Chapter 268

Episode 268 Finishing the Dispatch (1)

“Thank you. Regarding the contact information, once today’s press conference is over… Yes, you can do it separately. I think that would be best.”

I felt like I could feel the Medical Director’s gaze on me, but it was probably just my imagination.

And with that, the press conference began to wind down, effectively wrapped up by the genius comment from a man who was practically the highest authority in the field of South Korean neurosurgery. Among the crowd, a few reporters looked visibly disappointed that a resident named Han Hyeonjae (Male) had turned out to be a real genius.

‘Did that guy seriously bail?’

The one who had prepared the weird question earlier. Did he really just run away?

Hm.

“Are there any teachers who have additional questions?”

At those words, the entire room fell dead silent—not just the press section, but even the seats where the medical staff were sitting. It was as if they were all thinking, What’s the point of trying to verify anything else when the top scholar in neurosurgery has already confirmed he’s a genius?

“Then we will conclude today’s explanatory press conference here.”

Lee Jaeyun set down the microphone and stood up from his seat. I followed his lead, and together, we bowed toward the front. In a typical press conference, bowing at the end usually signifies an apology, but…

‘Today is completely different.’

This was a bow made after proudly proving my genius status to the world. After finishing the greeting, I raised my head and opened the floating blue window in the void.

[Dead Medic Gallery]

Hell Slave << Upvote if this punk is kinda cheeky lol

Author: SkullDriller

Upvote if he needs to study as much as he got a free ride ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Drawing a blank?

[Comments]

Mes of the God (Male): Real lolol

SkullDriller: Come to think of it, MesGod suffered the most.

Korean Slave 1 (Male): Real talk, MesGod went through a lot.

I very naturally tried to create favorable public opinion by pitying Mes of the God (Male)…

Mes of the God (Male): Hey Hell Slave, I'm not letting you off the hook just for that.

…but I failed.

Damn it.

Korean Slave 1 (Male): Close one.

Latte is Mine: I think the ghosts of the Internal Medicine system deserve a voice too…

Cardiology Ghost: Hear, hear!

Let'sSpinTheCatapult: Real.

Hippocrates' Descendant: Ghosts of the Internal Medicine system! Haven't you been granted enough opportunities? I thought you had spoken quite enough!

Latte is Mine: Ugh, Hippo-ham, read the room.

SkullDriller: Anyway, we all agree on making Hell Slave study, right?

Latte is Mine: Yeah.

ThoracicSurgeryFossil: Yeah.

‘…Hm.’

It was glaringly obvious that the ghosts intended to make me study just as much as—no, to be exact, even more than—the help I had requested from them at the press conference today.

‘Well, I guess it wasn't a life-or-death situation, so…’

I mean, if someone's life had truly been in danger, the ghosts would have helped me without any conditions. But right now, thanks to the ghosts' backing, I had openly become a national genius.

When I snapped out of my thoughts, the reporters were starting to exit one by one. I turned my head to look at the Medical Director.

“Dr. Han, great work. Truly, great work.”

At those words, I decided to display some highly proactive social life behavior.

“Oh, not at all, Director. You went through much more trouble than I did, setting up a venue like this…”

“Drop it, drop it. I did it for my own satisfaction anyway.”

“Pardon?”

“Isn't the acute care department itself a specialty meant for my own personal satisfaction?”

No, it’s not, you gentleman. It’s a department created to save dying people, so why are you pretending it’s for your own self-interest?

“….”

“Anyway, excellent work. The articles should come out quite well after this.”

“Thank you for your hard work, Director. And thank you.”

At my words, the Director scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Thank you for what? Forget it. Head on back.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you!”

I bowed 90 degrees to the Director.

…

* * *

…

A day after the press conference. My officetel welcomed an unfamiliar guest.

“Senior, why do you keep your place so clean…?”

I swallowed the answer I wanted to give to Baek Eunseo (Female)’s question.

‘I cleaned because of you. Because of you.’

In the first place, how much cleaning does a guy living alone actually do on a regular basis? I had simply done just enough to mimic a decent human habitat. But we had agreed to meet up so I could study, and then she suddenly blurted out…

“Oh! Then can I visit your place, Senior? We haven't been there even once since we started dating.”

