Chapter 48

Episode 48 Poster Presentation (1)‌

I was tucked away in a corner of the station, wrapping up the discharge charting for the last remaining patient. The fingers tapping on the keyboard felt heavy, and my eyelids felt like a thousand pounds. The clock pointed to 6:55 PM. Five minutes. If I could just hold out for five more minutes, this tedious day shift would finally be over.

‘Ah, I want to go home...’

A huge yawn ripped through my mouth, threatening to tear it open. Rotating my stiff neck, I mindlessly clicked on a pop-up notice on the hospital intranet.

[Korean Society of Emergency Medicine Fall Academic Conference Abstract Submission Guide]

Ah, right. It’s already time for the Fall Academic Conference. Looking at the flashy poster and the dense schedule, I muttered to myself with a detached feeling, as if watching a fire across a river.

"Well, I don't have anything to do with it..."

With a sense of relief, I closed the window. Yes, I didn't need to worry about that kind of headache. Going home after work, stretching my legs, and sleeping was my only goal.

Just then.

"Oh, Hyunjae. Haven't you left yet?"

Behind my back, a familiar but never welcome voice was heard. It was Emergency Medicine staff Professor Cheon Eun-jeong. I barely managed to compose my body, which almost jumped out of the chair, and stood up abruptly.

"Ah, yes? Yes, Professor! I just finished the last charting and was about to head home!"

My voice trembled slightly with tension. A professor right before clock-out time is no different from a minefield. If you step on it wrong, your life is gone right then and there.

"Is that so? Good job."

Professor Cheon gave me a brief compliment and seemed to pass by just like that. Whew, I survived. Just as I sighed with relief and was about to sit back down in my seat—

"Ah, wait, wait a moment. Before you leave, let's have a brief consultation. It'll only take five minutes."

Shiver.

My heart dropped to the floor.

A consultation. Five minutes.

In the doctor world, the combination of these two phrases means only one thing: Prepare to be ripped to shreds like a dog for at least the next 30 minutes.

Like a prisoner being dragged to the execution chamber, I followed Professor Cheon to a small consultation room in the corner. Professor Cheon sat on a chair, and I sat down across from her, perfectly upright. What sin did I commit? Was it handing over that rectal foreign body case to the intern earlier? Or was it drinking too much instant mix coffee?

"Ah, it's nothing else."

Professor Cheon turned on her tablet and showed me something. It was the exact academic conference guide page I had seen earlier.

"I saw the deadline for this Fall Academic Conference is this Friday."

Professor Cheon's voice was incredibly sweet and bright.

"Ahaha... Right. Since today is Wednesday... there are only two days left."

Not knowing what else to say, I laughed awkwardly and agreed with her. Then, Professor Cheon delivered my death sentence with the most innocent smile in the world.

"Yep. Let's just write one abstract."

...

"......Pardon?"

My brain refused to comprehend.

"I beg your pardon?"

Doubting my ears, I asked back. I thought our hospital was a very good hospital that let 1st-year residents just stay cooped up in the hospital.

"An abstract. Abstract. Let's just write one and submit it."

I was dazed. My mind went blank.

Today is Wednesday night. The deadline is Friday midnight. To write an abstract, first, you have to decide on a case, dig through related papers to build background knowledge, organize patient data, write the introduction, main body, and conclusion in English, and get confirmation from the supervising professor... It was a physically impossible schedule. This basically meant don't sleep tonight and tomorrow.

"Hey, why are you so surprised? I'm not asking you to do an oral presentation. That would be burdensome. Let's just do a poster. A poster."

If an oral presentation is a death penalty, a poster presentation is a prison sentence. Of course, it's not like a 1st-year resident doesn't do a poster presentation. Every resident does it at least once in their life, probably. But two days before the deadline is just wrong. It's not that a poster presentation itself is difficult. The problem is that it's two days before.

As if Professor Cheon didn't care about my feelings at all, she excitedly started picking a case.

"Well, we could write about that TTP case we diagnosed a while ago. But TTP might be a bit weak... Since it's so rare, it would catch attention, but you didn't do much other than the diagnosis. Ah! The one where we opened the belly! That's good! 'A Successful Case of Resuscitative Laparotomy Performed in the Emergency Room.' The title has an impact right from the start."

Professor Cheon pondered for a moment, then shook her head.

"No, the laparotomy case, in my opinion, should be presented as an oral presentation when you're a 2nd-year resident after the patient is discharged. It's too good of a case to waste on a poster. But preparing for an oral presentation with only two days left is a bit burdensome, right?"

