Chapter 2506: Suspicions

Asking the brother, one cannot exclude his presence as Zhu Xing’s attending physician with such anxiety. However, if this is how one speculates, all his thoughts are incorrect.

Cao Zhao honestly explains to his brother, "Like you, I hope that child can survive. As a pediatrician myself, how could I wish for children not to survive?"

For his second brother to want one child to live by cursing another to die is indeed impossible, so Cao Yong emphasized earlier that he didn’t want his second brother to get involved in muddy waters. Despite his second brother being the "Great Devil King" among children, without a heart for them, one cannot become an excellent pediatrician.

It is evident that Cao Zhao understands the situation where Xiao Yu’s parents might want to donate the child’s organs and seeks expert advice from specialized doctors to gain professional insights. After all, his patient has entered the organ recipient list, and he cannot ask Doctor Fang Ze anymore.

On the other hand, Cao Zhao worries why the child’s parents are so quick to seek the child’s organ transplant and wonders whether Doctor Fang Ze’s judgment is professional enough, questioning if there is a suspicion of deceiving these parents.

As a pediatrician, Cao Zhao does not want any child to be misjudged as brain dead and then sent for organ transplantation. Caring for another child does not conflict with his desire to save his own patient, Zhu Xing.

"Child organ donors are rare in our country," Cao Zhao cites real statistical data, making the matter appear somewhat unusual. If something seems unusual, there must be something amiss. As stated earlier, don’t expect Shou’er to post giant posters advertising successful pediatric organ transplantation cases; child donors are pathetically few.

"You’re right. Not just domestically, but internationally, child donors are fewer than adults." Cao Yong acknowledges his brother’s statement while explaining from his professional perspective that this reason doesn’t necessarily imply anything sinister, "Judging brain death in children has always been even more cautious than with adults. The number of brain death determinations in children is higher and the observation intervals longer. With such stringent determination procedures, it is more challenging for issues to arise casually between children and adults."

This involves a concept: brain death determination, unlike traditional heart and breathing cessation marking death in one step, requires two or more assessments. This fully illustrates that brain death requires an observation period. Essentially, if a doctor suspects this child is brain dead, it is not possible to make a quick determination, unlike other patients whose hearts and breathing have stopped.

Why is there such a lengthy observation period for brain death? First, we must understand the concept of death. Initial standards for human death determination were based on the inability of autonomous breathing and heartbeat, emphasizing "autonomous."

Brain death is not a newly created death definition; it extends from the existing one. With machine assistance maintaining the patient’s breathing and heartbeat, once the machine is removed, the heartbeat and breathing immediately cease, indicating a lack of autonomous breathing and heartbeat. Therefore, how could such a person be considered alive? Clearly, they are dead.

This situation presents a divergence: how do you confirm that once the machine is removed, the patient’s autonomous breathing and heartbeat cease irreversibly? After all, clinically during resuscitation, machines are immediately used because of the patient’s heart and breathing cessation. According to this logic, during resuscitation, the machine wouldn’t even need to be used.