That was true. We had mostly met outside, and because we were constantly buried in work, we hadn't visited each other’s places even once after we started going out…

Anyway, cutting to the chase.

We were sitting side by side at the room table, facing each other.

“But Senior.”

“Yeah?”

“Public opinion has gotten really good.”

What she showed me was her smartphone screen, packed with numerous articles.

[Comprehensive] “Not Privileged, A True Genius”… Live Verification ‘Perfectly Settles’ Chonjin University Hospital Paper 1st Author Controversy

“The World is Wide, and Geniuses Do Exist”… 30 Minutes That Left Even Ju Sang-cheol, South Korea's Top Neurosurgery Authority, In Awe

Stealing a Research Paper? “Earned First Authorship with Pure Skill” Outwhelming Capability Proven in Live Q&A

[On-Site Coverage] Chonjin University Hospital Grand Auditorium Mimics a Specialist Exam… Professors from Other Hospitals Spotted Taking Endless Notes

Medical Director: “There’s Only One Reason I Cherish This Resident—Because He’s A Genius”… Unprecedented Remark ‘Hits the Mark’

[Focus] ‘Emergency Trephination’ Star Doctor Overturns the Medical Community This Time with a Live Explanation of His Paper

“…This is actually kind of embarrassing.”

At my words, Baek Eunseo (Female) chuckled and tapped my hand.

“You should be proud. Even so, the whole world now knows that you're a genius, Senior.”

‘I'm not actually a genius, though…’

I let out a meaningful, bitter smile and quietly nodded.

“Yikes, Senior.”

“Yeah?”

“Your smile.”

She pointed out my smile again. Ah. I do smile a bit like garbage, don't I?

“Like this?”

When I lowered the corners of my mouth slightly to make it look as natural as possible, Baek Eunseo (Female) gave me a thumbs up.

“Yes, exactly like that. A second ago, I seriously thought you were a psychopath.”

“What do you mean, calling your senior a psychopath…”

“So, what did you say we were studying?”

At those words, I pulled out the books I had ordered the previous day and set them on the desk one by one.

Thud!

[Youmans and Winn Neurological Surgery]

“Huh, neurosurgery?”

The very book that SkullDriller had insisted yesterday must be hardwired into my brain from the first page to the last. The bible of bibles in neurosurgery. A four-volume set that cost well over a million won…

“But Senior, isn't this a bit over-spec…?”

I internally agreed with her words. Is this over-spec? You bet it is. But what can I do when these damn ghosts told me to buy it?

I recalled SkullDriller’s comment.

ㄴ SkullDriller: Hell Slave, you're someone who has completed a neurosurgery dispatch, so a situation where you have to crack a head open might actually pop up later!

Ignoring my response that such a thing would at least never happen in a modern Korean emergency room environment, SkullDriller had ultimately forced me to buy that book.

“Well… since I did go on a neurosurgery dispatch. You never know. I might end up doing something like an emergency cranial trephination again.”

Baek Eunseo (Female) gave a shallow nod as if my excuse made sense.

“I suppose… if it's you, Senior, that might actually happen.”

Next, I pulled out the new books I had received one after another and piled them up.

[Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology]

Neurology Ghost: Let's build up your neurology inner strength before you grab a knife.

‘…Come to think of it, a neurology book might actually be more useful in the emergency room.’ Since neurosurgery books focus mostly on procedures.

[Localization in Clinical Neurology]

Neurology Ghost: With this single book, just by tapping a patient's body with a hammer, you can pinpoint the lesion's location down to a 1mm unit before even taking a brain scan.

‘Well… can I really trust that?’

[Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine]

Latte is Mine: A doctor who hasn't read Harrison is only half a doctor. Since you're a 4th-year Emergency Medicine resident, you already have this lethal weapon at home, right?

Thump—

‘Of course I have Harrison.’

Internal Medicine is one of the fundamentals of modern medicine, and since almost all doctors need to know a certain level of internal medicine knowledge, I owned a copy of Harrison as well.

“Well, shall we gradually get to studying?”

“Yep!”

At my words, Baek Eunseo (Female) also pulled out her copy of Tintinalli (*an Emergency Medicine textbook), and we began to study.

