Chapter 76
At first, there was a faint noise, and then the stale smell of disinfectant.
“Ugh… uh….”
I lifted my eyelids with a groan.
So I had collapsed.
Just then.
Swish
The curtain that had been hiding the side of the bed was pulled open with a rough rustle.
And then Lee Min-jae appeared with a flourish.
What the hell, why does this guy look like that?
Lee Min-jae was wearing a stretched-out gray hoodie and sweatpants, not a white coat.
His hair was a complete bird’s nest.
What the hell kind of state is this guy in?
I looked down at my body.
I’d been changed into a hospital gown.
An IV line was inserted in my arm.
“Uh… doctor? Those clothes... did you get off work?”
At my hoarse voice, Lee Min-jae let out a deep sigh.
He set the canned coffee he was holding down on the table by my head.
“Yeah, you bastard. I clocked out, punk.”
Lee Min-jae dragged over a chair and plopped down beside my bed.
“Do you know what time it is? Look at the clock.”
I turned my head and looked at the clock on the wall.
The hands pointed to 10 p.m.
“It’s 10 p.m., 10. Three whole hours past quitting time, punk.”
“Ah….”
I let out a dazed sigh.
Since I collapsed around 9:30 in the morning... I’d been unconscious for about twelve hours.
A twelve-hour penalty for thirty minutes? No, seriously. Why won’t they deduct it?
This time, I hadn’t even used half of the possession.
“Your body? Feeling a little better now?”
“Ah, um... yes. I’m okay.”
Of course, that was a lie.
My whole body still ached like I’d been beaten to a pulp.
But I couldn’t exactly whine about being in pain in a situation like this.
“Yeah. You better be okay. What else are you going to do if you’re not?”
Lee Min-jae let out a bitter laugh.
“Are you crazy or what? You’re only a second-year, and you’ve cut into someone’s belly twice? And you’re not even in surgery. Professor Jeon Tae-jeong from trauma surgery stopped by to check on you too. He just stared at you sleeping for about five minutes without saying a word, then left.”
“Oh, I see... .”
“Sigh... .”
Lee Min-jae raked a hand through his hair.
He tried to say something, stopped, sighed again, and clicked his tongue.
“I... ha... fuck. I don’t even have the energy to make a fuss anymore.”
Lee Min-jae really did look exhausted.
“I don’t know what it is, but good job. In the end. If we go by the result alone, you did well... no... ha... should I... praise you for this or not....”
Lee Min-jae muttered to himself and got up, pacing around near the bed.
He glanced at me once, then at the wall, and finally stopped in front of my bed.
Lee Min-jae took a moment to catch his breath. His shoulders rose. Then he opened his mouth.
“Fine! Hyunjae! I don’t know!”
He gripped my shoulders so hard it felt like they’d break.
“This! Right here! That’s what an emergency medicine doctor looks like!! Not a bunch of fussy bastards who calculate, compare, and nitpick procedures! To save the person right in front of you, you throw away your license and everything else! This mad bullshit is! The heart of emergency medicine! You got that, punk!”
Under his passionate shaking, I could feel my still-unrecovered muscles screaming, and I could only nod with dead eyes.
This guy really never changes, honestly.
“The patient, the patient... so what happened to him?”
More than the muscle soreness, I was more afraid of the result of that crazy thing I’d done.
Had everything I did ultimately been for nothing?
“Oh, the patient?”
Lee Min-jae slapped his knee as if he’d just remembered.
“You should see that with your own eyes. Seeing is believing.”
He grabbed the hospital laptop shoved into the corner and slammed it onto the table beside my bed.
It was fairly old, as the fan noise was loud.
Even if it was an old laptop, it was still hospital property. Couldn’t he handle it a little more gently?
What a personality this guy has.
“Here.”
Lee Min-jae said as he pressed the laptop’s power button.
“Log into the EMR. Go check the next part of that patient’s story yourself.”
“..Yes.”
I placed my hands on the laptop keyboard.
A familiar hospital logo screen.
[CUMC - EMR SYSTEM]
After entering the ID and password and pressing Enter, complicated patient lists and order windows spread across the screen.
I typed in the medical record number....
Enter.
The chart opened.
I swallowed dryly and started scrolling down.
Hmm, the reason for visit is TA... traffic accident, GCS is poor... low blood pressure... open pelvic fracture....
Right, let’s skip over that quickly.
I already know all that.
I skimmed through the ER records quickly.
[REBOA performed in the ER for control of hemorrhagic shock.]
..That record is in there.
Hmm, let’s see. That’s enough of that.
The operative report... it’d probably be full of stuff I wouldn’t understand anyway, so skip it.
The most important thing is the record after ICU admission.
I clicked the progress notes tab. Starting with the admission note written by the trauma surgery team, the screen filled with densely written records arranged by time.
