Chapter 153
“Don’t move your head, please! Put the brace back on!”
I shouted, holding the patient’s neck steady with my sweat-soaked hands.
The patient was in shock, consciousness flickering in and out, but pain kept making the patient thrash around.
If this turns into a cervical injury too, we’re really done for.
“Hey, intern! Is the irrigation done? Did all the foreign matter come out?”
“Yes, yes! It’s done! We flushed out all three liters!”
The intern answered, shaking the empty saline container.
“Then for now, just cover the wound with wet gauze! It can’t dry out! Make sure the exposed bone is covered well so it doesn’t get infected!”
“Then how am I supposed to cover it….”
“Just cover it enough to hide it!”
Ugh, this is maddening.
I checked the vital monitor once more.
I didn’t know if it was because of shock or if the heart itself had taken a hit, but at this rate the patient was going into arrest.
“Dr. Jung! His pulse isn’t rising past 30, so give 0.5 mg atropine right now….”
That was when.
Drrrrr-!
As the automatic door to the resuscitation room slid open, a familiar, achingly missed voice came through.
“Hyeonjae, what’s the situation?”
I turned around reflexively.
Messy, disheveled hair.
Mismatched socks and slippers, as if he’d thrown them on in a hurry.
But at least he was properly dressed in scrubs and a gown.
“…Ah.”
I almost let out a hymn instead of a sigh.
GOD.
THE Minjae.
Fellow GOAT.
Lee Minjae, the emergency department’s mad dog and its most reliable fixer, had arrived.
“Ah, yes, doctor! You’re here!”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and started briefing him in a rush.
“For now, I sent the rest to Zone B since they’re minor cases! While triaging at the entrance just now, a critical trauma patient from a fall came in and was brought to the resuscitation room! The patient has an open fracture and burns, BP is 80 over 50, pulse is down to 30, so I was about to give atropine….”
Tap-tap.
Minjae walked toward me and naturally went to the computer to grab the mouse.
He scanned the vital signs on the monitor and the list of orders I’d entered in an instant.
Then he nodded and flashed an OK sign.
“Good orders. But hold on.”
He immediately looked at the nurse standing beside the patient and asked,
“Did you give morphine?”
“Ah, I just got the order and was about to pull the ampoule….”
“Wait.”
Minjae raised a hand to stop the nurse.
“Don’t give it. I’ll switch this to 15 mg of ketamine. Give it IV.”
“Huh?”
“The patient’s BP is too low right now.”
“Ah… yes! Understood! I’ll prepare 15 mg ketamine!”
The nurse hastily put the morphine ampoule back down and ran to the medication cabinet again.
Oops.
Right.
I almost overlooked a risk because I was thinking about pain relief first, since the pain looked so severe.
I was in too much of a rush and fell back on routine.
Minjae, putting on gloves, looked back at me.
“Hyeonjae.”
“Yes, doctor.”
Minjae casually checked the patient’s pupillary reflex and asked,
“Do you know when trauma surgery is coming?”
“Ah, well… we called them 10 minutes ago, but their second surgery for a TICU patient overlapped, so they said they’d come down as soon as that’s over. They’ll probably be here soon….”
“They’re a bit late, huh? Then we’ll have to put out the urgent fire ourselves.”
Minjae nodded and moved into position by the patient’s wound.
“Okay, I’ll keep this patient steady now. You go out.”
“…Pardon?”
“I said go out. Go do what you were doing. Triage.”
I wondered if I’d heard him right.
Normally, wouldn’t the fellow, as the senior doctor, take overall command—the control tower—while the lower-year residents handled individual patients?
But now Minjae was doing the hands-on work and telling me to command.
“Shouldn’t you be the control tower, doctor? I’m a resident and you’re the fellow.”
“When I came in, you had traffic control pretty well handled. Clearing beds and pulling the minor cases out. The zone setup and the way you split the patients looked neat.”
Minjae smiled and picked up some gauze.
