Saving lives

Guo recalled a memorable experience. At four o’clock on a March morning of 2015, a Tunisian pregnant woman was sent to her hospital. Her uterine contractions suddenly became stronger and more frequent. The fetal heart rate dropped to 80 beats per minute, far below the normal rate of 120 to 160 beats. Based on nearly 20 years of clinical experience in obstetrics, she decided it was a case of acute fetal distress, meaning the unborn baby was not receiving adequate amounts of oxygen and could die any minute.

At such a critical moment, every second counts. Guo quickly administered a local anesthesia and delivered the baby through a Caesarean section.

Luckily, the baby was safely taken out of the womb, where less than 100 ml of amniotic fluid was left. To everyone’s surprise, the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around the baby’s body. Taking the baby out took Guo only three minutes.

The operating room was filled with joy and excitement. The medical personnel gave Guo the thumbs up and kept on saying, “Chinese doctors are great!”

“It was a race against time. This case not only demonstrated my operating skills, but also confirmed Chinese doctors’ professional ability,” wrote Guo in her surgical notes.