Chapter 52
After the few storms that had shaken my life as a doctor passed, time in the ER finally returned to its normal pace.
Ambulance sirens wailed dozens of times a day.
Naturally, I sprang out at the sound like Pavlov's dog.
“Aaagh! My finger! My finger!”
I heard the screams of a young factory worker whose hand had been crushed in a press.
“Ma'am, can you hear me? Did you eat breakfast this morning?”
I checked the blood sugar from a diabetic patient's limp arm after the patient lost consciousness right after taking an insulin shot after breakfast.
And my insane tutors never left me alone for a second, either.
Hell Joseon Slave 1 : A man in his 20s came in saying he'd had a fever and a cough since yesterday, but the X-ray is clear. I can just give him cold medicine and send him home, right?
Respiratory Ghost : Here we go again. What did I say you should suspect first when a young guy has a fever and a cough but the X-ray is clear? Atypical pneumonia, you idiot, hahaha.
And sometimes I even got the carrot of praise.
“His blood pressure's normal, and the EKG doesn't show much either.”
I stared hard at the patient's electrocardiogram.
Everything looked normal, but I could see that the interval between beats was just a little longer than normal.
First-degree atrioventricular block.
Usually, that's a finding with no clinical significance.
But I remembered the knowledge the ghosts had drilled into me a few days earlier.
Hell Joseon Slave 1 : Sir, could this old man be taking a cardiac glycoside like digoxin? First-degree AV block can be the first sign of a drug side effect. I think we should check the blood level.
Cardiology Wraith : Oh, not bad. You can even spot subtle changes on the EKG now. Of course we should check it. Good thinking.
Yes, I was growing. Even if the way it happened was horribly twisted.
Time passed like that.
Countless patients passed through my hands, and countless curses and a tiny bit of praise filled my head.
Then one day, an email arrived.
[Korean Society of Emergency Medicine] We are pleased to inform you that the abstract you submitted has been accepted for presentation in the poster session of the autumn academic conference.
I stared blankly at the email.
I did it.
Honestly, it would have been weird if it hadn't.
It was a work created by countless wraiths putting their heads together; no way it would've been rejected.
Thinking that, I closed the email window with a strange sense of pride.
***
And so, the morning of the conference dawned.
I barely managed to open my eyes to the alarm blaring like hell in the early dawn.
Fuck....
I don't want to go.
I really don't want to go.
And so I got into the car bound for Seoul.
Along with the awkward suit I never thought I'd wear in my life.
Half-dazed, I stared out the window from the car headed to Seoul.
The familiar sights of Busan flashed by quickly.
My tiny officetel beyond that scenery.
And the soft bed inside it.
I should be sleeping there, oblivious to the world, right about now.
Where exactly did my life go wrong?
Was it the moment I got the possession skill?
The moment I got access to the gallery?
Or the moment I entered college?
***
After four hours and thirty minutes of travel, I finally set foot in Seoul.
A ridiculously huge hotel.
The moment I went through the revolving door and into the lobby, I held my breath.
“Whoa... holy shit....”
The lobby was the size of a soccer field.
The floor was covered in marble that looked more expensive than the deposit on my officetel. Crazy.
“What are you doing? Let's go!”
Unlike me, Lee Minjae shoved my back as if all this were perfectly familiar to him.
He strode across the lobby as confidently as if he were walking through his own living room and headed for the conference registration desk.
I followed behind Lee Minjae as best I could, desperately trying not to look like a country bumpkin.
And just like that, I received my name tag and the thick conference booklet.
The moment I hung the name tag with my name and affiliation around my neck, I felt strange.
[Cheongjin University Medical Center Han Hyeon-jae]
Is this what belonging feels like?
I hate this hospital.
Anyway, after finishing registration, Lee Minjae dragged me to a corner of the venue.
His expression was now 180 degrees different from before—utterly solemn and serious.
“Hyeon-jae.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. There's something very important.”
Lee Minjae's voice dropped low.
I swallowed hard.
Was this finally starting?
Something like, ‘Go over there and greet Professor Kim from Seoul National University Hospital,’ perhaps.
I braced myself for a mission nearly impossible for a first-year, like, ‘Later, during the panel discussion, ask one sharp question and raise our hospital's standing.’
Right, I was a first-year resident who got called a genius!
All I had to do was jump in and try.
“Yes! What is it? Just say it!”
Lee Minjae glanced around once, then gripped my shoulder tightly and whispered.
“After registration is done... make sure you go around the booths.”
...Huh?
Booths? You mean the booths where pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies promote their products?
“What am I supposed to do there? Hear the latest insights or something...”
“No!”
Lee Minjae cut me off firmly.
“Forget the latest insights. You won't remember them anyway even if you hear them. That's not what's important.”
Lee Minjae looked around once more and then whispered the conference's deepest secret into my ear.
“It means... go and scoop up every last freebie!”
...Huh?
