Chapter 164
7:00 a.m.
The morning air on Geoje Island was clearly different from Busan, where our main hospital was.
In other words, the sea breeze was freezing like hell.
[Cheongjin University Geoje Hospital]
The four of us on the dispatch team gathered in front of the Emergency Medical Center entrance at the scheduled OT time.
Phew….
I blew out a puff of breath and pulled my collar closed.
Behind me stood first-year residents Yoon Tae-hyun and Kim Seoa, still half asleep, while Baek Eun-seo stood beside them with her arms crossed.
It’s really clean.
The main hospital’s ER used its own building, but because it had been built onto and remodeled from an old structure, the flow was a maze.
When an ambulance came in, it was routine for it to get tangled up with walk-in patients.
They even made the entrance flow one-way, and split the pedestrian entrance and the ambulance-only entrance into completely separate sections.
I found myself nodding.
‘They built this from the design stage itself to meet Emergency Medical Center standards. Structurally, it’s a lot better than the main hospital.’
It looks incredibly sleek.
First-year resident Yoon Tae-hyun stood there with his mouth open, looking up at the building.
“Doctor, what is that?”
First-year resident Yoon Tae-hyun asked, pointing at the sign.
A sign with a red background and white letters, looking as if the plastic wrap hadn't even been peeled off yet.
[Local Emergency Medical Institution]
The problem was the lettering.
‘Up through “Local Emergency Medical,” it looked like the original sign material, but the last two characters, “Institution,” had a different font and a subtly different color.’
It looked clumsy, like they had slapped stickers over the original letters in a hurry.
When the wind blew, the corner of the “Institution” character fluttered.
“But the word ‘Institution’ is stuck on there really sloppily, isn’t it? Looks like it might fall off.”
Kim Seoa chimed in from the side.
“That?”
Well…
If I were to make a guess, all newly opened general hospital ERs have to start out as local emergency medical institutions in the early days of opening.
“They probably expected to get the Center designation, made the sign as ‘Center,’ then had to change it in a hurry when it turned out to be ‘Institution’?”
“Do you think so….”
Then wouldn’t they just put up a local institution sign?
Who knows when it’ll become a center?
But where is this?
A university hospital.
The foundation is pouring money into it—how long could it possibly stay an “institution”?
‘They’re probably setting it up like that because getting evaluated next year or the year after and having the regional center designation attached is basically a done deal.’
I clicked my tongue.
“But they stuck it on way too obviously. If they’re going to do that, why not just use some kind of sign where the paper goes inside? A roll-up sign? Something like that. So lame.”
“Yeah. It feels like a patch job.”
Baek Eun-seo chimed in.
Oh, they're thrifty, all right. Very thrifty.
After building a hundreds-of-billions-won building, they’re trying to save money on the sign.
“All right, let’s go in.”
We couldn’t keep holding a critique session outside forever, so I was about to head for the automatic doors when...
“Oh! You’re here?”
The automatic doors slid open, and someone strode out from inside.
A familiar face.
At the main hospital, I had only ever seen her in a shabby set of scrubs with a crumpled coat thrown over them.
Now she was in a crisp, freshly pressed coat, with her hair neatly tied back.
Fellow Park Se-young.
I checked the embroidered marking on the chest of her coat.
[Emergency Medicine Professor Park Se-young]
Having risen from contract slave to temporary aristocrat, she greeted us with a bright smile.
“Good morning, Professor!”
“Oh, I didn’t come out just to receive your greetings. You’re early, huh? Thanks for coming all this way.”
Park Se-young laughed, waving her hand.
She looked so relaxed it was hard to imagine the days when she’d looked like a zombie.
Her complexion looked radiant.
She even looked like she’d put on a little weight.
“Professor, you look so much better than when you were at the main hospital. Your skin’s practically glowing.”
Is the air on Geoje Island just that good, or is it the power of the professor title?
At that, Park Se-young let out a snort of laughter.
“Really? Maybe it’s because you’re not here now, Hyeonjae?”
“…Huh?”
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
That had a bite to it.
