Chapter 224

Episode 224 Finishing the 3rd Year (1)

I walked past the Emergency Room Station toward the outer door.

Ziiing—

The automatic door opened, and as I walked out toward the patient triage area, a woman who couldn't even bring herself to sit on the waiting room chairs caught my eye, anxiously pacing the hallway. In her hand, she held her cell phone and handbag with a death grip. Anyone could tell her entire body was screaming, "I am the guardian of a Traffic Accident patient who just hovered between life and death."

When the nurse pointed at me, her eyes locked onto mine.

"Uh... inside, are you the guardian of Patient Oh Seung-beom?"

As I approached cautiously and asked, the woman flinched, startled, and rushed toward me in a hurry.

"Ah, ah, yes! I'm Seung-beom's guardian. I'm his mother."

Her voice shook violently. It was a natural reaction, considering she must have rushed here out of her mind after hearing the news that her son had crashed into a truck while riding his bicycle and had almost had his leg amputated.

"So, uh, why were you looking for me? For now, you must have heard the explanation regarding the surgery from the Vascular Surgery Professor..." I started defensively.

I was slightly worried that she might have come to resent me, thinking the treatment in the ER had been delayed because something went wrong with the surgery results.

"Ah, yes. I heard it. The professor showed me the pictures and explained it to me."

"What... did they say?"

"For now, they said the surgery finished well... and that the blood vessels were reattached properly. But what was it? Because the leg was swollen so much, they said he would go into a second surgery a week later? What was it, that gu..."

The mother gestured into the void, struggling to recall the unfamiliar medical terminology.

"Compartment syndrome?"

"Ah, yes! That, because of that, they said they sliced the skin around the calf open a bit. They'll close it once the swelling goes down. And they said his kidneys are fine for now, but because toxins are circulating in his blood, they have to keep an eye on him in the intensive care unit overnight..."

Even from the mother's stuttering explanation, I could perfectly picture what had happened in the operating room. The blood vessels were safely reconnected, but to relieve the pressure built up as the muscles that had been starved of blood began to breathe again and swell, a fasciotomy had been performed. And it meant they were fighting a battle to stop the muscle toxins, poured out from the reperfusion injury, from destroying his kidneys.

"Yes, that is correct, but since we already used medications to protect his kidneys in advance starting from the ER before sending him up, please don't worry too much."

It was right at the moment I was about to offer a calm consolation.

"Teacher."

She suddenly extended both hands and grabbed my hand tightly.

"Mother?"

Flustered, I tried to pull my hand back, but her grip was much stronger than expected. Her two eyes, brimming with tears, were looking at me.

"I heard everything from the operating surgeon. They said when he first came to the ER, if the ER teacher hadn't performed the procedure, his leg would have had to be amputated."

"Ah."

Vascular Surgery Professor Song Ji-yeon. This cool and terrifying gentleman of a knife-wielder had gone out of her way during the guardian briefing not to take credit for herself, but had explicitly mentioned that the ER resident had done a fantastic job with the initial treatment to save the leg.

‘So this was it.’

This was the reason she had explicitly called me out of the ER. The sincerity transmitted through her hand made a corner of my chest feel warm.

"No, it's not like that. I am more grateful. The student is young, and thanks to him enduring the painful treatment so well in the ER without complaining, we were able to go to the operating room without being late." I smiled awkwardly and credited the success to the patient.

"By any chance, because I was in such a state of panic, I couldn't buy anything, but after you finish, at least a cup of coffee, or maybe a meal..." The mother spoke urgently, rummaging through her bag to pull out her wallet.

"Ah-at, uh, look here, Mother!" I waved both hands in horror. "University hospital staff are treated similarly to public school faculty, and because it's an ambiguous status, we are strictly subject to things like the Kim Young-ran Anti-Graft Act. We cannot even accept a single coffee gift icon. It will cause real trouble."

"Even so, it's no different from saving a life, so giving greetings with empty hands doesn't feel right..."

"I will accept only your heart. Truly. Just your kind thoughts alone have washed away all my fatigue today."

When I refused, the mother closed her wallet with an expression of regret.

"If so, teacher's name... your name... Ah, Teacher Han Hyeonjae." She stared intently at my name tag and memorized my name with her lips. "I will make sure to remember it, and later when our Seung-beom is discharged, I will write a really long, heartfelt post on the hospital website's compliment bulletin board! So that the hospital president can see it too!"

The compliment bulletin board. It helps a tiny bit with resident evaluations, but above all, it's like a small but certain medal that allows one to endure this grueling life.

"Thank you. But there might still be another crisis. At least for three days in the ICU, we have to look at the inflammation markers and kidney function, and confirm that the leg swelling goes down before we can breathe easy." I added realistic advice so she wouldn't let her guard down until the very end.

"Ah, ah, yes. Thank you, Teacher. Even though you must be busy, taking care of us so meticulously until the end..."

"Oh, no problem. Uh, I think you should quickly go up to the intensive care unit." I lightly nudged her back, pointing toward the elevator at the end of the hallway.

"Ah! I should. ER teacher, thank you so much! Truly! I will consider you my lifelong savior!" Even as she drifted away, she continuously bent her waist to leave bows of gratitude.

"Yes~ take care! Seung-beom will shake this off and get back on his feet in no time!"

After seeing her off until her back completely disappeared beyond the elevator, I stretched grandly and turned around.