“Keep doing it like that. And anyway, my hands are better than yours at handling trauma patients, aren’t they?”
It was an undeniable fact.
It would probably be much faster and more accurate for Minjae to clean up this disaster and get the lines in.
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“Go see the overall flow, stop the surge if patients start piling up, and make the interns and residents work. It’s far more important for you to manage traffic outside than to add half-baked help in here. You’re the boss now.”
Minjae waved his hand, focusing on the patient.
“I’ll call you if we need an airway secured. That’s something you’re better at than I am.”
Why bring up airway all of a sudden here?
“Go. Go be the control tower.”
“Yes! Leave it to me!”
I left the resuscitation room without another second’s hesitation.
Drrrrr-
When the door closed, the noisy ER corridor came back into view.
Alarm bells rang from everywhere.
Nurses and paramedics were running all over.
Interns were in a panic, running around aimlessly.
‘Is this really okay?’
This bizarre setup, with a third-year resident commanding the scene while the fellow was stuck in the treatment room.
But I trust Minjae’s judgment.
Yeah.
The one who understood this mess best was me, because I’d been here from the start.
‘Well, whatever.’
I adjusted my gown and walked toward the center of the station.
From this moment on, the ER’s top person in charge was me.
ER’s top person in charge.
Acting term… extended by another 10 minutes.
I readjusted my plastic gown and ran toward the entrance.
As I quickly headed toward the entrance, I spotted a busy group in white coats running around far away.
The embroidered markings on their chests.
[Surgery Heo Seung-chan]
[Surgery Seong Ju-on]
[Internal Medicine Han Se-yoon]
Ah, finally.
Doctors had arrived, not interns.
Residents!
At last, we can actually talk.
With relief, I ran over and called them to a stop.
“Hey, medicine and surgery docs over there!”
“Ah, yes?”
Han Se-yoon of internal medicine looked at me, breathing hard.
I already knew all my third-year peers, and internal medicine and surgery are three-year programs, so given that I didn’t recognize their faces, those guys were probably first- or second-years.
Please be second-years.
Still, let’s be polite for now.
“I’m the one coordinating today’s ER response.”
At a time like this, the chain of command has to be clear.
“Ah, yes, yes. We heard. What should we do?”
Fortunately, they seemed to have grasped the situation and were ready to follow my lead.
“For now, could you stay by the triage desk and, if I ask, help out a little? Patient sorting is the most urgent thing right now.”
“Ah… ah, yes, yes. Understood. We’ll wait.”
The surgery residents took their places beside the patient-sorting station with solemn expressions.
Reassuring.
The weight definitely feels different from when it’s just interns.
Then the nurse who had been answering the phone hung up and rushed over to me.
“Doctor! We got a call from the on-site command center!”
“What did they say?”
“Apparently the initial triage wasn’t handled properly, so the minor and severe cases got all mixed together coming in, but it’s mostly been sorted out now! From here on, it’s going to be mostly critical patients!”
The nurse swallowed hard.
“Among the critical patients, the ones in slightly better condition are being sent to Seo-gu or Gaegeum, which are farther away! The really urgent patients are all being sent here! ETA is around 6 minutes!”
The real thing is coming.
Up to now, it was just the trailer.
Six minutes.
The last golden window to get ourselves in order.
“Ah yes, yes! Understood! Let’s get ready.”
While preparing for triage like that, I quietly slipped into a blind spot and opened the gallery in midair.
Thankfully, the next patient hadn’t arrived yet.
This is our chance.
I need to summon someone who can fill in my lack of knowledge—no, a partner who can get through this mess with me.
[Dead Medical Experts Gallery]
======================
Guys, decided yet?
Author: HellJoseonSlave1
You weren’t going to choose by lottery or anything, right?
Hurry up and come out. A patient is about to arrive.
======================
The moment I hit refresh, comments started pouring in.
[Comments]
HippocratesDescendant: O living one! Sadly, I must leave it to the next round!