It was a joke with a very hard edge.
Ow, that hurt.
“I’m kidding. Welcome, you troublemaker.”
Park Se-young chuckled and beckoned us over.
“Yes... please take care of us.”
“Follow me. We need to do the OT. Now that you’re here, my good days are over. Guess it’s back to aging for me.”
Anyway, we started walking after Professor Park.
Bzzzt-
The automatic doors opened.
“The full OT will probably be when everyone gathers this evening. Once the hospital director and the department heads are here, we’ll do it properly then. For now, let’s just do a quick one in the ER. I don’t have time to tour you around anyway.”
Park Se-young said as she led the way.
“Yes….”
And we trotted after her.
Park Se-young stopped in front of the triage desk.
“All right, hold on here for a second.”
‘Huh? We’re stopping here?’
I looked around.
Isn’t OT usually where they sit you in a conference room, put up a PowerPoint, and go through it?
Was this the confidence of a new professor, or just plain laziness?
Park Se-young raised a hand and pointed in a direction.
“I’ll give you the basic rundown. The layout is simple. If you go straight from the entrance, you’ll reach the adult ER, and if you turn down that corridor on the right, there’s a separate pediatric ER.”
Pediatric ER.
The moment I heard those words, a chill ran down my spine.
‘Wait a second, don’t tell me we have to cover peds too... no, right?’
I had to confirm it.
“Professor, I have a question.”
I shot my hand up.
“What is it? You need the bathroom?”
“No. Do we have to cover that pediatric ER...?”
Please say no.
Pediatric patients don’t communicate properly, their veins are impossible to find, and their parents are hypersensitive.
In other words, they have all three things residents hate most.
Maybe reading the desperation in my eyes, Park Se-young smiled.
“Oh, no, no. Don’t worry. Pediatric emergency subspecialists will be on rotation 24/7, so you won’t have to worry about it. You’ll only see adults. And occasionally teenagers.”
Phew.
Before I knew it, a deep sigh of relief escaped me.
Baek Eun-seo and the first-years beside me also let out sighs of relief.
“Good. Shall I continue?”
Park Se-young started walking again.
Bzzzt-
“Come inside. The rough division into the resuscitation area and A and B zones is the same as the main hospital ER, but the flow is a lot more convenient here. And all the equipment is brand new.”
We stepped fully into the ER.
It really was nice.
The station was covered with large monitors, and the sightlines let you take everything in at a glance.
‘This would be great for patient monitoring.’
On top of that, the bed spacing was wide and the monitors were state-of-the-art.
But the most striking thing was...
‘There’s nobody here.’
There weren’t any patients.
“Yeah. The facilities seem really good.”
I tossed out a hollow compliment and followed Park Se-young into the conference room.
A small but tidy conference table and a whiteboard.
We took our seats.
“You’ve seen the basic layout. Anyone have any other questions?”
Park Se-young asked as she sat down.
The questions we’d been holding back burst out all at once.
“So why are there no patients right now?”
First-year resident Yoon Tae-hyun asked.
“Is the staffing setup really like they said?”
I asked.
“Ah.”
Yoon Tae-hyun and I met eyes.
Our questions overlapped.
But the context was the same.
‘Isn’t this hospital screwed?’
and
‘Do the three of us really handle everything?’
are basically the same question in the end.
Or maybe not.
Park Se-young smiled leisurely.
“I think I can answer both questions at once.”
She held up one finger.
“First: people just don’t come.”
‘Huh?’
“Part of it is that it hasn’t been advertised enough, and part of it is that it hasn’t fully opened yet. Right now there are exactly two patients in the ER, and both are mild cases. There’s basically no reason to use the EICU(* emergency intensive care unit) at all.”
‘Ah, I see.’
“Access may also be an issue to begin with. The locals still don’t trust our hospital yet, so aside from the occasional critical patient coming in by 119, we’ll never be at capacity.”
Park Se-young brushed her hair back.
“So, three.”
So that’s why it’s three...
