Chapter 29
Chapter 29
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Securing the Airway is Important (2)
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Chapter 29
My finger hovered over the call button. The moment I pressed it, not only would my peaceful day off be ruined, but my entire hospital life could go down the drain too.
Just because I'd done a ton of stupid shit so far didn't mean I could keep doing more.
Though I'd conveniently forgotten that fact for a moment.
Anyway, the ghosts' fervent nagging finally snapped whatever shred of rationality I had left in my head.
All the built-up fatigue, frustration, and misery exploded at once.
I set my phone down and instead poured all my rage into a new gallery post.
Title: Knock it off, you damn ghosts!!!!!!!!
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
Yeah, I've gotten a ton of help from you guys, patients haven't died thanks to you, I've gotten chewed out less by the seniors, and sometimes I even get treated like an ace. But there's a limit!!!!!!!! Let me rest on my day off, you damn ghost bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm seriously about to drop dead!!!!! Please, just let me rest, let me rest, let me rest!!!!!!!!!
The gallery went dead silent at my unhinged post.
A moment later, bewildered replies started trickling in one by one.
Anonymous (211.36): W-wait… Hell Slave… don't do this… We're all just rooting for you…
Hippocrates' Heir: O living one, we have momentarily forgotten your labors. Lay down your anger.
Latte is Just Words: Kids these days got no stamina… No, that's not it. Yeah. Sorry.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: I swear to god if you keep this up I'm quitting the gallery, you ghostly assholes.
Of course, I had no intention of actually quitting.
Why would I toss away this cheat code of a hack?
This was just a threat.
And my threat worked like a charm. The gallery plunged into panic in an instant.
Bone Fanatic 88: Hey!!!! No!! Don't go!! I'll show you my entire bone marrow slide collection!!
God's Scalpel: Let's talk this out.
And finally, their surrender came.
Anonymous (211.36): Hell Slave! We'll cut it down to half!!!!! Just one or two hours of study a day, okay? How's that compromise sound!
Tch.
***
The negotiation was a success.
Still, just in case, maybe I should make the call.
I needed to show the ghosts I'd at least tried.
And honestly, I was curious if individuals could even rent it.
I called the Education and Training Department first.
Then Director Park.
Luckily or unluckily, neither picked up.
The line rang, but no one answered.
I ended the call without hesitation.
'Phew, I'm saved.'
I let out a sigh of relief.
But a nagging doubt lingered in the corner of my mind.
Wait, is this really good?
The director's busy, sure, that makes sense. But…
Education and Training? You guys have to pick up.
Does it make any sense for the department in charge of training conditions to ignore calls for no reason?
What if it had been a real emergency?
I'll file a complaint later for sure.
With that thought, I flopped back onto the sofa.
Anyway, I'd overcome the biggest crisis of the day.
The gallery was quiet. One threat of quitting and they shut up.
Man, if I'd known this would've worked, why did I put up with their bullshit like an idiot all this time? Am I a fool?
Learning is great, but too much is poison.
Yeah, this is good enough.
The negotiation succeeded, and I protected my precious day off.
I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
Then I fired up a streaming service and ordered some fried chicken on a delivery app. Time for a little indulgence today. I'd won against those ghost bastards, after all.
But even after the chicken arrived, I cracked open a beer can, and spent a good while cackling at the TV, that nagging doubt wouldn't fade.
'We'll cut it down to half!!!!!'
The desperate cry of one anonymous user echoed in my head.
'...But.'
I paused mid-bite on a drumstick and sank into thought.
'The ghosts' lectures are crap and exhausting, but they do help, that's a fact.'
Like that myocardial infarction patient before… or the sigmoid volvulus case. Those patients' lives were saved entirely thanks to these gallery ghosts.
I'm still a green first-year with a ton I don't know.
My hands are clumsy as ever, and my knowledge is shallow.
Sure, the ghosts are total assholes who treat me like a toy, but they're experts who reached the top of their fields in life.
Do I even have the right to refuse their knowledge?
Anyway, sorry for flipping out…
I sent a faint apology in my heart. They probably wouldn't hear it.
And I made one resolution.
Maybe I should get back to studying airway securing.
Since it's come to this, exploiting these ghosts as free private tutors as much as possible is a steal.
Studying never hurts anyway.
If I get smarter, I survive, and my patients survive too.
I set down the half-eaten chicken and opened the gallery again. Then I posted a short update.
