Recently, pictures of three doctors exhausted and lying on the floor went viral online. The three are doctors from a hospital in southeast China's Fujian province, who finished a marathon surgery lasting 32 hours.

Recently, pictures of three doctors exhausted and lying on the floor went viral online. The three are doctors from a hospital in southeast China's Fujian province, who finished a marathon surgery lasting 32 hours.

On the floor, exhausted, but successful. The tiring end to a marathon 32 hour surgery. A surgery that began at eight thirty last Saturday morning, and ended only at sunset the next day. Dr. Chen Jianping recounts the operation to remove multiple tumors from a patient.

"The patient had both an aneurysm and brain-stem hemangioblastoma. We needed to remove both tumors in one surgery. This required six different surgical procedures to be conducted on the patient. It can be difficult, risky, and time-consuming. If you are removing one tumor, and the other one breaks, it can be fatal," Dr. Chen said.

During the marathon surgery, doctors only managed to take two hour breaks, that too, only in turns. The 32 hour operation broke all records set at the hospital.

"The surgery went on for so long, I started to wonder about the doctors' physical strength. What if they wear out?" Family member of patient Huang Baoqin said.

The operation was successful. Once over, the three surgeons collapsed on the ground. And their pictures went viral on social networks in China. Some netizens commented that the surgeons were trading their own lives for the patient's. But doctors say, long operations are very common for surgeons.

"It isn't only me who works hard to treat patients. There so many surgeons just like me, who are not seen," Dr. Chen said.

Dr. Chen says if any good has to come from the pictures on social media, it would be a better understanding and communication between doctors and patients.

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