Chapter 160
When I came out of the main auditorium after the monthly assembly, I saw a half-dead man in front of me.
"Uuughh..."
It was Son Jongun, my third-year co-resident and a pediatric resident.
"Jongun."
"...What."
"Congrats. You won an award, right?"
Son Jongun had won the “Best Teacher Award as Chosen by the Pediatric Patients” at this month's assembly.
Apparently the ward kids had each put on stickers to vote or something.
"Thanks... But there wasn't even any prize money. They just gave me a 30,000-won culture gift certificate."
"That’s something. Buy a game with it or something."
I offered him some useless consolation and got to the point.
I needed to confirm it.
Whether I alone had been called, or whether he was summoning all the winners to treat them to jajangmyeon or something.
"But did that hospital director guy say the same thing to you?"
"Say what?"
"You know, that thing where he whispers in your ear while shaking your hand. Like some April Fool's joke or whatever."
I looked at Son Jongun with desperate eyes.
Please.
Say you heard it too.
"Right? He told you to come too, didn’t he? Please?"
"...What the hell are you talking about? What is this now?"
Son Jongun made a face like he'd bitten into a bug.
"He just said thanks for your hard work and left it at that."
"...He didn't call you?"
"No. He didn't call me. Why, did he call you separately?"
'Aaaagh, fuck!!!'
So that was it.
'I knew it!!! There's no way the hospital director would make some April Fool's joke that confuses the staff!! He called just me!!! Just to screw me over!!!'
What the hell was this?
What had I done wrong?
Helicopter?
Or was it that time I yelled in the cafeteria that the food was terrible and got caught by the head of nutrition?
'Blah seaweed soup is a sin!!!'
I tore at my hair and jumped in place.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Calm down, man. The professors are in the hallway right now..."
That was when Son Jongun grabbed my arm to stop me.
Thud.
Someone placed a heavy hand on Son Jongun's shoulder.
It was Professor Kang Hyeon-jun from trauma surgery.
"You are doing well to help a fellow resident in distress, but geniuses are said to be like that. Leave him be. He seems to be in the throes of artistic anguish."
"..."
"..."
'No, what the hell are you talking about now?!'
Right now I'm freaking out because I feel a threat to my life, and you're slapping some grandiose frame on it?
So I left Son Jongun behind and headed for the elevator.
My steps felt like they weighed a ton.
...
The heart of hospital administration, and the place where the most exalted people dwell.
Even the air felt different the moment the elevator doors opened.
'Haa...'
I let out a long sigh and walked down the hallway.
Here is the director's office, next door is the planning and coordination director's office, next to that is the QI head's office, and at the very end is even the chairman's office.
A minefield.
"Fuck."
Why the hell was I even here?
I hid in a corner of the hallway and, with the desperate feeling of grasping at straws, opened the blue window one last time.
[Dead Doctors Gallery]
===============
Why was I suddenly being called to the director's office?
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
The director called me separately after the monthly assembly.
What is this?
I can't even begin to guess.
===============
[Comments]
Scalpel God: What else would it be? You're fucked.
Hippocrates' Heir: O living doctor! By my long years of wisdom, this does not seem like a good thing! A powerful person's summons usually brings blood.
Back in My Day: You never know until you see it. Did you cause some trouble lately?
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: ㄴㄴ Not lately. I've done something, but it should only be something I'd get praised for?
ㄴ Back in My Day: Then while you're at it, could you please possess me? I'll speak for you during the director interview.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: Get lost.
Useless.
Completely useless.
Why are they all people who look like they had nothing at all to do with hospital politics?
I closed the gallery window and straightened my clothes.
Right, whatever it is, I'll just face it head-on.
Surely he wouldn't kill me.
Knock knock.
"Yes, come in."
When I opened the door, the secretary greeted me.
"I’m sorry, but this area is for scheduled meetings... Ah, are you Dr. Han Hyeonjae from Emergency Medicine?"
"...Yes. I'd prefer not to be, but yes."