Title: Guys, I'm back ㅇㅇ not bailing
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
Got it. Got it, alright? Seems like I'm not meant to rest anyway, so let's pick up where we left off. Airway securing.
My post brought the quiet gallery back to life in a flash. The ghosts pounced like they'd been waiting.
Anonymous (211.36): Ooh! You're back, Hell Slave! Knew you were the real deal!
Latte is Just Words: Tsk tsk, should've done that from the start. Wasted energy for nothing.
ㄴ Hell Joseon Slave 1: You want me to actually quit the gallery?
ㄴ Anonymous (211.36): Ignore him, he's just a dumbass!!!!! Please don't go!!!!!!!!
Hippocrates' Heir: A wise choice, O living one! The path of learning knows no end!
God's Scalpel: Hm. Can't practice airway securing without a live dummy, I suppose.
At those words, my heart sank, terrified I'd get hit with the "call the professor" hell mission again.
But the next reply completely shattered my expectations.
God's Scalpel: Use drawings.
Drawings?
Drawings??
Sudden drawings out of nowhere?
Anatomy Ghost: Exactly! Lucky for you, I've got just the thing. After I died, I was so bored I bossed around a medical illustrator ghost in the afterlife for about 30 years to make a full human anatomy series. More accurate than any anatomy textbook out there, if I do say so myself.
Holy shit, so I wasn't the only living doctor getting worked to death out of sheer boredom.
I prayed for that unknown medical illustrator's soul.
Anyway, starting with those words, an unbelievable sight unfolded before my eyes.
What popped up in the gallery wasn't some basic anatomy sketch—it was images so hyper-realistic, it felt like they'd scanned a live person.
And he made them slave over this for 30 years?
That ghost—or whatever they were—must be a buddha for enduring it.
Anonymous (211.36): Alright, oral exam time.
And the test began.
A new post went up in the gallery: a perfect cross-section of a normal adult's airway.
Anonymous (211.36): Question 1. Basic airway securing. Which hand holds the laryngoscope? Which side of the tongue does the blade go on?
I racked my brain for a moment and typed out the answer mentally first.
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Left hand, slide it in on the right side of the tongue and sweep to the left.
Anonymous (211.36): Correct. Now, where do you position the blade tip so the epiglottis lifts and the vocal cords come into view? What's that structure called?
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Vallecula. (*Epiglottic vallecula)
Piece of cake.
Easy peasy!
No new replies for a bit, then another post.
The image changed. This time, it was a trauma patient's airway. Shattered teeth fragments mixed with blood—total chaos.
God's Scalpel: Situation. Trauma patient. Oral bleeding and vomit blocking the view. What's first?
Ugh, trauma means call the ambulance, obviously.
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Call 119?
ㄴ God's Scalpel: No, you idiot, you're in the hospital!!!!!!! Why call 119 again!!!!! You gonna ask the paramedics to secure the airway!!!!!!
Oh, right—I got so fixated on the trauma patient and scene that I forgot this was a test for a sec. I snapped out of it and posted the right answer.
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Suction.
God's Scalpel: Duh. Now, while sucking up vomit with a large suction tip, you accidentally irritate the larynx. Patient goes into laryngospasm. Vocal cords clamped shut, tube won't go in. What now? 30 seconds.
I panicked. Brain went blank. Sedate the patient first? Or…
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Small dose of muscle relaxant to break the spasm.
God's Scalpel: Too slow. Patient's hypoxic, cardiac arrest. Patient's dead. Dumbass. In that situation, you try positive pressure ventilation with the Ambu bag while prepping for surgical airway!
Damn it.
Killed the virtual patient right out of the gate.
Now an external neck view appeared: thyroid cartilage, cricoid cartilage, and the thin membrane between.
OR Ghost 3: Alright, can't intubate, can't ventilate. Patient's sats dropping to the 70s. You've got a #11 blade in your hand. Where do you cut? On that image, mentally draw exactly where you'd incise.
Sweat beading on my forehead, I located the cricothyroid membrane in my head and drew a line over it.
This gallery's got all kinds of features—paint tool and everything.
I uploaded the image as-is.
God's Scalpel: Wrong spot, moron! Cut there and you stab the thyroid! You trying to kill 'em with exsanguination? Again!
I redrew the line and reposted.
God's Scalpel: Too high! That's the thyroid cartilage! Planning to saw through bone?
And so, sitting on my officetel sofa, I spent the next while slashing and stitching an imaginary neck dozens of times.
The weirdest airway training session on earth.