Ziiing—

The automatic door of the patient triage area opened, and I walked back inside the ER. Passing the station and sitting in front of the monitor, I massaged my aching forearm.

‘The reason I do this crazy thing.’

Invading the domains of other departments, butting heads with professors, and going out of my way to suffer while experiencing the horrible pain of the possession penalty that felt like my whole body was being ground in a blender for four hours.

Success? Money? Honor?

Of course, I want to hold a professor title, and I want to become a recognized, famous doctor. However, the underlying root beneath it all was incredibly simple.

‘Because I hate seeing someone's life blank out pointlessly right before my eyes.’

Because I absolutely hate having regrets like 'if only I had known a little more, if only my hands had been a little faster.'

In the first place, they say the role of the Emergency Medicine department itself is just to grab the vitals and send them up. But because there were occasionally times when we couldn't properly grab those vitals and send them up. Because I wanted to prevent someone from entering a state where nothing could be done anymore.

The blue system window before my eyes was shining. Beyond this window, the talkative but reliable ghosts were watching over me.

If a cheat has been given to me, I should use it unsparingly to save people.

With that, I regained my focus and turned on the gallery.

Flash—

[Dead Medic Gallery]

I just went and viewed the living world LMAO

Author: Operating Room Ghost 3 (Male)

Did you see the state-of-the-art monitor? Did you see how crisp the shadowless LED lamp was?

That fastidious Vascular Surgery old man who, until a moment ago, had been raising his voice with veins popping over a patient's leg. As soon as he came to the gallery, he was tapping on the keyboard, excited like a child encountering a modern novelty.

Immediately, notification sounds rang consecutively as the comments of the ghosts poured in.

[Comments]

Mes of the God (Male): I'm not jealous.

└ Operating Room Ghost 3 (Male): Ah, yes, yes. Shut your trap.

ㅇㅇ(118.235): Ah, I also want to go spectate a living world operating room.

└ Latte is Mine: Let's give up hope, nameless anonymous user.

Let's Spin the Dialyzer: I'm satisfied with just reading lab results from behind and giving pointers. Knife-wielders mindlessly splashing blood is not my taste.

The childish keyboard battle of the old ghosts viewed right after crossing a fierce line between life and death.

Heh.

Without realizing it, the corners of my mouth twitched. The unique escape hatch and the most powerful weapon that allowed me to endure ER life.

I took in that bustling digital afterlife with my eyes, then quietly turned off the window in the void.

…

…

Just like that, autumn of the 3rd year, when fallen leaves rolled around and cold winds began to blow, finished very peacefully with the Section Chief of Surgery's signature on the approval documents.

The trouble I had caused during the Thoracic Surgery dispatch, and the crazed performance where I drove a shunt into the femoral artery in the trauma bay as soon as I returned, spread through rumors here and there within the hospital, but perhaps because the higher-ups had already cleared the traffic, no direct sparks flew at me.

Even after that, there was pressure that I had to go to additional dispatches for other departments that held knives, but with only the words left by the Section Chief that 'due to administrative limitations, the official dispatch is scheduled for the 4th year,' no news came.

It meant that for the time being, I could roll comfortably in my home base, the ER, without walking on eggshells around others. Of course, that peace didn't mean that patients actually stopped coming.

"The Acute Care Center will hitch a ride on Building E, which will be completed next winter."

A notification from the Medical Center Director that I heard in passing one day. A two-story newly constructed building. Of course, within that Acute Care Center with such a grand name, I was scheduled to be the only full-time faculty member belonging to the Acute Care Department.

During the time ahead of that giant storm, the clock of the ER flowed without change.

In the midst of trouble makers throwing tantrums while drunk and mild patients asking for cold medicine, I hung IV fluids, stitched, and wrote charts. I compressed the chests of cardiac arrest patients who came in with sirens blaring, performed endotracheal intubations, and fought battles while covered in blood.

I saw numerous mild patients. And I saw numerous severe patients.

Some walked out of the ER perfectly fine. And some could not walk out fine.

that way, the loneliness of autumn changed into a harsh, biting wind, and it became winter.

Ting-lang—

The bell attached above the door rang cheerfully.

I opened the door of a cafe near the hospital, fully transformed into a perfect seaweed roll with the zipper of my black long padding jacket pulled tight from head to toe and the hood pressed down deeply. The warm air and the deep scent of coffee beans rushed in completely.

‘They say the trend these days is short padding that reveals the legs, but what do I care.’

When you step outside the hospital, the bitter wind seeps right into your bones. Rather than trying to look stylish, catching a cold, and suffering with a runny nose during a duty shift, rolling around wrapped in survival-type long padding even if called a fashion terrorist is the correct survival tactic for a resident.

Because I hate dying of cold.

I rubbed my freezing hands together and enjoyed the heat inside the cafe. Then, I turned my gaze to find the person I was meeting.

As I turned my head, a very familiar figure was waiting for me at a cozy spot near the window.

Seeing her face in civilian clothes and a coat outside, after always seeing her in baggy scrubs with a life-drained face in the ER, made her look unfamiliar for a moment.

Emergency Medicine Resident 2nd Year, Baek Eunseo (Female).

Holding a warm mug with both hands and looking out the window, she spotted me, smiled brightly, and lifted her hand high.

"Oh, Teacher Han!"

"You were here early?"

At my casual greeting, Baek Eunseo's eyes sparkled as she replied.

"Yes!"