Surgeon’s art gets to heart of the matter
Print Edition
At 2:19am, Cheng Zhaoyun completes a cardiac surgery. Although he has been standing in the operating room for more than 10 hours, he habitually takes out a sketchbook and begins drawing a heart.
Before long a complete coronary artery map is vividly displayed on the page, with exact sizes of blood vessels and sections of the heart, date of the surgery as well as a brief patient profile.
For the past 18 years, Cheng, team leader of the cardiac surgery department at Henan Provincial People’s Hospital in central China, has sketched the hearts of over 3,900 patients.
In contrast to computer graphics, the sketches highlight the more critical and detailed parts of each patient’s heart, which makes it easier for Cheng’s students to grasp difficulties faced in operations.
In 1997, the then 33-year-old heart specialist was sent to Melbourne for clinical study. He often skipped meals so he could have more time for performing operations and patient observation. During his stay, he took over 1,000 pages of medical notes in English.
In January 2000, he completed the first coronary bypass operation in Henan. Before the operation, he carefully drew the patient’s heart and lesion location, and over a dozen pages of operation details and points for attention.
He has since developed a habit of sketching each patient’s heart based on their coronary angiography and ultrasound. Once the operation is completed, he records as many details as possible on operating procedures and new findings during the operation on the sketch.
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