Chapter 9
When I came to, I was being hauled into the ER resident room.
In the resident room, I stood there like a criminal.
“What is this? Han Jaehyeon? Were all those bumbling looks I saw until now just an act?!”
In front of me stood Lee Minjae, the fourth-year chief resident.
…Fuck.
Why the hell was I doing this here.
My mind went blank.
It had been right after I sent the ciguatera patient upstairs and almost finished all the backlog charting.
‘Dr. Han, the chief was looking for you?’
At that one line, my heart sank straight to the bottom.
I was convinced the incident of cursing out Senior Choi Sumin had finally reached the chief resident’s ears.
But the first words out of the chief’s mouth were completely different from what I’d expected.
“Answer me!!! Han Jaehyeon!!! Why have you been acting all clueless until now!!! Huh?!”
The chief grabbed my shoulders and bore down on me.
The tone was completely off the rails.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry now? VEXAS syndrome! And what, ciguatera? Does it make sense that a first-year—our ER’s first-year, at that—has pulled off two rare cases in a row that even internal medicine couldn’t catch?!”
It was a ridiculous thing to be mad about.
Over the past few months, the chief had been too busy covering for every mistake I made.
When a drunk patient grabbed me by the collar, when I’d failed an IV line more than five times and the patient’s guardian filed a complaint, the one who stepped in for me had been my senior.
Lee Minjae’s scream went on.
“I trusted you, Jaehyeon...! I trusted you to be a good-hearted, quiet guy who might make a few mistakes but was fundamentally decent! But how can you pull a surprise prank like this on me! My heart! My heart can’t take this!”
“No, Dr....”
Just as I was about to make an excuse, Dr. Yoo Seonghun, the fourth-year resident who had been lying on the worn-out sofa in the corner of the resident room like a corpse and staring at his phone, spoke without moving an inch.
“Hey, Minjae. Enough already. Sit down. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Shut up, Yoo Seonghun! I’m currently channeling the pure passion I had back when I wanted to major in film and theater and driving Jaehyeon into a corner! My inner method acting is awakening!”
The chief shouted, but Dr. Yoo Seonghun snorted.
“Cut the crap. What film and theater department? Maybe if you were a comedian.”
“That bastard is seriously....”
The chief shot Dr. Yoo Seonghun a glare, then turned back to me.
“Anyway, Jaehyeon. Be honest with me. It’s one of two things.”
“Were you really acting the whole time? This Han Jaehyeon, who couldn’t even get one IV line right and wandered the hallway with those stupidly blank eyes of his—was all of that an act? Or are you some freakishly lopsided type—useless with your hands, but with a brain specialized in internal medicine?”
Acting, or a freak.
I couldn’t answer.
I couldn’t exactly say, ‘One day, I started seeing an internet community full of dead doctors, and I cheated off it.’
Nor could I say that it had all been an act.
Because until just a few hours ago, I really had been nothing more than a first-year nobody floundering helplessly amid the flood of patients.
What answer would get me out of this bizarre interrogation safely?
An acting-prodigy doctor, or a half-baked genius.
Excluding the ugly truth—‘I’m actually a cheating bastard’—there were only two paths I could choose if I wanted to survive.
First, a legendary acting prodigy.
The setup where, in truth, I was a fully realized overpowered monster, but for the sake of the hospital hierarchy and peace, and to show humility as a newbie, I’d been pretending to be clueless.
This was insane.
The moment I chose that setup, I’d be crowned the biggest sociopath in the department.
And people would start saying, ‘Isn’t that the crazy bastard? The one who told the chief out of his own mouth that he was a genius?’
Second, a half-genius with useless hands.
The setup where my mind was outstanding, but my physical ability—in other words, my procedural skill—remained at first-year level.
This was, if anything, more realistic. There were definitely people in the world who were sharp in theory but terrible with their hands.
Of course, I might be mocked for life for having useless hands, and for an emergency medicine doctor who has to handle emergencies directly, that was a fatal weakness.
But at least I wouldn’t be treated like a lunatic.
Fuck, if I picked the first one, I’d be a guy who’d given up on being human.
Right, since it had come to this, let’s nail down the concept properly.
“I actually studied a ton!!!!”
