Chapter 7
“What did you just say?”
Time stood still.
I slowly raised my head.
'I'm fucked.'
A siren wailed in my head.
This was on a whole different level from getting publicly humiliated by Internal Medicine's Nam Seunghyeon.
That was just being ignored; this was outright insubordination, cursing out a senior doctor to his face.
My brain screamed as it searched for a solution.
I couldn't exactly say, 'I was pissed because of the system window.'
An excuse.
An excuse.
I needed an excuse.
The most convincing, divinely inspired excuse.
I ran tens of thousands of simulations in one second.
And I squeezed out the final answer my survival instinct came up with.
I suddenly smacked my own head.
My sudden move made Senior Choi Soomin and the nurses around me widen their eyes.
“I was talking to my own idiot self, doctor!”
“The patient's most basic history, history taking
(*History taking, medical history interview)
I almost missed the diagnosis because I couldn't even do that properly! I was so pathetic and fucking useless for overlooking something that basic that I cursed myself! I deserve to get beaten!”
It was a performance that drew on every last bit of my soul.
Hitting my own head like a lunatic, then offering an excuse that was both logical and somehow unhinged.
My senior just looked down at me without saying a word.
I could feel Senior Choi Soomin's mind racing, wondering whether this bastard was really crazy or just putting on a show.
After a few seconds of silence, a deep sigh finally escaped Senior Choi Soomin's lips.
“Haa.”
Senior Choi Soomin's ice-cold expression softened.
“Fine. Lift your head.”
I slowly straightened my back.
“That was supposed to be the triage
(*Triage, patient sorting)
the nurse should have handled, but she missed it because she was busy. It wasn't your fault, so don't worry about it. And aren't you pushing yourself too hard these days?”
I'm saved.
The tension in my whole body drained away, and my legs went weak.
“No, I'm fine!”
“Enough. Since you made the diagnosis, you're the one who explains it to the patient and the guardian.”
Saying that, my senior turned back to the monitor.
I bowed my head and headed toward the patient.
B-17 bed.
The patient had a bewildered expression from all the sudden treatment.
“You must have been quite startled. We've found the exact cause of your pain.”
The patient's eyes wavered anxiously.
“Do I have some serious illness?”
“It's not a serious illness. But you have a very rare case of food poisoning. Have you ever heard of ciguatera?”
“Cigua... what?”
“Simply put, you've been poisoned by a toxin found in tropical seas. It's an extremely rare illness, so it's almost never seen in Korea, but you were a little unlucky. This toxin confuses our nerves a bit, so you end up with that strange symptom where something cold feels hot.”
“Heh, then what happens to me now?”
“Fortunately, we found the cause quickly... the treatment has already started. The IV going into you now will help flush some of the toxin out. There's also something like a painkiller in it, so you'll feel better soon.”
“If I hadn't come to the hospital, I would've just thought it was an upset stomach and suffered through it until it got really bad. Thank you so much.”
After explaining a few more precautions to the patient, I returned to the station.
It felt like all the energy had been sucked out of my body.
I quietly opened the system window.
[Current LP: 600]
'Cut in half, but still 500 points.'
I opened the shop list and checked the possession skill once more.
[Price: 5,000 LP]
'4,400 points to go.'
There was still a long way to go.
***
After the ciguatera incident was over, the B-17 patient stabilized and was admitted to the ward.
The ER quickly returned to its usual state.
A drunk causing a scene, a child crying with a split-open head after falling down, and the nonstop ringing of the phone.
After dealing with three or four more patients in a blur, it was already getting close to midnight.
As I sat at the station to catch my breath for a moment, Senior Choi Soomin walked over and gave my shoulder a light tap.
“Hyunjae, good work. Go to the call room and get some sleep.”
“No, I'll finish charting and then rest.”
I answered as cheerfully as I could and sat back down in front of the EMR.
A patient list filling the screen.