“Pens! Three-color pens with a pharma logo on them! You know how good they write, right? Grab at least ten! And Post-its! The cute-shaped ones! USB drives! If you're lucky, you might even snag a 16GB one! And tote bags! Those conference-logo tote bags are insanely useful later when you go to the neighborhood mart! Wet wipes! Bandages! At the very least, grab an extra bottle of water!”
Lee Minjae's speech was passionate.
He preached with his whole body that the essence of an academic conference was not the exchange of knowledge, but the plundering of freebies.
“This is your first mission and your most important mission. Beat out all those competitors and bring me back the most practical and expensive freebies. Understood!”
I stood there blankly.
Had I come to a medical conference, or to a big supermarket sample booth?
After giving my shoulder one more hard pat with a deeply satisfied look, Lee Minjae disappeared, leaving behind, “Then I'll go mingle with some renowned scholars.”
What renowned scholars, my ass.
You're a resident too, in the end.
And just like that, I was left alone in the middle of the huge venue.
In my hands was the thick conference booklet, and on my shoulders was the solemn mission of plundering freebies.
I wandered around the huge conference hall for a while, briefly forgetting the absurd mission Lee Minjae had given me of plundering freebies.
All around me were doctors in awkward suits like mine.
Their name tags showed all kinds of affiliations.
From Seoul's Big 5 hospitals to the national university hospitals in the provinces.
Those folks were gathered in small groups, drinking coffee, having heated discussions, or greeting famous professors.
I wasn't part of any of them.
“Hyeon-jae!”
When I turned toward the familiar voice, Professor Cheon Eun-jeong was walking toward me.
“There you are. Have you seen the posters yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Really? Make sure you check them later. Afterward, you and Jihoon just need to stand there awkwardly beside the poster from 2 p.m. on, over there in Crystal Ballroom Hall 2! Got it?”
Professor Cheon put emphasis on the words “very awkwardly.”
“Yes, ma'am. Understood! At 2 o'clock, Crystal Ballroom...”
I desperately burned the location and time into my head.
“You remember the number, right? 117.”
“Of course! There's no way I'd forget.”
“Good. See you later.”
Professor Cheon finished her brief errand and went back.
I stayed where I was and unfolded the thick conference program in my hands.
Let's see...
The densely printed letters swam before my eyes.
Let's take a look at everything first.
I flipped through the booklet page by page.
In the morning, there were lectures by specialty; after lunch, a Plenary Lecture; and in the afternoon, oral presentations and poster sessions.
Plenary Lecture? A plenary lecture. Oh? Who's the speaker?
A famous scholar.
The topic was the latest approaches to treating septic shock.
Just the title alone made me sleepy.
I opened the oral presentation session page.
[Oral Presentation Session 1: Critical Care Medicine]
- O-01: Development of a Prognostic Prediction Model for Patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Using Domestic Multicenter Data
- O-02: A Prospective Study on a New Protocol for Targeted Temperature Management in Post-Resuscitation Care
- O-03: Analysis of Factors Affecting Long-Term Survival in Patients with Severe Cardiogenic Shock Treated with ECMO
...Nope. Let's stop there.
It was clearly written in Korean, so why couldn't I understand it?
That kind of material isn't something a commoner like me can understand.
I quietly turned the page.
At last, the poster presentation list appeared.
A page packed with hundreds of titles like ants.
I scanned the page for my number.
Found it.
P-117. Han Hyeon-jae (Cheongjin University Medical Center)
- A Case of Acute Myocardial Infarction Presenting as Isolated Sore Throat.
My name. My affiliation. And the title I wrote.
A tiny line in that densely packed list.
It was just a few words printed in ink, but for some reason my chest grew warm.
What was this, anyway.
It felt like all that bullshit and pain had been repaid by this single line.
I skimmed the topics of the other presenters near my name.
P-116. Kim Ji-hoon (Cheongjin University Medical Center)
- A Case of Rhabdomyolysis Induced by Excessive CrossFit.
(A Case of Rhabdomyolysis Induced by Excessive CrossFit)
‘He actually submitted that after all.’
I snorted.
That 20-something gym bro who got cocky and tried to hit a 500 total on the big three lifts. He ended up discharged safely in the end.
Come to think of it, he's a regular in the ER these days, so it does make sense as a case report.
P-118. Lee Jin (Jeongseon University Hospital)
- A Case of Button Battery Ingestion in a Pediatric Patient.
(A Case of Button Battery Ingestion in a Pediatric Patient)
‘Wow, that's rough.’
My expression froze for a moment.
A child who swallowed a button battery.
The moment it gets stuck in the esophagus, current starts flowing from the battery, melting the esophageal mucosa within hours and causing a perforation that can lead to mediastinitis and kill the child—a worst-case emergency.
The doctor who handled that case must have spent a night in hell.
For a moment, I paid my respects to the efforts of a fellow doctor—no, a colleague whose name I did know.
And then I looked back at that single line with my name on it.
Soon, I'd have to stand in front of a giant poster with that title printed on it.
I quietly closed the program.