is one of them. She needed to wear a full set of lead clothes with the help of a colleague, and finally a surgical gown. The weight of the entire uniform slowed her walk.
“I’m tired after every operation,” Liu said. But usually she can only rest for about 10 minutes, and then take a bath, put on a new set of lead clothes to prepare another operation.
Imaging director Mao Mingwei said wearing lead suits is a necessary condition for interventional radiological surgery. This type of surgery involves minimally invasive surgery under the guidance of radiographic techniques, which require the physician to work under radiation.
The duration of each operation ranges from 1 hour to 3 hours depending on the condition of the patient and his / her blood vessel. Since X-ray examination is performed continuously during the procedure, the doctor needs to always wear protective clothing.
During surgery, the protected body part will receive a radiation dose equivalent to two or three chest X-rays, and the unprotected region will correspond to about 100 chest X-rays.
Mao said that the hospital has about 400 interventional procedures performed by three doctors each year.
Many long-term intervention surgeons have only 3,000 to 4,000 white blood cells, below the normal threshold of 4,000 to 10,000. This makes these doctors less resistant to viruses and infections than normal healthy people.
Liu and Mao always wear a dosimeter, which automatically records the amount of radiation they have taken. They need to give the dosimeter to the CDC every three months to ensure that it does not exceed the prescribed limits. They need a physical examination every two years organized by the CDC. If their white blood cell count is found to be at an unsafe level, they will be forced to leave their post.