'61-year-old male. Presented today around 7 PM with chest pain. Lost consciousness immediately after arrival and went into cardiac arrest. At 7:27 PM, CPR was started in the emergency medical center resuscitation room. Epinephrine 1 mg was administered a total of five times at 3- to 5-minute intervals, but...'
My fingers on the keyboard felt heavy.
Ugh, I'm tired...
Physical fatigue and mental fatigue hit me all at once.
I set the mouse down for a moment and leaned back in my chair.
What would the penalty for possession be...? Severe whole-body muscle pain. Just how bad would that be, really?
And what kind of person does this gallery even appear for?
How should I earn LP efficiently?
In the end, unable to resist my curiosity, I logged back into [Dead Doctors Gallery].
Should I go browse some more posts?
I was curious what these ghosts usually talked about when they hung out.
I clicked the popular posts tab. Then I read the title of the post at the top, the one with the most comments.
Title: Anyone seen anything rarer than me? lol
Author: Gangnam Myeong-ui
28-year-old male patient. Sudden crushing chest pain. Showed classic infarction signs, so we rushed him straight into coronary angiography, but the coronary arteries were clean. Turns out it was Takotsubo cardiomyopathy caused by extreme stress.
(*Takotsubo cardiomyopathy)
If there's anyone who has personally diagnosed and treated a rarer case than a young man with Takotsubo, come out and show yourself.
It was a pretty interesting case.
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy usually occurs mainly in postmenopausal women.
It's incredibly rare for it to appear in a young man with ECG findings identical to a myocardial infarction.
It was obvious the fellow using this ID had been a doctor with quite a bit of pride when he was alive.
I scrolled down with an interested look to check the comments.
ㅇㅇ(14.52) : He probably died when he was still a total newbie lol. What's so rare about that, you show-off? I see Takotsubo all the time.
라떼는말이야 : Tsk, tsk. These days, kids diagnose one thing like this and act like it's something to brag about for the rest of their lives.
As expected. It was all sniping and insults from the start.
The community was the same whether you were alive or dead.
If someone brags, someone even greater will always show up to lord it over them.
Sure enough, the final boss appeared in the very next comment.
God of the Scalpel : Tsk, tsk. I even operated on SCAD in a pregnant woman in her thirties.
(*Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, spontaneous coronary artery dissection)
It was a case that also involved an anomalous origin of the coronary artery. The cardiology and thoracic surgery professors all gathered and scratched their heads in frustration, and I went in and placed stents
(*stent, a metal tube inserted inside a blood vessel)
four of them and saved her.
I got chills.
A coronary artery dissection in a pregnant woman.
Just imagining it made my palms sweat.
It was the worst-case scenario: the heart could rupture, and the fetus would be in danger too.
And he operated and saved her? What kind of heights had this 'God of the Scalpel' reached as a surgeon while he was alive?
That gentleman was the first to make it onto my possession list. You ask where such a list is? I just made it.
There seemed to be quite a lot of people in this gallery I'd need to keep a special eye on.
After all, if I didn't keep records, I felt like it would end in a disaster where I'd have points in an emergency but still couldn't use possession properly.
As I kept lurking through the comments, one that had a noticeably different tone caught my eye.
Truck-Hit Guy : I know truck-hit trauma
(*Trauma, physical injury)
patients inside and out. I died because of it. Do you know what it feels like when Massive hemoperitoneum
(*Massive bleeding in the abdominal cavity)
drops your blood pressure and makes your field of vision feel like it's narrowing into a tunnel? What about the feeling when a broken rib punctures your lung and blood foam gushes back up every time you breathe? Have you been hit by a truck, you idiots? If you haven't, don't talk. It fucking hurts, damn it.
“....”
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
The first two ghosts had been bragging about the rarest cases they'd treated, clearly….
But this mad ghost using the nickname Truck-Hit Guy was explaining how he had died and walked the road to the underworld, practically high-fiving the grim reaper on the way.
No, these guys really needed to grow up.
What are you going to do if you're still like this even after dying?
Haa....
These bastards are still spouting this kind of nonsense even after dying.