Chapter 19
Alice's family had returned to the vacation house and were grilling barbecue. It was lively.
The sea breeze carried a salty tang.
I sat quietly, like a cat in an unfamiliar house, but Alice and the others seemed fascinated by me. Their eyes kept turning my way.
Well, it made sense.
“So you're one of Alice's classmates? I think I saw something about you in the newspaper.”
“Oh, hello.”
I greeted him again.
I was Stanford's only Korean doctor. I was years younger than my fellow residents, and on top of that, I had an unusual résumé that included papers in Nature.
Even I would've found that fascinating.
Alice's father looked at me.
“It's not easy to spot a whale shark so soon. Beginner's luck, I guess.”
“I guess so. I was lucky.”
By now, I'd heard about whale sharks so many times. I would've been disappointed if I hadn't seen one.
“Let's talk about you a little. I hear you're Stanford's most promising talent, the smartest resident at Stanford right now.”
The steak on the grill sent up thick, meaty smoke.
There was an unbridgeable gap between me and the doctors of this era: fifty years' worth of medical research. That was only natural, in a way.
They were much better at some things, too.
Weren't the doctors of this era people with the heart of a beast, able to diagnose brain aneurysms with nothing but a stethoscope and no CT...?
I thought about how to answer for a moment.
A way to sound modest while still explaining my success so far in a way that made sense.
“That may be true. If I didn't get a scholarship, it'd be hard for me to stay in school.”
That story sometimes worked on people like him. People with this much money usually had never had to worry about that sort of thing.
Alice's father nodded in agreement.
“Stanford... Those kids at an elite school could never beat someone who stakes their life on studying. Not my son, though. You've worked hard.”
After a moment, a medium-rare steak was placed on my plate.
Alice nodded beside me, too.
“Thank you.”
“Since we're eating, let's talk money. I heard you invented a medicine and sold the patent to a pharmaceutical company. What kind of medicine is it?”
“It's an invention that lets patients administer the medication themselves to treat acute allergic reactions.”
“Sounds complicated. How much did you get?”
It was a lot like the question Alice had asked.
There was no reason to lie. It wasn't as if someone in Alice's family was going to ask me for money.
The steak was better than I'd expected.
I was too busy eating to answer right away.
“I got $100,000 and a 1% royalty. They said they'd work out the payment details with the lawyers, taking taxes into account.”
Alice's father thought about it for a moment.
As if he were the one negotiating the deal.
“It's a little tricky to put a price on it... Still, $100,000 isn't a small sum to pay for a patent brought in by a college student.”
I thought so, too.
Even if it was a small amount compared with the value of the invention, I had to consider how much I could realistically get them to pay.
When you thought about it, hadn't I brought home the price of a house in exchange for a single sheet of paper that day?
Besides, I had another card to play.
“I'm counting more on the royalties. I think the EpiPen market could grow to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
That was how big it had gotten in the original timeline.
I didn't know the details of the patent structure or profits for the EpiPens made by pharmaceutical companies in the original timeline.
“Oh...”
He nodded with a serious expression.
Of course, things in the world weren't that simple. But that was the broad outline of the plan. I had plenty of research planned for the future, too.
“That's the outlook, anyway. I don't know how much money I'll actually get.”
Alice's father turned his gaze to the table. A few beer and wine bottles sat haphazardly on the cluttered tabletop.
That wine looked far too expensive to be sitting among beer bottles. It made me think of a scene in some movie where they put Korean beef in Jjapagetti.
“What do you want to drink?”
“I'll just have a little beer.”
I had to head to the hospital soon, after all. I wasn't particularly in the mood for wine.
Alice's father set down two beer mugs, then held one out to me.
“Cheers!”
I clinked beer mugs with Alice's family. Then the people sitting nearby began talking to me.
Starting with Alice, of course.
They began with the questions I always heard.
What was it like attending Stanford as a foreigner? Was I doing all right? How was my studying? What kind of medical research was I working on?
I just nodded.
“Mm, it's fine.”
“Being a doctor can't be easy.”
It sure wasn't easy.
“Still, isn't it the most important work in the world? Research and treatment are both about helping people, aren't they?”
The conversation went on. Alice's father furrowed his brow as if considering something again.
“I heard you've published five papers in top journals. I don't know much about academia, but aren't you awfully young?”
Before I could think of an answer, Alice chuckled and spoke up beside me.
“You know what Einstein said, right? That anyone who hasn't changed academia before the age of thirty never will.”
Oh, that.
I'd said that to Professor Berg before. Alice's father looked at his daughter.
“You should work harder, too. Don't just admire him.”
Alice gave a vague nod, looking a little embarrassed.
“Anyway, it's an honor to meet you. I hear the award you're receiving this year, the Lasker Award, is the Nobel Prize for American doctors?”
He placed a business card in front of me. So he was the president of some yacht company.
“Oh, right.”
“If you need support, let me know. I'll do what I can to find a way to help.”
“Thank you.”
I carefully put away the business card.
***
We returned to the hospital after our vacation.
A good part of my first year as a resident had already passed. I was slowly getting used to the work.
I was being given more and more responsibility, and next year my workload would increase. And soon, a junior resident I'd have to teach would be arriving, too.
Time really did fly.
I was several days behind on reviewing my patients.
‘No, quite a few new patients have come in.’
As I sat there racking my brain, my senior, James, came into the residents' lounge and greeted me.
“I heard you won an award. Congratulations.”
Everyone I saw was talking about the Lasker Award.
Why did he look so carefree?
We were definitely working at the same hospital.
It was the curse of knowledge.
The more you knew, the more you saw. I could see every mistake the other doctors at this hospital made, so my workload just kept growing...
I had to point out every single one.
I nodded.
“Oh, thanks.”
James pulled up a chair and looked over my shoulder at the medical records.
We should review them together.
This was the era before electronic medical records.
Since the records were on paper, the principle was to have as many people cross-check them as possible.
“This patient is dehydrated. They aren't sure whether it's because of a thyroid problem, but they think the dehydration is causing an electrolyte imbalance. They're giving them IV fluids.”
Their kidneys aren't in good shape.
I nodded for now.
We'd have to wait and see. We should keep a close eye on whether their legs swell, though.
“This patient has diarrhea... The gastroenterology professor wondered if it might be antibiotic-associated diarrhea, something they're studying now.”
“Why?”
How well had antibiotic-associated colitis been studied in the 1970s? I wasn't sure, but it seemed they didn't know much about it yet.
Or maybe James didn't know much about it.
“For now, it's just a suspicion. The diarrhea started after they took clindamycin...”
It was a well-known disease today.
It was also called pseudomembranous colitis. After the causative bacterium was discovered, it came to be called CDI (Clostridium Difficile Infection).
Simply put, it's a disease that causes diarrhea after taking antibiotics.
This is how it works.
The antibiotics kill off all the normal bacteria in the gut, leaving behind only the bacteria with strong antibiotic resistance, which then causes colitis.
The treatment is simple.
Either stop the antibiotics altogether or take a special antibiotic that can kill that bacterium. Usually, it clears up in about a week.
In the 1970s, the bacterium that caused this colitis hadn't been discovered yet.
To put it more briefly.
It was another chance to bring a new medical discovery forward. I looked at James.
“It looks like antibiotic-associated colitis to me.”
My senior, James.
I'd thought he was a layabout, but this time he'd read the latest research and reached the right conclusion.
People could improve, too. That was a relief.
“Really?”
“I'll take a closer look at this patient's case, too. I think it's well worth studying.”
“You can see things like that?”
I could see it, sure. James was looking at me with an incredulous expression again. There was a lot to do.