…

* * *

…

“The Hakuba triangle… the Parkinson triangle… No, why did they put ten different name tags in that cramped little blood vessel gap…”

The cavernous sinus is a space where venous blood collects at the base of the brain behind the eyes. The problem is that the internal carotid artery and core nerves pass through it in a complicated, tangled mess…

“I know that microneuroanatomist Albert Rhoton divided it into ten sections to distinguish where it's safe to insert a scalpel when a tumor develops!”

“….”

I let out a hollow laugh as I watched Baek Eunseo (Female) casually spout neurosurgical knowledge with such a bright expression.

“Ha… haha. Right…”

“Ah, but I only know the origin, not the actual knowledge!”

Usually, knowing the origin is the harder part. On this day, I truly realized that Baek Eunseo (Female) was a medical geek and a medical pervert.

…

“In the emergency room, if there's bleeding, you just call NS and hold the vitals. Why am I sitting here measuring how many millimeters the distance is between the trigeminal nerve and the facial nerve on the lateral side of the pons, or what angle I need to twist to avoid the abducens nucleus?!”

“Didn't you start this study because you wanted to, Senior?”

“….”

‘No, I didn't.’

I swallowed those words down.

…

By the time I thought I had looked through the books sufficiently, I pulled up the window in the void. Baek Eunseo (Female) was still busy jotting down notes in her Tintinalli.

Korean Slave 1 (Male): Okay, I have studied neurosurgery a f***ing lot. Bring it on.

SkullDriller: A cavernous angioma ruptured right in the middle of the Pons, filling it with blood. You know that if you touch the brainstem even 1mm wrong, the patient stops breathing and becomes a vegetable, right?

SkullDriller: Name the only 3 safe entry zones where you can enter from the brainstem surface while completely avoiding all the cranial nerve nuclei.

Korean Slave 1 (Male): Um… Supracollicular?

SkullDriller: Write a report by tomorrow covering exactly how many millimeters the distance is between the trigeminal and facial nerves when entering toward the lateral pons, and even the exact angle you need to twist to avoid the abducens nucleus.

Arrrrgh. No way.

Neurology Ghost: Oh yeah, it's time to grill Hell Slave.

Mes of the God (Male): Get publicly humiliated first, you new fixed-nick.

Latte is Mine: Don't worry, Hell Slave, since you're a 4th year, I'll destroy you even more thoroughly!

I was forced to study until 10 PM that night.

…

* * *

…

Chirp, chirp—

Chirp—

A peaceful weekday morning with the morning sunshine streaming into the room.

“Uaaah…”

I slowly stood up, shaking out my disheveled hair.

“Ugh… Senior, what time is it now? Ah, sh*t, my back…”

And Baek Eunseo (Female)—who had risen with equally messy hair and a groggy disposition—asked for the time before picking up her phone from the side table to turn it on.

[AM 07:11]

“Ah, Senior. It’s 7 o’clock. But since I'm off today…”

In that instant, something struck my brain like a lightning bolt.

7 o'clock? I needed to get there at least before the conference started, but if it was 7…

I immediately kicked off the blankets and bounded out of bed.

“Aaargh, damn it, I’m late!!!!”

“Pfft.”

Leaving Baek Eunseo (Female)’s laughter behind, I started running.

…

8:19 AM.

In a complete daze, having only washed my hair, I barely managed to arrive at the neurosurgery doctor's office.

“Good morning, everyone.”

“Ah, Dr. Han Hyeonjae! Good morning.”

At my greeting, the 2nd-year resident Yoon Hisu welcomed me warmly.

“I'm not late, right?”

“Ah, yes! You're not particularly late.”

My neurosurgery dispatch was gradually passing the halfway mark. For a moment, a wave of bittersweet emotion washed over me at the thought of bidding farewell to this doctor's office that I had grown accustomed to over the past few days.

Creak—

The door to the doctor's office opened, and the 3rd-year resident Hwang Seonghun bowed his head.

“Ah, hello.”

“Oh, you're here?”

Hwang Seonghun politely folded his hands together and cautiously approached me.

“Uh, the Chairman Professor is looking for you.”