Chapter 40
Meanwhile, in the trauma ICU.
Trauma surgery Professor Kang Hyeon-jun was standing beside the patient’s bed, checking the postoperative CT images.
"Jun-hyeok."
He called the fellow, Lee Jun-hyeok, who was standing beside him.
"Yes, Professor."
"That packing they did in the ER. The placement was a work of art. It blocked the blood flow to the splenic vessels with pinpoint accuracy and minimized damage to the surrounding organs. Thanks to that, it was much easier for us to go in and operate. It probably cut at least thirty minutes off the surgery."
At Professor Kang Hyeon-jun’s praise, Lee Jun-hyeok only gave an awkward smile.
"But still."
Professor Kang set down the tablet and said, stroking his chin.
"Was there a professor in emergency medicine that young? I’ve never seen his face before. His skill was almost the best I’ve seen among EM doctors, though. And he seemed a bit rude, too."
He recalled the mysterious doctor he had met in the ER.
He was too young to be a professor and far too rude to even imagine as a fellow.
But his dexterity and judgment were better than those of any emergency physician he knew.
"Pardon?"
Lee Jun-hyeok asked back.
"Ah. That packing, you mean…."
"Right. The doctor who carried out that insane stunt in the ER. Who was he?"
Lee Jun-hyeok hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth very carefully.
"Well… I asked the nurses, and…"
"And?"
"They said he’s an EM R1?"
"What?"
His eyes widened more than they ever had in his life.
"What did you say? R… what?"
"A first-year resident. Emergency medicine."
"What? Hey. Say something that makes sense, man."
Professor Kang Hyeon-jun gave out almost a dry laugh.
It seemed Lee Jun-hyeok had been taking his prank too far lately.
"I doubted my own ears too, so I asked three times. Han Hyeon-jae. Apparently, he really is a first-year who came in this year."
"…."
Professor Kang Hyeon-jun was speechless.
First-year. Someone who had just finished internship and was only now taking their first steps as a doctor.
And that guy had performed this complicated damage-control surgery?
In that chaotic ER resuscitation room, no less?
"…Is he insane?"
Pure astonishment spilled from his mouth.
"A first-year actually performed the operation? In the resuscitation room? That makes no sense at all. What were the senior doctors there doing? There was a fellow, and a fourth-year too, right? Are you telling me they all just stood there watching?"
"Well…."
Lee Jun-hyeok continued with a troubled expression.
"There wasn’t even time to stop him."
"…Hah, seriously."
Professor Kang Hyeon-jun looked up at the ceiling in disbelief.
This was the kind of story that wouldn’t even appear in a medical drama.
"If that’s true, I’m not sure what to do about this."
Professor Kang pressed his temple as if his head were spinning.
A single crazy genius had ignored every rule and procedure and saved the patient.
Was this something to praise, or something to punish harshly in order to restore discipline across the entire hospital?
After a long silence, Professor Kang asked the most realistic question.
"Then, does that guy get disciplined?"
***
14th-floor Education and Training Department conference room, East Wing.
Several people were seated across the table.
The most prominent among them were neurosurgery Professor Oh Man-seok, the head of the Education and Training Department, seated in the center; to his right, gastroenterology Professor Lee Cheol-young, who seemed to be attending as the internal medicine representative; and to his left, our department chief, Park Woong, head bowed so low that he couldn’t even bear to look at me.
My palms were soaked with clammy sweat.
The incident report I had barely finished with the not-help of the Scalpel God was in the committee members’ hands.
Would that bullshit about superhuman concentration and image training actually work?
Professor Oh Man-seok adjusted his thick glasses, looked up from the documents, and turned to me.
"Well then, I hereby open the 34th Education and Training Committee meeting."
His voice cut through the heavy air in the conference room.
"The agenda item is disciplinary action regarding the emergency laparotomy performed in the ER by Han Hyeon-jae, a first-year emergency medicine resident. Han Hyeon-jae, the accused, are you present?"
"…Yes."
My throat was so parched that the answer came out cracked.
"Oh, come on, don’t be nervous."
Professor Oh suddenly smiled gently.
"This isn’t an official disciplinary committee. It’s only an advisory body to discuss and relay opinions on whether Dr. Han’s actions can be accepted as part of residency training. If we judge this to be a serious disciplinary matter, then it goes to the disciplinary committee; we’re not deciding anything ourselves. So don’t be too scared—just tell it as it is. Only the facts."
Professor Oh tapped my incident report with his finger.
"I read your report carefully. It was written in great detail and very logically. But there are things you can’t know from paperwork alone. That’s why we arranged this meeting today."
He leaned forward.
"Dr. Han Hyeon-jae. Let me ask you directly. Why did you, without consulting or receiving instructions from a senior doctor, cut open the patient’s abdomen in the ER resuscitation room on your own judgment? Did you not know what consequences your actions could lead to?"
Every gaze turned to me.
I began to pull out the answer I had simulated dozens of times with the Scalpel God.
If I fell apart here, it would all be over.
"Before answering, I’d like to first state that it is an undeniable fact that I violated the hospital’s rules and procedures, and there is no excuse for that."
I bowed my head first.
The old fossils love this kind of thing.
"However, I would be grateful if you would give me the chance to explain the circumstances at the time that made me choose that course of action."
Professor Oh nodded, signaling me to continue.
