Chapter 100
Rumble, crash! Crash-crash!
As if a hole had been punched through the sky, sheets of rain lashed mercilessly against the Emergency Medical Center's windows.
Thunder boomed horribly, as if the building were about to collapse at any moment.
“…Of all days.”
I muttered, shaking the rain out of my hair the moment I got out of the taxi.
After those two unreal days of causing a scene at the conference and even winning an award, my first day back at work had to be a night shift in this god-awful weather.
This is just awful.
Whirr—
When the automatic doors opened, the familiar smell of disinfectant and the damp, subdued air unique to night shifts greeted me.
The station was unexpectedly quiet.
Was this the calm before the storm, or was there just no lunatic yet brave enough to cut through this rainstorm and come in?
I gave a brief greeting to first-year resident Baek Eun-seo, who was sitting in a corner of the station and already staring at the monitor with hollow eyes.
That one always seems to get here early.
“..Eun-seo.”
“Yes, doctor?”
“Good evening….”
I headed for the changing room to change.
I needed to throw off this damp shirt and tie and change into my precious blue scrubs, the trusty uniform scented with blood and disinfectant.
I made my way to the corner where my locker was.
My locker….
“Huh.”
I froze in place.
My old, dented gray metal locker.
In the middle of the door, a single A4 sheet printed in a very crude, crooked manner had been roughly taped on with blue tape.
[O☆u☆t☆s☆t☆a☆n☆d☆i☆n☆g O☆r☆a☆l P☆r☆e☆s☆e☆n☆t☆a☆t☆i☆o☆n C☆o☆n☆g☆r☆a☆t☆s]
[☆☆☆☆☆]
[Emergency Surgery Dr. Han Hyeonjae's locker]
[-Chief Park Woong-]
I stared blankly at that scrap of paper.
Why did they even put stars in there?
Emergency Surgery, of all things.
Are these guys messing with me right now?
“Ha….”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
Come to think of it, they said word of my presentation had spread all through the hospital too.
Rumors like, 'That crazy second-year ripped into the surgeons from the conference podium,' with every sort of exaggeration mixed in.
According to the rumors, Chief Park Woong had heard about it and grabbed the back of his neck.
Or was it that he laughed heartily?
This is why you can't trust rumors.
Either way, seeing this nonsense makes it clear the latter was the truth.
Emergency Surgery, really.
I roughly peeled off the A4 sheet and crumpled it up.
***
Anyway, I changed clothes and headed back to the station in my damp scrubs.
I had to take handover.
Got to do what’s gotta be done.
My fellow resident Jo Su-yeon was waiting at the station, burning through the tail end of the day shift.
Her face already looked like half her soul had run off, but the moment she saw me, life began to return to those rotten dead-fish eyes.
It was a creepy kind of vitality.
“Now then, Dr. Han Hyeonjae of Emergency Surgery? I’ll tell you the handover~”
Jo Su-yeon flipped through the chart and giggled, putting a very strong accent on the words 'Emergency Surgery.'
“Shut up, Jo Su-yeon.”
I snatched the chart board out of her hand.
“You’re so cold.”
Jo Su-yeon shrugged, as if something about this was hilarious, and grabbed her bag.
“Surgeons really do have that signature hysteria. You’re all sharp as knives.”
“Shut it.”
“Yep.”
Jo Su-yeon even made a mock salute before tapping the EMR monitor.
“So. There isn't much to hand over, but….”
I skimmed the patient list she had pulled up.
“First, B-5 bed. Forty-five-year-old male.”
Jo Su-yeon pointed at the name on the monitor.
“He started drinking heavily at a company dinner last night, kept vomiting until this morning, and in the end came in by ambulance because there was blood mixed in.”
“…Mallory-Weiss, obviously.”
I answered, holding back a yawn.
Simply put, Mallory-Weiss is when vomiting tears your esophagus.
It's one of those diagnoses you see in about 10 percent of patients who pass through the ER over the course of a year.
“Of course. I’ve already called endoscopy. Vitals are fine for now at 110 over 70, but he keeps vomiting little bits of coffee-ground stuff, so keep him NPO
(* fasting)
and keep him on IV fluids.”
Jo Su-yeon pulled up the lab
(* blood tests)
results window.
“The lab results are thankfully fine on the hemoglobin side. It's 13.0. Just keep him fasting and put him on IV fluids until the endoscopy team gets here.”
“Okay.”
“A-3 bed. Eighty-two-year-old woman.”
Jo Su-yeon's voice dropped a notch.
“A few days ago, she came from the long-term care hospital because she wasn't eating well and was sleeping all the time, with altered mental status noted, but when I ran the labs it clearly showed UTI
(* urinary tract infection)
the findings are obvious. Fever's 38.5, and the urine test is basically a bed of pus. I've already started ceftriaxone 2 g and requested admission to Infectious Disease, okay?”
“Then why is she still here, in Zone A, not admitted yet?”
I frowned.
A UTI in an elderly patient is a perfect route to sepsis.
She needed to be moved to the ward quickly.
Jo Su-yeon let out a deep sigh.
“There are no rooms.”
“…Fuck.”
When the hell is this hospital system ever going to get better?