At TICU admission, V/S BP 80/50...
They performed another exploratory laparotomy... and external fixation as well....
“..The surgery took forever. It was almost over eight hours.”
“Right. It must’ve been brutal. It would’ve been a bloodbath. If they hadn’t done it properly, he probably would’ve died on the table before the surgery even got underway.”
Lee Min-jae chimed in from the side.
I kept reading through the records.
ARDS
(*acute respiratory distress syndrome)
Seeing signs of it, they adjusted the ventilator settings once.
Skip, skip... I quickly moved past all the complicated treatment records.
So the patient is alive now.
At last, the most recent vital signs and nursing notes came into view.
‘V/S BP 110/70, HR 90 bpm, SpO2 98%.’
Oh....
Without meaning to, I let out a low exclamation.
The numbers on the monitor were proving a miracle.
I lifted my head and looked at Lee Min-jae sitting beside me.
“..He survived, at least.”
Lee Min-jae met my gaze and let out a snort of a laugh.
“Right? He survived.”
Then he added something very realistic.
“Of course... that’s just the beginning. For a major trauma patient like that, the real war starts after surgery and once they’re in the ICU. Sepsis, DIC
(* disseminated intravascular coagulation)
, multiple organ failure... all kinds of nasty complications are lined up and waiting. He still has to endure all kinds of bullshit from here on out.”
He paused for a moment and looked at me again.
“Still, he lived. He didn’t die on the table. Thanks to some crazy bastard.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the laptop screen as I mulled over the patient’s survival record I’d just confirmed.
He lived.
I looked at Lee Min-jae, sitting beside my bed and leisurely drinking coffee.
“Doctor.”
“Yeah?”
“So what happens to me?”
“You?”
Lee Min-jae repeated the question. His expression was hard to read.
“Yes. Me.”
Lee Min-jae looked up at the ceiling for a moment, lost in thought. A faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
“Well....”
Lee Min-jae continued in a carefree tone, as if he were talking about someone else.
“Last year, even after you performed that insane laparotomy, the training committee just let it slide with a reprimand and a one-month pay cut. The patient lived then too. This time the result was fine too. The patient’s alive and lying in the ICU, and they even say the prognosis is good thanks to you....”
At those words, a tiny hope bloomed in my heart.
Yeah, this time too, somehow....
“Hmm... not sure. You’re probably screwed?”
What?
No, you just showered me with all that hope a second ago.
And now you’re saying this?
“Huh?”
A dumb sound burst out of my mouth.
“Now, let’s think this through together.”
He leaned forward and looked straight into my eyes.
“Last year, you were a first-year resident. It was your first screw-up, and we could at least spin it as, ‘I made a mistake because I was overflowing with the burning passion to save the patient.’”
Hmm, I think the premise itself is already wrong, doctor. For now, a first-year doing a laparotomy seems way more insane.
Than a second-year.
That isn’t something you can dress up as recklessness.
He paused for a moment, then gave a cold smile.
“You’re a second-year now! This is the stage where you get cocky after getting a little ER experience. And you’re the guy who already caused one huge incident last year and got hauled to the training committee for it, and this time you put in a REBOA in the ER resuscitation room, right in front of a trauma surgery professor! And you were practically the one who volunteered to do it yourself.”
Well, everything he was pointing out was true.
But I can’t understand how this guy’s brain works.
No, wasn’t a first-year doing a laparotomy the crazier thing?
Why on earth does he think this is more serious?
Maybe he thinks they’ll cut you some slack for a first offense? Something like that?
“This isn’t something that can just be wrapped up as passion. You’re insane. A hopeless repeat offender. A ticking time bomb.”
Lee Min-jae shook his head.
“I don’t think it’ll end with the training committee. It’ll probably go to a formal disciplinary committee. Nobody knows whether they’ll revoke your training eligibility.”
Ugh, why do you keep scaring me?
You’re making me nervous, man.
Just then, Lee Min-jae suddenly smacked my back.
“It’s fine, it’s fine!”
Lee Min-jae’s voice had returned to its usual flippant, noisy tone.
What do you mean, it’s fine?
I’m in pain here.
“You save the patient while getting screwed over yourself! That’s how a doctor grows! Right? What’s life even got anyway! You just get screwed once!”
Lee Min-jae cackled.
“I’m screwed anyway! Since you basically pulled off that crazy stunt with my tacit approval—no, almost my complicity—I’ll get dragged to the disciplinary committee with you and chewed out like a dog too. We’re going together. What’s life even got anyway! Together to the committee! Together in punishment! Hahaha!”
“Uh... so we’re screwed?”
“Yep.”
Lee Min-jae answered with complete clarity.
“You and me both. A matched pair. We’re screwed.”