“Honestly, three is already too many. If I’m on call alone, I can watch a whole movie overnight. This was an ER that used to be covered by one specialist and two interns, and now that four of you are here, we’ve got more than enough.”
“Hmm.”
So that’s how it is.
That bastard Son Jongun was trying to scare me.
It wasn’t that they were dying from a lack of staff; there just weren’t any patients, so the staff wasn’t needed.
“Professor, then practically speaking, there won’t be any time when I’m controlling things on the ER floor or taking on a chief role in place of a fourth-year and making life-and-death decisions on my own... right?”
“Right. That’s what you mean.”
Park Se-young nodded.
“Just like the main hospital, a specialist will be on-site 24 hours a day. If a critical patient comes in, a specialist will handle it, and for the most part the specialists—including me—will be giving orders. You just need to do a bit of teaching for the kids and handle the small stuff when I’m asleep. Don’t stress.”
‘Yeeeeeessss!!!!!!!’
A cheer escaped me on its own.
This is it.
This is exactly the kind of dispatch life I wanted.
The sweet gig was here all along.
‘I’m definitely going to wreck Son Jongun when I get back. Trying to scare me and all.’
I made an effort to hide the smile creeping onto my lips.
“For this rotation, Hyeonjae is the chief... well, the first Emergency Medicine chief since Geoje Hospital opened.”
Park Se-young smiled and flipped through the papers.
“Honestly, it’s just a title given to the most senior person, so it doesn’t mean much, but you’ll get a tiny hardship allowance for the trouble. You’ll draft the residents’ duty roster and manage their vacations and off-day schedules.”
“Ah, yes! Understood!”
At your service, at your service.
They're giving me scheduling authority.
Power.
POWER.
“Don’t you dare mess with the schedule on purpose and try to slack off, got it? We won’t run things as strictly as the main hospital, so make it with a conscience.”
“Come on, would I ever do that? If we're talking fairness, it’s Han Hyeonjae.”
I placed a hand over my chest and pretended to swear an oath.
‘Of course I will, damn it.’
Though inside, I was already calculating a golden schedule.
“Anyway, for today’s day shift, it’ll be Hyeonjae and Tae-hyun, just the two of you. For night shift, Eun-seo and Seoa, the two of you. Since it’s the first day, let’s run it like this for now. Clean, right?”
“Yes!”
“Then you two, dismissed! You two, to your positions! That’s all!”
Park Se-young clapped once.
“To your positions!”
...
‘...where is that?’
I don’t even know where my spot is.
Where is “position”?
“…Um. Sorry. There should be stickers on the station computers saying ‘resident seat.’ That’s your spot.”
“Ah, yes.”
So we moved into the station area.
A spacious, comfortable desk area.
Brand-new-smelling computers and dual monitors.
“Doctor, this chair moves smoothly.”
Yoon Tae-hyun sat down with a look of wonder and spun around in his chair.
I sat down too, logged in, and opened the waiting patient list.
[Waiting patients: 0]
Clean.
And so we began adapting to the new system.
Poking around and clicking on things.
Checking the medication locations.
And identifying the most important thing of all: the bathroom location.
...
...
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
The wall clock’s second hand filled the ER with its ticking.
The occasional chatter from the nurses was just extra background noise.
“How... can no patients come in for an entire hour...?”
I muttered, pressing a hand to my forehead.
“Not even a single 119 call? Did the ambulance get lost?”
If we were at the main hospital, ten patients would have already come in by now.
We’d be fighting with other departments over unavailable beds.
We’d also be making transfer calls and arguing with guardians; it would have been chaos.
Here, it felt like time had stopped.
Being too busy is a problem, but not getting any patients at all is unnerving too.
If they suddenly start pouring in, we won’t be able to handle it.
‘...Let’s not jinx it.’
Just as I was about to yawn and look back at the screen...
“Doctor!”
A frantic voice broke the silence.
It was first-year resident Yoon Tae-hyun.
“Huh? What is it?”
“The routine lab results just came in...”
Yoon Tae-hyun pointed at the monitor.
“The patient's test results are abnormal.”