Chapter 55
Everything had come to a standstill. The presenter on stage had frozen with a pale face, and even the senior professor who had dominated the room fell silent, unable to say a word.
The one who broke that suffocating silence was the loud scraping of a chair from the corner.
A middle-aged man sitting in the back rose and walked up onto the stage.
Graying hair, an expensive-looking jacket.
‘He’s probably the presenter’s advisor?’
What must it feel like to watch your student’s presentation get publicly shredded in front of dozens of experts?
The advisor took the microphone. His hand was trembling faintly.
The advisor cleared his throat a few times, then opened his mouth in an effortfully calm voice.
“Ah… yes….”
“Thank you very much for your sharp observation. It seems there was a part we failed to check. I deeply apologize to the chair, the senior colleagues, and fellow professors here for the shortcomings in the presentation. I will contact the patient immediately and make sure the necessary measures are taken.”
I stood up and gave the advisor a slight bow.
“Yes. Thank you.”
The session chair hurriedly called on the next presenter to smooth over the awkward atmosphere.
But the air in the seminar room had already changed irreversibly.
People’s attention was no longer on the next presentation.
The murmurs around me kept growing.
I sat back down and tried as hard as I could to erase my presence.
I could clearly hear the conversation between two silver-haired professors seated in front of me.
“Heh, heh, now that’s a piece of work. Mistaking apical HCM for Takotsubo—well, if the imaging was ambiguous, I can see that happening. But missing that T wave on the ECG… I have no idea what the advisor was doing.”
“Exactly. Young people these days are far too lacking in the basics. But that young man who just asked the question….”
“A first-year resident in emergency medicine, apparently.”
“Heh, heh. So there’s a frightening one up from Busan.”
Behind me, I could hear the excited voices of the younger residents.
“Hey, did you see that just now? He completely wrecked them.”
“But who is he? I’ve never seen that face before.”
“Han Hyeonjae. Didn’t you hear him introduce himself earlier? He’s a first-year in emergency medicine.”
“What? First year? No way. How could a first-year ask a question like that?”
“No, seriously!”
I practically grabbed Kim Jihoon by the collar and dragged him out of the seminar room.
My only goal was one thing.
To get out of this ferocious den of scholars as fast as possible and grab a free cup of coffee from the booth I could see in the distance.
“Hey, hey! Slow down! I’m gonna fall!”
With Jihoon’s screams as background music, I crossed the hallway at a fast pace.
As inconspicuously as possible.
As quickly as possible.
Then it happened.
“You there.”
Damn it. I stopped walking.
Should I just pretend not to hear it and keep going?
No, if I did that, the department head might get a call tomorrow morning.
‘The first-year resident Han Hyeonjae from your hospital just ignored the professor and walked off. How exactly are you training your people? Heh heh.’
I turned around with the most polite smile in the world plastered on my face.
When I looked back, it was the very same senior professor who had earlier given me that ‘oh?’ look after my question.
“Oh, you’re that… Han… Hyeonjae, was it.”
The professor checked my name tag and nodded with satisfaction.
Two other professors of roughly the same age were standing behind him.
“Haha, yes. I’m Han Hyeonjae.”
I laughed awkwardly and bowed so deeply it was almost like my torso was folding in half.
“I’m Kim Hyeokjae, professor and head of the Emergency Medicine Department at Oseong Seoul Hospital.”
Oseong Seoul Hospital.
One of the hospitals at the pinnacle of Korean medicine.
And the head of emergency medicine there.
I was already imagining myself pressing my forehead to the floor and doing a full-on prostration bow.
“Oh! Hello, Professor! I’ve heard a lot about you!”
Of course, I had never actually heard anything.
But I had to act like I knew him.
That’s just how K-residents survive.
Professor Kim Hyeokjae seemed to like my exaggerated reaction, because he laughed heartily and slapped my shoulder.
“Yes, yes. I was really impressed by you asking that question earlier. That kind of eye is good. That sharp gaze that doesn’t just go, ‘Oh, I see~,’ and move on. That’s what helps doctors grow.”
“You flatter me.”
I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Even while being praised, my heart was pounding anxiously.
Why on earth was this heavyweight treating a rookie like me this way?
“Uh, I’m Park Juseong from the emergency medicine department at Seoul Catholic Sacred Heart Hospital.”
The other professor standing beside him introduced himself.
Seoul Catholic Sacred Heart Hospital. Another powerhouse university hospital.
“Oh, yes! Good afternoon, Professor!”