I decided to survive as a pathetic but hardworking nerd with a good brain.
At my shout, the chief’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh? Is that so? You studied? Not just a little, but a ton?”
His voice was split half and half between suspicion and expectation.
“Yes! That’s right!”
“Rare diseases too? Things you might only ever see once in your life, like VEXAS or ciguatera? You memorized every textbook that exists, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes!!!!!!”
I was practically barking out yeses automatically, like Pavlov’s dog.
“Really? Then that’s great. From now on, let’s have Dr. Han handle all internal medicine cases that come into our ER. No need to assign a senior, staff, or fellow, right?”
…?
What? No senior?
So I couldn’t just ask the ridiculously capable fellows and staff instead?
No, wait—was that even something the chief could decide on his own? That couldn’t be right. Could he?
“…What?”
For a second, I doubted my ears. What had he just said?
“Did I hear that wrong?”
“No, I mean, you studied a ton. You diagnosed things even third-years don’t know without a hitch. At that level, isn’t it possible for you to handle and diagnose most internal medicine cases on your own?”
Cold sweat poured down my spine like a waterfall.
This crazy bastard was testing me.
If I answered, “Yes, that’s right!” here, starting tomorrow I’d really be saddled with every internal medicine patient imaginable.
Without the Gallery’s help, I might not even be able to tell simple gastroenteritis from pancreatitis and end up killing a patient.
Of course, that was a bit exaggerated, but even so, there was no guarantee the Gallery would always be able to provide a fast answer 24/7.
I needed insurance too.
“Ah, n-no! Senior! It’s just that I’ve only seen it in books, and knowledge and actual clinical experience are different, aren’t they! For me, your rich experience and accumulated years...”
As I desperately piled on excuses, the chief finally couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Look at this bastard turning white.”
The chief tapped my shoulder and said,
“I know, I know. The type like you. Good brain, but lacking real-world experience, so you’re a scaredy-cat. Actually, I was like that too. Back when I was a first-year, LBBB”
(*Left Bundle Branch Block, left bundle branch block)
that had newly appeared on an EKG
(*electrocardiogram)
and I saw...”
“That story again?”
Dr. Yoo Seonghun, still lying on the sofa, muttered as if bored to death. The chief bristled and shouted.
“No, it’s true I became the ER’s star back then! Everyone was about to use thrombolytics because they thought it was a myocardial infarction, and I alone shouted LBBB and saved the patient!”
Senior Yoo Seonghun only shook his head in response.
Listening to the two of them, I thought to myself.
This guy was really crazy too. Especially when it came to EKGs.
The chief was some kind of EKG maniac who could diagnose all sorts of warped, nonspecific cases like a ghost.
A fake genius who’d cheated off the Gallery, showing off in front of a real genius.
A wave of secondhand embarrassment washed over me.
After the uproar died down, Chief Lee Minjae looked at me again with a serious expression.
“Anyway, Jaehyeon. From now on, you’re going to be very busy.”
“Huh?”
“Do you know how fast rumors spread? Especially in a cramped hospital like ours. By now, it’s probably already all over that the ER got a first-year diagnostic prodigy.”
The chief poured me a cup of instant coffee and handed it to me, then continued.
“Soon the interns are going to come running up to you asking, ‘Doctor, can you take a look at this EKG?’ ‘Doctor, the lab results on this patient look weird—what is it?’ Why? Because they’re scared that if they ask a senior like me or Seonghun and don’t know the answer, they’ll get chewed out. But you’re different. They thought you were just another clueless first-year who happened to be a little better than an intern, but suddenly you’ve become a genius. You’re the perfect go-to for getting the right answer without getting chewed out.”
…
“It’s not just the interns. Your classmate Jihoon and the other first-years will be the same. Before they notify professors or seniors or fellows about a patient’s condition, they’ll come to you first and ask, ‘Jaehyeon, this patient seems like this—what do you think?’ Because they want one more confirmation. You’ll basically become a sort of human UpToDate.”
I couldn’t say a word.
I had only gotten two diagnoses right, and in return I was on the verge of becoming the unofficial consultant for all the junior doctors in the ER.
Unaware of my inner turmoil, the cheerfully innocent chief patted my shoulder and grinned.
“Brace yourself, our ER’s new star.”