"Doctor, I'm not feeling well in my heart." At 18:55 on February 1, the emergency hall of the Bethune First Hospital of Jilin University (hereinafter referred to as the First Hospital of Jilin University) was brightly lit. A young woman with a weak voice, accompanied by her family, came to the pre-examination triage desk of the emergency internal medicine department. After asking about her symptoms, Gao Weiwei, the team leader of the previous night shift, immediately guided and assisted the patient in measuring blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart rate.

"The patient's main symptom is chest tightness, and her vital signs are stable, so we assigned her to the emergency cardiology department for further diagnosis and treatment," Gao Weiwei said to the reporter in between tasks after handling the patient.

The pre-examination triage desk is the first window for patients after entering the emergency department. Here, Gao Weiwei and her colleagues help patients complete vital sign testing and basic information registration as quickly as possible. Subsequently, based on the actual situation, Level 1 and Level 2 patients are sent to the resuscitation room for emergency treatment, while Level 3 and Level 4 patients are triaged to the corresponding consultation rooms.

The emergency department of the First Hospital of Jilin University is currently the most comprehensive and busiest emergency institution in Jilin Province, with an average daily patient volume of about 500. During the Spring Festival, in order to ensure that emergency, critical, and severe patients receive rescue at the first opportunity, all medical staff in the emergency department are working at full capacity, ready to enter "battle" at any time.

"Challenges are ever-present; you never know which patient will need resuscitation the next second, or what kind of emergency you will have to handle." In the resuscitation room of the emergency internal medicine department, attending physician Wang Shaokun was so busy that his feet hardly touched the ground. "There were 9 patients at the shift handover, and 8 more came in over the past 3-plus hours. Our work pace is extremely fast!"

The internal medicine resuscitation room covers an area of nearly 500 square meters and has 28 beds officially, but extra beds are added at any time according to patient needs; at its busiest, it once treated 70 critically ill patients at the same time. Starting the shift at 16:00, Wang Shaokun and his colleagues stay busy until 7:30 the next morning. To avoid wasting time, they usually eat dinner at two or three in the afternoon, and after coming on duty they try not to eat or drink, calling this "a good way to stay in shape."

"Although this place isn't big, after a busy night, every one of us easily walks over 20,000 steps. Even a 'slow-paced person' like me became a 'fast-paced person' after becoming an emergency doctor." During the more than ten hours of the night shift, Wang Shaokun basically circles within the resuscitation room; because time is precious, his walk is no different from a run.

Not long ago, they had just resuscitated a patient with septic shock transferred from a grassroots hospital in another region. Because the patient also had myocardial infarction, diabetic ketoacidosis, and organ function damage, the condition was extremely critical. Antibiotics for infection control, raising blood pressure, fluid replacement, adjusting blood sugar... After an intense hour-long race against time, the patient's condition finally stabilized.

At around 19:20, Wang Shaokun was adjusting the treatment plan for a patient with respiratory failure on the computer when an 84-year-old patient with cardiac and respiratory arrest was wheeled into the resuscitation room. The medical staff immediately performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the effect was weak. Wang Shaokun ran over, quickly assessed the patient's condition, and then immediately went outside the resuscitation room to call the patient's family loudly.

"Her blood oxygen is poor now, and she is in respiratory failure. We recommend endotracheal intubation. Do you agree?" The patient's daughter-in-law, who was still registering at the triage desk, ran over upon hearing this. Hearing the doctor's words, she was so flustered that she could hardly hold her phone steady. Subsequently, after obtaining the consent of the patient's daughter by phone through the family member, Wang Shaokun immediately returned to the resuscitation room.

Intubation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, adjusting the treatment plan based on test results... Wang Shaokun and a team of 7 medical staff had clear division of labor and tacit cooperation, and the entire rescue process was busy but orderly. More than half an hour later, the elderly patient was finally out of danger.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Wang Shaokun walked back to his workstation with brisk steps to fill out the case record and prescribe medication for the elderly patient. Before he finished, another patient in another bed suddenly showed a drop in blood oxygen. "This one also needs intubation." He threw himself wholeheartedly into the emergency rescue of the patient again...

"Wake up, can you understand me..." Outside the door, at the triage desk, in less than half an hour, 120 ambulances had delivered 5 more patients one after another. Gao Weiwei quickly stepped forward, gently patted the patients' shoulders, asked about their conditions, and measured their blood pressure and blood oxygen. Less than 4 hours into her shift, her voice was already hoarse. "After work, I'll just drink more hot water and eat some throat lozenges," Gao Weiwei told the reporter.

Before the previous patient had finished registration, the next patient was wheeled over, bed and all. Gao Weiwei and her colleagues were as busy as spinning tops. Having worked in this position for more than ten years, Gao Weiwei has developed a pair of "sharp eyes," able to determine in the shortest time which patients need to be sent to the resuscitation room immediately, and to properly handle multiple patients needing triage at the same time according to the severity and urgency of their conditions.

"Revere life, revere work. Every emergency medical worker puts patient safety first. Being able to pull a patient back from the brink of death is also the greatest comfort for each of us," Gao Weiwei said.

Outside the hospital, the colorful roadside lights vividly set off the festive atmosphere. People coming and going all hope to get home early to reunite with their loved ones, while the medical staff in the emergency room are still striving at the frontline of treatment, racing against time to safeguard every patient's life.