Hunt先生，美國人

Hunt先生是一位已退休，在泰國教了二十多年英文的美國人。在泰國落地定居近三十年的歲月，他不曾回到美國家鄉。因為罹患疝氣，他計畫出國手術並順道回美國家鄉看看親人。由於體質敏感，他不想採用人工網膜修補法。Hunt先生搜索並比較了全世界專門採用『自體組織修補法』的疝氣醫院。他最後挑選了『台北疝氣手術中心』。Hunt先生的返鄉之旅，中途經抵台灣進行疝氣手術。他體驗到這生中最溫馨、視病如親的醫療團隊。他記錄下他的返鄉醫療之旅的過程，文中並提到，『林醫師及他的團隊待我如家人般，如此親切、如此真誠。….說真的，我真希望不要離開，可以一直待這兒…..。』

This is the itinerary of a patient from a foreign land

  1. Arrive Taipei’s Taoyuan Airport
  2. Go through Immigration
  3. Collect your luggage
  4. A driver with your name on a sign will be waiting just outside the baggage area.
  5. Ride into town (40 minutes) in a Mercedes Benz sedan to your hotel (no charge to you)
  6. The Eastin Hotel is best because it is just around the corner from the Central Clinic and Hospital, not more than a 30-meter walk.
  7. The Eastin Hotel is on the 14th floor of an office building. The rooms and staff are friendly and efficient
  8. Next morning Glen, the Hernia Center’s General Manager, will come to the hotel and escort you to the Joshua Hernia Center on the 12th floor of the hospital.
  9. Dr. Lin will meet, examine and consult with you explaining the operation
  10. A big plus is Dr. Lin will pray with you for success of the operation and your recovery
  11. Mr. Chen, an assistant, will escort you to the second floor for a chest x-ray, EKG, blood test within minutes, no long waiting
  12. Back upstairs you will wait one half hour to forty-five minutes for the test results which come back surprisingly fast
  13. Then Mrs. Chin, Dr. Lin’s nurse, and Glen will walk you to the elevator and to the operating floor
  14. You will take off your clothes, put them in a locker and put on a green operating gown
  15. The operation staff will walk you into the operating room and lie you down on the operating table
  16. Dr. Lin will come in ready for your 20-30 minute surgery and calm you down as the staff set up the IV and preparations for the surgery.
  17. You will be given a mild sedative and you go to sleep
  18. You will wake up in the recovery room around thirty minutes later and the bed you are on will be wheeled upstairs to a hospital room adjacent to Dr. Lin’s office on the 12th floor.
  19. You may be released shortly after, or you can stay the night in that room for a few dollars more
  20. I suggest you stay the night, be pampered; you deserve it.
  21. Or you will be walked back to the Eastin hotel and to your room. The pain is minimal.
  22. The next day, in the late morning, Dr Lin will change your bandage and instruct you how to take care of the wound.
  23. Glen and Mr. Chen will help you take care of everything you need: hospital bill payment, airline confirmation, currency exchange, city tour; whatever you need to prepare for your departure.
  24. The hospital will accept credit cards for payment
  25. A driver will come to your hotel and assist you with your luggage, drive you to the airport, and take you to the correct airline check-in booths (no charge to you)

Suggestions:

  1. Going through immigration can be a long wait. However long it takes the driver will wait for you.
  2. I suggest after deplaning go to the immigration information counter, located just before the long lines, tell them you are in pain and will have surgery in the morning. They will probably assist you by wheelchair through immigration, baggage claim and out to the lobby. An hour to an hour and one half standing in line can be a painful experience.
  3. No matter at what time of the day or night there will be a long line of people going through immigration (Non-citizen Visa); with as many as two to five hundred people (two or three airplane fulls) and only four immigration agents processing them.
  4. Better yet, in your home country ask for wheel chair assistance to your airplane. That airline company’s agent will whisk you through immigration and to you airplane. In Taipei a wheel chair and attendant will be waiting at the airplane door to whisk you though immigration, baggage claim and out to your awaiting driver.
  5. Be sure to stay at the Eastin Hotel. Drivers will pick you up and drop you off at any other hotel and take you to the hospital if you want to stay in another hotel, but the Eastin is an incredible hotel and staying there simplifies things, especially if you are experiencing culture shock.
  6. Dr. Lin and his staff are wonderful, dedicated individuals who treat patients like family. They were so friendly and genuinely caring that I, honestly, didn’t want to leave, but to stay and hang out with them.

A Layman’s View of Dr. Lin’s Technique

Dr. Lin’s hernia technique comes from years of practice and research. He uses the metaphor of a volcano to describe his procedure. The hernia, a volcano, begins with an exertion tear of the abdominal muscles that encase the intestinal sac. Surrounding tissues will begin to leak out of the tear, like a volcano erupting. Over time the tissue and sometimes part of the intestines will push out creating a bulge, the volcano. It could, in males, begin to push downward alongside the groin canal toward the scrotum that holds the testicles.

Almost all hernia doctors around the world use a mesh to keep the bulge from protruding which can cause further problems because mesh just covers the bulge and does not correct the torn lesion in the abdominal wall that erupted in the first place. This type of operation takes only fifteen to twenty minutes while Dr. Lin’s procedure takes longer (about 30 minutes) because he corrects the source of the hernia.

Dr. Lin makes an incision between two to three cm in length. With a special tool he developed he gently pushes the bulge back until it is flat with the abdominal wall. He then sews that hole up to keep the intestines firmly inside where they belong. Then he begins to sew up the torn muscle tissue using an overlapping system of suturing that resembles locking your fingers together.

Since, on males, the herniated tissue probably started to move downward alongside the spermatic cord, Dr. Lin sutures around where the cord comes out of the intestinal wall on its way to the testes so that in the future no tissue will be able to follow that path, a failsafe to a successful operation. He finishes the operation by stapling the incision shut and applies a bandage.

Dr. Lin is a firm believer that most hernia could be repaired with natural tissue, while mesh involves some risks of repeated hernia or complications of a foreign object within the body.

Wayne L. Hunt
Bangkok, Thailand