With a devilish smile, Professor Cheon sought my agreement. I had no choice but to nod my head.

"Then there's only one left. The one where you caught an MI from a sore throat. 'A Case of Early Diagnosis of Acute Myocardial Infarction Presenting with Atypical Symptoms.' How about it? Clean and nice, right? Let's go with that."

Just like that, the topic of my first academic conference abstract was decided in five seconds. Without reflecting even a single gram of my will.

"Ha... Haha..."

Only a hollow laugh leaked out of my mouth. Taking that laugh as a sign of affirmation, Professor Cheon turned off the tablet with a satisfied expression.

"Great! Then let's do that. Write a draft and email it to me before lunchtime tomorrow. I'll take a look and let you know what to edit. You can do it, right?"

To that devil's question, I could only answer in a soulless voice.

"...Yes, Professor."

With a satisfied smile, Professor Cheon Eun-jeong rose from her seat. She lightly tapped my shoulder as if to encourage me.

"Anyway, a poster is just one page. No need to be scared. All the 1st-years do it, kid. Fighting! Fighting!"

Leaving behind such an innocently cheerful cheer like a devil, Professor Cheon leisurely walked out of the consultation room.

‘No, one page... the final product hanging at the academic conference hall is one page, you gentleman...’

The inner me vomited blood and screamed in despair.

I stood up from my seat like a person who had lost his soul.

Thump, thump.

I crossed the emergency room and headed toward the locker room. Clocking out. Yes, I had to at least leave work first. While changing my clothes, a catastrophic scenario of the upcoming disaster began to simulate frantically in my head.

First, it was data collection. The most basic but hardest process. First of all, I had to dig through the entire medical record of that myocardial infarction patient who came in with a sore throat. I imagined myself logging into the EMR and opening the patient's chart. From the vital signs at the time of visit, the physical examination records I performed, the minute changes in the EKG waveforms, to the graphs showing the changes in myocardial enzyme levels drawn by hour. The comments written on the Cardiology consultation printout sheet, the black-and-white images showing the narrowed blood vessel attached to the coronary angiography report, the final diagnosis, the treatment process, and even the discharge summary. I had to thoroughly scan everything from A to Z of that patient to extract meaningful data worthy of presenting at the conference. Out of those hundreds of pages of records, I had to find clues to prove the uniqueness of this case. This alone would take at least three to four hours.

Second, the literature search. I couldn't just organize the data and submit it saying, 'There was such a patient, isn't it fascinating? The end!' I had to state what clinical significance this case held. To do that, what should I do? Naturally, I had to read papers. I imagined myself sitting in front of the small desk in my officetel, logging into PubMed. I would stubbornly type keywords related to this case into the search bar, such as 'atypical MI,' 'sore throat ACS,' or 'non-chest pain ACS.' Then, a despairing number like [2,134 results found] would pop up on my screen. Out of those thousands of English papers pouring out, I had to narrow down at least ten that were most relevant to my case. And I had to read them all, interpret them, and analyze them in comparison with my case to turn them into evidence supporting my claim.

English. Just thinking about it made me want to throw up. That damn nightmare of medical textbooks that tortured me throughout all six years of medical school.

Third, writing the abstract. Going through all this hellish process, it was finally time to write. This was the most urgent. Before noon tomorrow. Matching the strict format required by the conference, I had to complete the English abstract in the structure of introduction, case report, discussion, and conclusion. Easier said than done. With my English skills, I had to contain all these contents implicitly, logically, and professionally? Jumping into the Han River, no, the Nakdong River might be a faster and more comfortable way.

I looked at my appearance reflected in the locker room mirror.

‘...Even so.’

I desperately searched for a single ray of hope.

‘Anyway, since the final poster has to be written as concisely as possible... if I make it focused on figures and graphs... it'll work out somehow...’

I comforted myself.

‘Yeah... it's better than an oral... an oral presentation. If it were that, I would have just written my resignation letter here today...’

In the end, only one conclusion was left.

‘Ha, I guess I have to get help from those Gallery Ghosts again.’

Damn it. Do I really have to beg those crazy bastards again after all?

As I stepped out of the hospital, the cold night air greeted me. Returning home, washing up, and immediately sitting at the desk to start organizing data... Ah, just thinking about it was horrible. But what could I do? It was the fate of this floor to do whatever the professor demanded.

I boarded an empty bus and blankly stared at the night view outside the window.

"Sigh... well, let's do it. Fuck it, yeah."

It's not like losing a bit of sleep would kill me.