"Pardon?"
"No, ignore that. I'm talking to myself. Yes, I'm Han Hyeonjae."
"Ah, yes! You may come in right away!"
The secretary very kindly pointed to the hospital director's office.
I took one deep breath.
Hoo.
I don't know.
Click.
...
"Have a seat."
The hospital director, wearing a very serious expression, greeted me.
"A-ah? Yes! Thank you."
I lowered myself onto the very plush-looking leather sofa in the center of the director's office.
Fwoosh.
'Damn, that's insanely soft.'
Lee Jae-yoon sat silently across from me and flipped through a thick file binder on the table, page by page.
I never thought the sound of pages turning could be this terrifying.
'Why the hell did he call me here?'
I was never interested in the politics of the hospital.
No, as a resident, I shouldn't be interested in politics in the first place.
My job was to do my work well and get a little more sleep, since that was the sensible thing for someone in my position.
Besides, I knew even less about these high-ranking people—the so-called leadership of the hospital.
That meant that in my mind, the image of Director Lee Jae-yoon, and of a hospital director in general, was firmly modeled after the standard villains in Korean medical dramas and webtoons.
'If you usually see this kind of thing, there's a clear cliché, right?'
For example, something like this.
'The VIP patient who came in this time... he's the son of a congressman, you know. Tamper with the queue a bit and get him into surgery first.'
Or:
'We're a little short on data for the paper, so why don't you perform some ghost surgeries and fill it in.'
Those kinds of filthy, sleazy proposals.
But come to think of it, that didn't add up.
'I'm not even in surgery.'
Emergency medicine.
There were no waiting patients whose order could be manipulated, and no highly complex scheduled surgeries that would need ghost operations.
At most it was constipation enemas and suturing torn wounds, so there was no way the director had called me in to make me do that.
'Then what is it?'
Could it really be a disciplinary action?
Just then, the director snapped the file shut and pushed his glasses up.
"Our Dr. Han seems... quite smart."
"Pardon?"
Praise? Or sarcasm?
"I'm not saying this to flatter you. I looked into it, and this is... quite impressive."
Lee Jae-yoon rested a hand on the file and spoke.
"In your first year, you diagnosed a rare autoimmune disease in the ER. And you also directly opened a patient up in the ER and saved them with damage-control surgery after intra-abdominal bleeding. You even found the bleeding point with your bare hands."
"Haha... yes. I was lucky."
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
I know it.
Of course I know it.
"Leaving aside all the minor internal-medicine diagnoses and such... REBOA."
The director's gaze sharpened.
"In your second year, you even did REBOA twice. I believe one time it succeeded and the patient survived, and one time the patient died."
"Yes. That situation was..."
I bit my lip.
"No, no. Don't be nervous."
The director waved a hand.
"I'm not trying to reprimand you. Looking at the records, the procedure itself was perfect in that case too. It's just that the blood loss exceeded the fatal threshold, and failing to maintain perfusion pressure... well, those kinds of unavoidable factors were at play."
The director looked me in the eye.
"I'm absolutely not saying the first REBOA turned out well because the professor finished it, and the second REBOA went wrong because you finished it. There's no need to blame yourself."
"Thank you, Director."
I was genuinely relieved.
At the very least, he wasn't a closed-minded person.
"But, you see..."
Director Lee Jae-yoon took out a tablet PC and slid it toward me.
"I was looking through your procedure records and the CCTV, and I found something really interesting."
"Yes?"
"Have you ever seen this surgery before?"
The director pressed play.
A tense scene with blood spurting out after the abdomen had been opened.
That distinctive rhythm of pressing the aorta with the left hand while packing behind the liver with the right.
The moment I saw the video, I held my breath.
'...Fuck.'
I know it.
There was no way I wouldn't know.
'That's basically the Scalpel God, isn't it?!'
What the fuck?
This guy's generation is closer to mine than I expected?!
While my mind was in chaos, I tried to derive the most reasonable answer.