"When the patient arrived, the patient was already in ATLS Class IV shock. Systolic blood pressure had dropped into the 50s, and the pulse was measured at over 140 beats per minute. It meant the body was at the brink of shock, no longer able to withstand the blood loss."
I began listing only the medical facts, excluding emotion as much as possible.
"We tried every possible means to raise the blood pressure. But the patient’s condition did not improve. The findings clearly suggested massive intra-abdominal bleeding, and it was like pouring water into a bottomless bucket. The patient was losing blood faster than fluids and blood could be infused."
The air in the conference room changed subtly.
"By my judgment, the patient had only about five minutes left. Metabolic acidosis, hypothermia, and coagulopathy had already begun. If things continued like that, it was obvious the patient would go into cardiac arrest and stop responding to any treatment."
I took a brief breath.
"Should I follow the rules and wait for the patient’s certain death, or violate them and stake everything on the patient’s faint chance of survival? I chose the latter."
"So you picked up a scalpel?"
Professor Lee Cheol-young, seated beside him, cut in.
"Why did you judge that procedure to be the only option? Dr. Han isn’t a surgeon. What was a first-year emergency medicine resident relying on to make such an enormous decision?"
I recalled again what the Scalpel God had told me.
"I judged it to be emergency treatment under the concept of damage control, not formal surgery. It was not an operation meant to treat and cure the patient, but the only means of extending the patient’s life for even a few minutes until the patient could get to the operating room."
I repeated the concept the Scalpel God had explained to me last night, word for word.
"I was not attempting to remove the spleen or anastomose blood vessels. I simply compressed the area around the ruptured spleen to temporarily stop the massive bleeding and buy the patient the minimum amount of time needed to get to the operating room."
When I finished speaking, a heavy silence fell over the conference room.
"It was reported that your manual skill far exceeded the level of a first-year. They say you carried out the entire procedure flawlessly, without the slightest hesitation. How do you explain that?"
Professor Oh’s point.
Here it comes.
I decided to bring out the most shameless and absurd excuse in the world, one I had prepared with the Scalpel God the night before.
"Driven only by the desperate need to save the patient, I think I unconsciously displayed superhuman concentration, based on the image training and in-hospital simulation drills I had repeatedly run through in my head."
At my answer, the same look of, “Is this bastard messing with us right now?” flickered across the faces of Professors Oh and Lee.
But they couldn’t refute it.
Because there was no other way to explain it.
"My actions were clearly an overreach, and they were something a resident in training should never do. But even if I were to go back to that moment, I think I would make the same choice. Because I was taught that no rule comes before a patient’s life."
I finished speaking and bowed deeply at the waist.
"I will take full responsibility for all consequences that follow."
The only sound in the conference room was the awkward ticking of the clock.
Professor Oh Man-seok’s gaze settled on my face.
"Hah… Dr. Han, you do realize how absurd this is, right? Where exactly did you practice that procedure…? Haa… Never mind. Well, it’s not like you could have practiced it illegally anywhere, anyway."
Professor Oh sighed.
"...For now, until we reach a conclusion, please step outside and wait."
"Yes."
I bowed my head like a sinner and stood up from the creaking chair.
When I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, the heavy door closed behind me.
I sank down, leaning my back against the empty hallway wall.
My legs gave out.
It was over.
Everything I could do was done.
All that remained now was to wait for the judgment of the old fossils behind that door.
I opened the blue window in my head. I had to vent this shitty feeling somewhere.
Title: I Came to the Training Committee and Feel Like I'm Screwed ㅎㅎ…
Author: HellJoseonSlave1
The moment my self-deprecating post went up, comments appeared as if they had been waiting for it.
Scalpel God: Did you answer the way we prepared?
ㄴ HellJoseonSlave1: Yeah, thanks to you. I went in and neatly proved exactly why I’m a crazy bastard. Of course, you’re obviously the one who should take responsibility for it.
In response to my sarcasm, the Scalpel God’s next comment was astonishingly meek.
ㄴ Scalpel God: Anyway, I’m sorry. Since I’m sorry, please let me possess you again in the future… I even posted that photo of me doing a full prostration yesterday.
I let out a snort of laughter at that comment.
It seemed the drastic move I made on the gallery yesterday—“No possession if your social skills are wrecked”—had worked pretty well.
Just thinking about that still made me laugh.
After finishing the incident report, I had issued a stern proclamation to the gallery.
『If my doctor life gets screwed over because of today, then your real lives are over too. So if you want to borrow my body from now on, at the very least equip some basic social skills. If you pull that insane stunt of talking casually to my seniors or professors again, your possession skill gets permanently sealed that day. Got it?』
My threat made the Scalpel God, who had been arrogant to the extreme, swallow his pride.
He posted a crude stick-figure image doing a full prostration, with the words, “I swear I’ll never do anything socially inept again, so please, just don’t stop the surgery…” scribbled on it, and apologized desperately.
He had broken the pride that must never have bent, even in death—the desire to hold a scalpel.
Yeah, it should have been like this from the start.
And now the other ghosts were starting to crawl out one by one to ask how I was doing.
LatteWasBetterBackThen: So how was the atmosphere? Did the old geezers’ faces get all twisted up?
ㅇㅇ (118.235): Don’t get fired. If you get fired, we’ll be so bored we’ll die again for real.
BoneFan88: Beautiful!! Bone marrow slide collection!!
Yeah, we were in the same boat now.
If I sink here, your only source of entertainment goes down with me.