China is a big nation primarily affected by liver cancer with the number of patients with liver cancer accounting more than 50%worldwide.1,2Dr.Wu Mengchao (August 1922 - May 2021; Fig.1)has devoted almost all his energy and wisdom to fighting against liver cancer for more than half a century.Dr.Wu graduated from the Tongji University School of Medicine in 1949.In 1960, Dr.Wu worked as the chief surgeon completing the first case of surgical resection for liver cancer in China.Currently,Dr.Wu has performed more than 9400 hepatectomies for liver cancer,mainly as hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC).One of his patients with HCC has lived healthily for ＞47 years.He still insisted on working in the frontline,personally performing 4-6 surgeries each week, even when he is beyond 90 years old.Dr.Wu is one of the main founders of hepatic surgery in China and is honored as the “Father of Hepatic Surgery in China.” In addition, he is also the oldest surgeon standing under the shadowless lamp.3According to the bulletin released by the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 2010, the name of asteroid 17606 has been named after Professor Wu for his outstanding contribution in the field of hepatic surgery.

Fig.1.The portrait of Dr.Wu Mengchao.

As early as in the 1950s, Dr.Wu was already a brave innovator with the sudden whim of using the table-tennis ball to perfuse the first complete hepatic vascular model in China.Subsequently, he creatively put forward the new “five-lobe and four-segment”anatomic theory appropriate to the liver structure of the Chinese population by relying on his unremitting self-dependent research and exploration, thus creating the key theory and technical system of Chinese hepatic surgery.He is the pioneer in the new field of experimental and clinical studies of liver cancer and creates the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, the biggest hepatobiliary disease treatment and research center in the world, with the mean yearly capacity of hepatectomies exceeding 5000 cases.As a tribute to his remarkable achievements,he won China's State Supreme Science and Technology Award and became the first person to win the special honor in the field of medical science in China.Dr.Wu continued advancing without stopping after he won the award.In 2006,he,together with other six academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering,submitted to the State Council a report on the“Development of Integrated Liver Cancer Research in China”.Consequently, a national liver cancer research center led by Dr.Wu was inaugurated in Shanghai in 2009 upon approval from the central government.This is the biggest base for liver cancer research and prevention in the world.

Dr.Wu has not only exquisite medical skills but also noble medical ethics.In his decades of medicalcareer,he has integratedhimselfwith his patients as an entity and always thanked them for giving him energy and wisdom.He said that“a good doctor should not only know what the disease is but also or even better know the patient in his/her heart.”Dr.Wu always smiled kindly to the patient every time he saw a patient and chatted with them about domestic trivia to shorten the distance between the doctor and the patient.In addition,he always first warmed up his hands before making palpation and percussion when walking around the ward on cold winter days.He said that just a lifting-a-finger effort can bring warmth to the patient.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriers are the main risk population of liver cancer in China.However,they are often discriminated against in their daily activities including employment in the early 1980s.Many HBV carriers dare not go to hospitals for routine examination or treatment until their conditions have progressed to cirrhosis or even liver cancer even though they know that they have contracted HBV.Dr.Wu was keenly aware of this unfair social phenomenon and strongly appealed to focus attention on the surviving status of HBV carriers in China and eliminate the discrimination against them to build amore harmonioussociety.4He called forintensifying regular physical examinations and liver cancer surveillance among HBV carriers.In addition,he was always highly concerned about public and humanities medicine inChina,proposing that the governmentshould increase investment in medical insurance, raise the legal income of the Chinese medical care workers,and respect their values.5He advocated to enhance the publicity and propaganda of knowledge about science and health in the public and strictly supervise false propaganda and hype in various health programs of-television media in China.6He strongly criticized,more than once,the nonhumane tendencies in the modern medical field, including alienation between technical advances and humanitarianism and deviation of medical science to commercialization.He always said to his students that“Seeing a patient involves humanistic medicine and is an opportunity of person-to-person communication, and therefore we should care about the patient,protect the patient and receive the patient warmly;there is no so-called rich or poor,noble,or humble patient.We should be full of confidence,patience,love,and consideration in the patient in our daily clinical practice.We should use the cheapest, simplest,and most effective techniques and measures to solve the problem of the patients,cure theirdiseases,and reduce theirburdenstothebest.”

Dr.Wu was asked by others“Do you feel tired and bored when keeping seeing the outpatients in your clinic and doing operations under the shadowless lamp throughout your lifetime?” He answered “When a person is absorbed in what he is willing and loves to do, he will feel happy.As long as I am able to hold the scalpel, I will stand under the shadowless lamp and work for the patient,because this is the happiest moment for me.”The wording in Dr.Wu's award when he won the Person Who Moved China in 2011 is “Like a tireless veteran horse, he has tried his best to ride his patients across the river one by one safely.”

He has the warrior spirit of continuously fighting before stopping breathing.Just 2 years before his death,he said“Primary liver cancer is the biggest enemy in my life and the operating room is my battlefield.Although I have passed 90 years,I feel that I still have so many things that I have to seize the time to do,especially many current difficulties in basic research and drug research related to liver cancer treatment.As long as liver cancer as the formidable enemy affecting human health exists, I will work together with my colleagues to fight against it and shake off the hat of ‘China as a big country of primary liver cancer’ as early as possible.”

Dr.Wu has always thought of himself as a boy saving dying fishes and considers performing surgical resection for patients with liver cancer as the happiest thing.7Even when he had to work tirelessly day after day,he felt happy when one more patient was saved because he cared about each of his patients no matter he/she is young or old and rich or poor.

Professor Wu Mengchao passed away on 22 May 2021 (13:00),which is painfully sad for everyone.This article is to commemorate Professor Wu Mengchao, our mentor, and “the Father of Hepatic Surgery in China”.

Authors' contributions

T.Yang and Q.Zhang wrote the manuscript.M.-D.Wang prepared the manuscript and collected news materials.F.Shen made the critical revision.All authors approved the final manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.81972726 to T.Yang).We thank Prof.Shun-Xing Zhang from Department of English Teaching of Naval Medical University for providing suggestive advice on manuscript drafting.