First, the reason he was showing me this video was probably to ask about the similarity in technique.
Then how should I answer?
If I said I talked to that ghost, they'd send me to a psychiatric hospital.
But if I said I didn't know it, my hand habit was far too similar.
In that case, there was only one answer.
"Yes... that's right. He's someone I deeply respect, so I studied him a lot."
"I see. I knew it."
Director Lee Jae-yoon nodded.
"Did REBOA also take influence from him?"
"Pardon? Ah... yes. You could say that."
In truth, it wasn't so much that I was influenced as that the old guy just did it himself...
***
...
Director Lee Jae-yoon was, in many ways, also uneasy about this resident.
He acknowledged the resident's genius talent.
But what if.
What if he was just the kind of person who obsessed over Professor Yang, a total fan, and merely copied what he saw in the videos?
It was impressive that he could reproduce Professor Yang's uniquely distinctive procedures, but if he didn't understand the physiological mechanisms and insights behind them and was just imitating the surface...
'That's dangerous.'
It had been around 2018 when Professor Yang passed away.
That was already nearly ten years ago.
Since then, trauma guidelines and techniques had been slowly but surely changing.
Incredible skill, but with a nearly identical surgical style.
Then there was the possibility that rather than having studied trauma procedures deeply, he might just be a copycat who'd fixated on one doctor.
That was a fatal flaw in a doctor.
'Then I need to correct him properly.'
Director Lee Jae-yoon decided to test him.
To see whether this kid was merely an imitator or a doctor with a philosophy of his own.
***
...
"I see. You've studied hard."
The director interlaced his fingers and asked,
"Then is there anything in that procedure of yours that might be worth reviewing, or anything you felt was regrettable?"
"...Pardon?"
"I mean the REBOA you performed. Was there anything you'd have liked to do differently?"
What was the intention behind that question?
Something regrettable?
It succeeded, so what was there to regret?
Wasn't saving the patient enough?
"Um... could you give me a moment to think?"
I pretended to lower my head while urgently opening the void.
Help me, Speedwagon!
No, Scalpel God!
[Dead Doctors Gallery]
==========
@Scalpel God @Scalpel God @Scalpel God Hey, you bastard
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
Hurry up and come out.
What did you screw up?
The director is grilling you, asking if there was anything wrong with the REBOA you did.
==========
[Comments]
Scalpel God: ? As if I'd fuck up. Error is not in my dictionary.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: Then wtf is it really
ㄴ Scalpel God: One thing I was a little disappointed in? I was thinking maybe I should try a partial REBOA. Like not inflating the balloon all the way and leaving a little room so some blood can still flow through.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: Why didn't you do that?
ㄴ Scalpel God: The trauma surgery team came down quickly, and there was plenty of time to get to the OR, so why bother?
Partial REBOA.
This was it.
"I've thought about it."
"Yes, go on."
"At the time, I judged full occlusion to be the best option, but looking back now... I think trying partial REBOA might also have been a good choice."
"Partial?"
"Yes. Adjusting the balloon volume so the aorta isn't completely blocked, and sending a small amount of blood flow to the lower body."
Mixing in the theory I knew.
Making it sound plausible.
"That way, we could have tried to reduce ischemia and reperfusion injury, and maybe done a bit more to prevent complications like organ necrosis or metabolic acidosis."
"...!"
The director's expression changed slightly.
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a helpless laugh.
"Heh... hahaha. I see. Partial, huh..."
...
This was exactly the kind of answer Director Lee Jae-yoon wanted to hear.
During Professor Yang's era, full occlusion had been the mainstream, but the recent trend was shifting toward partial occlusion to reduce complications.
'So he's not a copycat.'
The moment suspicion and concern changed into admiration.
...
"Excellent. A very excellent answer."
The director rose from his seat and walked over to me.
"Thank you."
Looking at the director, whose expression had softened a little—no, had become overly warm—I thought,
'This guy's a little weird too, huh?'