ㄴ LatteWasBetterInMyDay: Sir, just stay in there. You’ve only ever gotten a taste of 21st-century modern medicine in the gallery anyway.
ㄴ HippocratesDescendant: How cruel, man of internal medicine! I thought we were comrades in the same field, yet you disregard my wisdom!
ㄴ LatteWasBetterInMyDay: This old man just calls anyone a comrade when it’s convenient, whether internal medicine or surgery. Total fence-sitter.
ㄴ RheumatismGranny: Long time no see, my little quack. We have decided to nominate a friend called ㅇㅇ(125.188).
ㅇㅇ? A throwaway nickname?
I narrowed my eyes.
Normally the named regulars are the ones who step up, so why a random anonymous user all of a sudden?
ㄴ HellJoseonSlave1: ㅇㅇ? Is that really okay? I don’t have time to joke around right now.
ㄴ OldHandChestSurgery: We’ve already finished testing him among ourselves. From the way he talks, he seems like a burn surgery guy, so we yielded. He’s a perfect fit for the current situation.
Burn surgery.
Then that’s acceptable.
It’s the specialty most needed at an explosion-and-fire scene.
Okay, that’s enough.
‘Possession, map mode. Anonymous 125.188.’
Swish.
My vision wavered for a moment, and something began to take shape in the empty air to my right.
But.
‘…What the hell is that.’
This, how should I put it.
Something incredibly shabby-looking, like a dust spirit you’d see in the beginner hunting grounds of an online game, was floating there.
Is the avatar on a default skin because it’s an anonymous account?
Or does map mode always look like this?
‘Well… as long as it’s good at what it does.’
I decided to have the shabby little specter check the people around me once more.
“Surgery doc, and the other surgery doc here, and the internal medicine doc here. Right? You’re here, right?”
I pointed at the residents, doing my best not to look like I was talking to empty air.
“Ah… yes, right? But why all of a sudden….”
Surgery resident Heo Seung-chan asked back, looking puzzled.
“Ah, no, it’s nothing. I was just checking manpower. You haven’t gotten any word on when the other doctors are coming, right?”
“No. Not yet….”
That was when.
Waaaeeeeeeeeeng-!
Siren wails overlapped.
They had arrived.
Screeeech!
“Patient!”
The paramedics jumped out of the back.
“Yes! This way!”
I immediately ran out and checked the first patient’s condition.
“Female in her 30s, suspected full-body third-degree burns! She’s conscious, but the pain is severe! BP is 140 over 80, pulse 110….”
The patient’s condition was horrific.
Her clothes had burned onto her skin, and the exposed flesh had hardened like leather.
“We’ll move her to Resus Room 2 first! One surgery doctor, please stay with her!”
“Yes!”
Surgery resident Heo Seung-chan rushed in and began checking the patient’s condition.
Having finished triaging the first patient and about to look at the next one.
[Hey, you bastard, are you really surgery? You’re moving so damn slow! Can’t even tell the burn degree at a glance?]
A thunderous shout rang in my ear.
It was Anonymous 125.188.
[This patient needs escharotomy prep right now! If blood flow gets blocked, you’ll end up amputating the hands and feet!]
The specter bounced in midair, pointing at the surgery resident.
Of course, Heo Seung-chan couldn’t see it.
[For the next patient, it has to go to A, doesn’t it? No, resus room is right! Hey! What are you doing, you surgery bastard! Are you seriously waiting for emergency medicine to triage for you? Huh? Are your eyes just for decoration?!]
The ghost’s merciless insults didn’t stop.
[Can’t you even estimate it by looking at the wound? Move the patient right now, you bastard! At this rate, can you even call yourself a scalpel-wielder?]
“….”
I went blank for a moment.
That way of speaking.
It sounded familiar.
No, not just familiar—it was a voice etched into my subconscious.
They said he was a burn surgery expert.
They said he was an anonymous user.
But why.
‘…No way, that bastard.’
I glared at the dustball floating in the air while triaging.
“You….”
I whispered softly.
“You’re the Scalpel God who logged out.”