Chapter 10
Chapter 10
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Strange Guy (3)
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Senior Lee Min-jae's prophecy turned into a curse and came true with pinpoint accuracy.
After that day, my status at the emergency medical center completely changed.
Of course, it wasn't in a positive way.
Or maybe, in a certain sense, it was positive.
Either way, one undeniable fact was that it wasn't exactly a great situation for me.
Sure, it was good for my classmates and juniors. The reason my status had risen in the first place was partly because of them.
But shouldn't the seniors be happy about this? I get that it might be annoying for them to have people coming to them with questions, but come on.
No matter what, I'm just a first-year spinning my wheels like crazy here. Don't you think they should at least take a look?
Anyway, I had become this embarrassing and burdensome figure, saddled with nicknames like "Diagnostic God," "Walking Update," and "Juniors' Savior," far from being treated like a lowly first-year scrub.
And the price for that was horrific.
"Han Hyun-jae, sir! Hold on a sec!"
It was 3 a.m. Just as my mind was starting to blur from handling the flood of patients, an intern came rushing over, his face pale as a ghost. In his hand was a freshly printed EKG strip.
"There's this 78-year-old grandma patient complaining of pain in her epigastrium and nausea. It seemed like simple indigestion, but I took an EKG just in case, and it's kinda ambiguous..."
The intern's voice trailed off weakly.
I sighed inwardly and took the EKG from him.
At a glance, it looked no different from a normal ECG. But as the intern said, there was a subtle 0.5 mm ST depression from V1 to V3. Something a first-year newbie might dismiss as "within error margin" or "nonspecific change."
Holding the EKG, I stared off into a fixed point in space for a moment.
'Gallery access.'
Title: 78/F, epigastric pain, nausea. Subtle ST depression V1-V3 on EKG. Differential?
Writer: HellJoseonSlave1
Just 0.5 seconds after posting, that familiar 118.235 IP popped up again.
Anonymous (118.235): Suspect posterior MI. Get V7-V9 leads, you idiot.
I checked the answer key and turned back to the intern.
"Considering the patient's age and symptoms, we can't rule out atypical myocardial infarction. This could be a posterior wall infarction, so attach V7 through V9 leads to her back and repeat the EKG. Also, send labs including troponin right away, and notify me as soon as results come back."
"Huh? Posterior infarction? Oh! Got it!"
A little while later, the follow-up EKG the intern brought showed clear ST elevation in V8 and V9.
Classic posterior myocardial infarction findings. I immediately paged the on-call cardiologist, and the patient was whisked away for emergent intervention.
I'd saved another patient who nearly got shelved as indigestion, letting her heart muscle rot away.
Proud moment.
***
This kind of thing repeated several times a day.
"Hyun-jae, take a look at this patient. 25-year-old guy, chest X-ray's spotless normal, but he's had dry cough and fever for a week straight. Feels off."
My classmate Kim Ji-hoon scratched his head and asked me.
'Gallery access. [25/M, dry cough, fever. Chest PA normal. Rule out?]'
Anonymous (14.52): It's Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Atypical pneumonia doesn't show up well on X-ray. Hit 'em with azithromycin.
"...Even with a clean X-ray, it could be atypical pneumonia. Thinking Mycoplasma infection, empirical azithromycin seems like the way to go."
"Oh yeah, that's right! Atypical pneumonia! Almost sent him off with just cold meds."
Kim Ji-hoon clapped me on the shoulder, genuinely impressed.
'The guy who stares off into space deep in thought whenever you ask him something, then drops a perfect answer moments later.'
My new title.
For the intern with the ambiguous bone fragment on an ankle sprain X-ray, I told him, "That's an accessory ossicle—leave it be." For the classmate with a kid tugging at its ear nonstop, "No tympanic erythema? Could be a bug in the ear canal—peek with an otoscope."
Thanks to this gallery, I had to spew knowledge beyond my years at every turn.
Most said they were cases anyone with a bit of experience could easily differentiate or think of.
Of course, as a scrub first-year, I couldn't recall most of them on my own.
Before I knew it, it was past 5 a.m.
Worn ragged by the endless barrage of questions, I slipped into a corner of the supply room to escape everyone's eyes.
Leaning my head against the cold wall, my eyes drifted shut.
Please, just one minute—no one come looking for me.
Fuck. Please, just ask the senior residents.
Don't come to me—go bug the third- and fourth-years sitting right over there, you bastards.
I don't know either.
I'm just a regular first-year like you.
***
With my head against the cold supply room wall, I opened the system window to check my reward for all the labor.
Over the past few hours, I'd been running nonstop, thinking, and handing out answers.
Savior to interns and classmates, preventing their mistakes. So what reward did I get?
I tapped the LP earnings log. A list of minor entries popped up.
[Posterior MI diagnostic assist: +10 LP]
[Atypical pneumonia diagnostic assist: +5 LP]
[Accessory ossicle differential assist: +2 LP]
[Ear canal foreign body differential assist: +2 LP]
[UTI diagnostic assist: +3 LP]
...
That's it? Fuck?
Total 22 LP. Bringing my grand total to 622. I let out a hollow laugh.
Fuck, all minor cases, and since I just confirmed—not treated them myself—the LP barely trickles in.
The system was merciless. Diagnostic assists were just assists—no full rewards.
Full points only when I took the history myself, made the diagnosis on my watch, and started treatment on my orders.
Playing consultant cleaning up after others like this? Forget 5,000 LP—even 1,000 would take months.
I irritably closed the LP screen and switched to the [Fallen Doctors Gallery] main page.
Wondering what bullshit these ghost bastards were spouting now.
And then I couldn't believe my eyes.
The popular posts list was plastered wall-to-wall with stories about me.
Title: HellSlave1 nails posterior MI like a beast www
Writer: Anesthesiology Pain Medicine
Intern kid almost brushed it off as indigestion, HellSlave1 posts to gallery, catches posterior MI. Pretty solid. Keep coming back and asking, punk.
Title: Today's HellSlave1 atypical pneumonia case—Doxycycline instead of azithromycin okay?
Writer: LatteIsHorsecart
Azithro's solid, but I'd go doxy. What do you all think? Let's debate this.
Title: HellSlave1 making gallery fun these days
Writer: BoneFan88
Thanks to this guy, getting latest cases even dead, feels like watching patients live. Super fresh vibe, hard to explain but you know.
I stared at the screen, dumbfounded.
These ghost fucks had been spectating my agony in real-time on the gallery, even debating it.
To this insane gallery crew, I wasn't some regular live doctor anymore—I was the streamer on their 24/7 free live channel, easing their boredom.
I clicked into one post to check the comments.
Anonymous (14.52): All basic-ass cases, but still feels like seeing real patients, right?
ㄴ PediatricGhost77: Fr lmao, and seeing him diagnose based on our posts then report back? Feels like we're in on the treatment.
HeirOfHippocrates: Barbarians. Giggling over trivial cases. But admittedly, a bit enjoyable.
These psychos were treating my patients like their entertainment.