What the hell, why do all these big-hospital people keep coming after me.
A warning siren was blaring in my head like crazy.
This isn’t normal.
I felt like a monkey in a zoo.
The big names from Seoul had gathered to gawk at the strange first-year resident from Busan.
Does that look normal to you?
“Because of your question, we’ve got a very interesting discussion topic now. That Aseong Hospital kid who presented earlier is probably being dragged off by his advisor and getting torn apart like a dog by now. Heh heh heh.”
Professor Park Jooseong laughed cheerfully.
I couldn’t even force a laugh at that savage joke.
“That kind of sharpness is hard to find in young people these days. Usually they just keep their mouths shut in a situation like that.”
“Exactly. So there was a talent like this hiding in Busan. Chief Cheongjin must be feeling pretty reassured.”
“Who was the advisor? Professor Cheon Eunjeong? He really raised his student well.”
I was nothing more than an awkwardly smiling mannequin, nodding along.
Please.
Please just let me go.
I’m just a first-year who wants to go home and sleep.
After the long evaluation session, Professor Kim Hyeokjae shoved his business card into my pocket.
“If you ever come to Seoul later or have any questions, contact me anytime. I’ll buy you a meal.”
With that, they finally let me go.
And so, together with Kim Jihoon, I watched from a distance as they cleaned up the mess from the disaster that had just unfolded.
In a corner of the seminar room, I could see the Aseong Hospital team that had just been publicly humiliated.
The white-faced third-year presenter had his head bowed as the advisor chewed him out furiously, and that advisor was in turn drenched in sweat, bowing ninety degrees to an even higher-ranking professor.
One of them had a rotten expression and quickly pulled out his phone to start frantically dialing someone.
Probably the hospital. I clicked my tongue at the sight.
‘Because the advisor was so busy, he must not have properly checked the presentation materials.’
Still, the patient had probably been saved.
Seeing them frantically making calls like that, it was obvious they were saying something like, ‘Contact the patient right now and tell them it’s dangerous, and to come to the ER!’ or something along those lines.
My nosy question had, in the end, saved one person’s life.
Just as I was lost in my own thoughts, Jihoon, standing beside me, nudged my arm with a face close to tears.
“But Hyeonjae, what are we going to do?”
“What?”
“Our poster presentation later!”
“Poster presentation? We just stand there and come back.”
“No, you idiot!”
Jihoon jabbed my chest with his fist, sounding frustrated.
“Don’t you realize what situation you’re in? Do you know what you just did over there? You’re the hottest topic at this conference now! The crazy first-year from Busan who blew Aseong Hospital to pieces with facts! By now, people have probably memorized your name, mine, and even our poster number!”
At that, I snorted.
“Come on, no way. Just because someone asked one proper question, do you really think they’d swarm around a first-year poster? The other residents are all too busy drinking coffee and shooting the breeze among themselves.”
I made a thoroughly reasonable, realistic prediction.
And then, exactly two hours later.
I would come to realize, painfully, just how naive and stupid that prediction had been.
“Fuck.”
Standing at the entrance to Crystal Ballroom, I muttered in disbelief at the scene laid out before my eyes.
I had spent the time pretty productively—being hounded by ghosts into attending two more sessions, hiding from Lee Minjae, and collecting three tote bags and ballpoint pens from pharmaceutical booths, among other things.
And at last, it was 4 o’clock, and I had arrived at the poster hall with a solemn heart.
Normally, the poster hall at this time should have been quiet.
It was the time when most people would be slumped on the lobby sofas from exhaustion, or getting ready to head into downtown Seoul for evening drinks.
But the scene before my eyes was more like an idol fan-signing event.
Dozens of doctors were packed tightly into one section of the hall, buzzing among themselves. And at the center of that crowd were two all-too-familiar poster numbers.
P-116. And P-117.
“…….”
Jihoon, standing beside me, saw the scene and froze, his face draining of color.
Inside the crowd were everyone from the professors I’d seen in the seminar room earlier to fellows and senior residents from other hospitals, and even junior residents with curious expressions. They were all staring intently at my poster and arguing heatedly among themselves.
“Is this the case where they diagnosed MI from a sore throat?”
“Wow, look at that EKG change. He really caught it dead on.”
“But did a first-year really see this? Wasn’t it the senior next to him who pointed it out?”
“Apparently he judged it himself after seeing it.”
I pushed Jihoon in the back.
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t go. I’m just going to die here.”
“Quit the bullshit. Just go and stand there.”
We took heavy steps and walked into the crowd.