“VRE
(* vancomycin-resistant enterococcus)
screening test went out and we're waiting on the result. The grandmother keeps babbling about where her son is and trying to get out of bed, so have the first-years or interns keep a close watch on her.”
“Alright. This old lady should at least be moved to the EICU
(* emergency intensive care unit)
for now.”
“Other than that, there are a few minor colds, sprained ankles, and cut fingers. The first-years can handle the rest. I’m leaving.”
“Yeah. Get out of here. Good work.”
Jo Su-yeon slung her bag over her shoulder and gave me one last grin.
“Sure~ Our Emergency Surgery Dr. Han worked hard too~ If you have to cut somebody open again tomorrow, definitely call me. I want to watch. Heh heh.”
“Hey, you brat!”
Ignoring my complaint, Jo Su-yeon sauntered off through the automatic doors.
I let out a sigh and sank deep into my chair.
I opened the EMR and started hammering the F5 refresh key to see whether the test results had come back.
***
I sat down.
Maybe because it had rained all day, the ER was filled with a damp, strangely subdued air.
The fluorescent lights at the station felt especially cold.
“Haa….”
I clutched the paper cup of instant coffee and simply hoped these twelve hours would pass without incident.
But, as always, it felt like my wish would be ignored.
Because first-year newcomer Baek Eun-seo in the seat next to me had started looking at me with sparkling eyes.
My data says that is not a good sign.
“What’s with this hot-blooded kid.”
That stare is really hard to deal with.
Those clear, pure eyes looking at me like I was some kind of role model.
I hate those eyes.
No, not hate so much as they just felt so alien to my rotten second-year soul that they made me uncomfortable.
Since fourth-year Lee Min-jae became a fellow, I’d felt like I’d escaped him a little.
Now that guy’s a fellow, so he doesn't even hassle a second-year scrub like me anymore.
Except when he occasionally goes, “Hyeonjae! Good morning!” and siphons off my soul.
But Baek Eun-seo, who had gone from intern to first-year resident, had no intention of ever getting off the same schedule as me.
The typhoon named Lee Min-jae passes, and then a storm named Baek Eun-seo rolls in.
Why is my life like this?
'Who makes our resident schedules?'
I stared blankly into space.
'Was it Chief Choi Su-min who made it?'
Right, Choi Su-min, now a fourth-year, was the chief.
She must have made this schedule.
This was definitely a deliberate placement.
'The crazy bastard' Han Hyeonjae, who caused all sorts of major incidents last year, and the 'even crazier newcomer' Baek Eun-seo, who saw that bastard and applied to emergency medicine.
Is this a mentor-mentee program? Or just a punishment?
Fine, let’s make a hypothesis.
The ER angel, Choi Su-min, must see me as nothing more than a troublesome junior she has to look after every time I stir up the whole hospital with crazy stunts like laparotomy or REBOA.
So, under the plausible pretext of educational purposes, she clearly chained the most energetic first-year, Baek Eun-seo, to me like a shackle.
Along with the delusion that, ‘If Han Hyeonjae becomes the mentor, Baek Eun-seo will grow well too.’
Isn’t that at least a plausible hypothesis?
‘Ugh, forget it. This is dizzying....’
I pressed hard on my temple.
“Doctor.”
That was when Baek Eun-seo spoke.
“I heard it again!”
‘…Heard what?’
I only stared at the EMR chart, trying to look as uninterested as possible.
“They say you made your mark on resident history!”
“..What are you talking about.”
I stopped typing.
A mark?
Other than the kind that gets you hauled before the disciplinary committee?
“That spring conference presentation where you discussed the future of emergency medicine and talked about expanding its role!”
There was even a note of awe in Baek Eun-seo’s voice.
I let out a sigh.
‘Ah, that public execution.’
And all I got out of that day was the bizarre nickname Emergency Surgery Han Hyeonjae.
“…It wasn’t that grand.”
“Ah, really?”
Baek Eun-seo looked slightly disappointed.
“Then you talked a little about the future..?”
‘…Ha, let them think whatever they want.’
I didn’t even feel it was worth answering and turned back to the monitor.
If I start talking to this stubborn little thing, the one who gets tired is me.
Even if I told them, “Actually, a ghost inside me made me do it,” they’d probably just say, “Wow! Doctor, you even have spiritual powers! You’re my role model!” or something like that.
I turned back to the monitor again.
‘Let’s just work. Hell, a patient showing up is better than talking to her.’
Ding.
Just then, a new alert popped up on the station's triage monitor.
The savior had arrived.
“Oh, doctor. A triage note just popped up!”
Baek Eun-seo reacted before I did.
“Oh, right. Let's see.”
The bright red [STAT]
(* urgent)
sticker.
“Why’s there a STAT sticker on it?”
I refreshed the EMR window.
And I checked the few lines of text that appeared on the screen.
…
For a moment I wondered if I was hallucinating because I hadn’t slept last night.
“Dr. Han.”
Baek Eun-seo's voice came from beside me.
Sleep vanished instantly.
“Huh.”
PE
(* pulmonary embolism)
right?
“It’s PE.”
I shot to my feet.
One sentence formed in my head.
Fuck. We’re. Screwed.
“Run!”
We started sprinting toward triage like madmen.