Dentist kneels for 40 minutes to operate on young patient

A photo of a Chinese dentist kneeling to carry out an operation for a 9-year-old girl circulated widely on the Internet recently.

The operation was carried out on Sept 5 by Dr Qu Tiejun, a dentist in the dental hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University.

He was somewhat surprised that he drew so much attention after the photo spread online.

"It was my duty to cure the patient. It didn't matter if I was kneeling or standing during the procedure," said Qu.

According to the dentist, the 9-year-old girl came from a village in Shaanxi province. She suffered an oral injury which required surgery.

"I had to do the operation by kneeling because the mouth was only 5 mm and could not be seen with a common surgical microscope," said Qu.

The doctor put an operation mirror on his head and had to kneel down in order to get a proper angle for him to see the injured part of the girl's mouth.

By kneeling, Qu took 40 minutes to complete the operation.

When asked why he did not raise the surgical bed to do the operation, Qu explained that it still did not give suitable angle for the operation once the bed was raised.

A nurse took the photo of Qu's operation and posted it on her WeChat account and the photo started to circulate online.