Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Aftermath (2)
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I placed my hands on the keyboard. An empty word processor screen.
A blinking cursor.
When it came time to type the first letter, my fingers wouldn't move.
My mind went blank.
In the end, I knocked on the door of the [Fallen Doctors Gallery] like it was my last lifeline.
Title: Holy shit you bastards, I'm about to get fired from the hospital fooooock
Author: HellKoreaSlave1
My desperate scream flipped the quiet gallery upside down in an instant.
Anonymous (210.94): What??? Fired??
OperatingRoomGhost3: Fuuuuuck that can't happen! Hey! Hold on! Calm down!
LatteIsJustTalk: You saved a life, they won't fire you outright for that. I guarantee it. But... your pay might get cut, or your residency extended. Suspension for like 3 months?
BoneFreak88: No way HellSlave!!!!! You can't go independent with those shit hands, what happens if you get kicked out of the university hospital!!!! Who's gonna look at my bone marrow slides then!!!!!
The comments weren't comforting at all.
Especially that bone pervert bastard, only thinking about himself to the end.
Yeah, we're in the same boat.
If I get fired from here, these ghosts lose their one and only real-world tour guide.
Time passed, and finally, the gallery's opinion unified.
'Save HellSlave first.'
And so, the worst collaboration no one wanted began.
That's how I started writing the incident report, with God's Scalpel dictating to me step by step.
I typed the first sentence.
'The patient was in severe hypovolemic shock upon arrival.'
I paused for a moment and threw a question at God's Scalpel.
HellKoreaSlave1: So there was really no other way? For real? Couldn't you just pump fluids and blood and hold out till surgery?
God's Scalpel: Patient was already in shock as defined by ATLS. Blood pressure was unrecoverable. If you didn't stop the source of bleeding, patient would've cardiac arrested in 10 minutes.
Sigh... ha... fine.
I copied that explanation straight into the report as God's Scalpel fed it to me.
'...Therefore, I determined that continuous fluid and transfusion therapy alone could not sustain the patient's life, and resolved to perform damage control via emergency laparotomy, the only means to directly identify and control the source of bleeding.'
Whoa. Look at that sentence. Sounds so goddamn professional.
I kept firing questions.
HellKoreaSlave1: Why midline incision?
God's Scalpel: Fastest way to secure the widest field of view. Best approach. Write that as is.
HellKoreaSlave1: Why packing in all four quadrants?
God's Scalpel: Standard technique to locate bleeding sites while reducing overall blood loss. Write that too. It's straight out of the textbook, anyone can see.
The back-and-forth with God's Scalpel continued.
I filled in the blanks of the report with the comments.
Medically, the report was becoming a flawless document without a single error.
But the real problem started now.
The part that couldn't be explained medically.
HellKoreaSlave1: ...So how do I explain talking down to the seniors and being rude to the professor?
God's Scalpel went silent at my question.
God's Scalpel: Something like 'I was so focused on the shocked patient that I failed to properly perceive my surroundings.'
...Muddle through? You think that'll fly?
HellKoreaSlave1: You really think that makes sense?
God's Scalpel: What else you gonna say? 'The black flame dragon inside me awakened and I turned arrogant without realizing'? Anyway, sorry. I'll be careful from now on.
Fuck.
He's right.
With a deep sigh, I added the line to the report as instructed.
Next issue.
This was the real highlight.
HellKoreaSlave1: A first-year doing surgery with insane hand skills? How the hell do I explain that? Can't say you possessed me. Whole hospital knows I'm a retard who can't even start an IV, how do I explain suddenly becoming a laparotomy god?
At my desperate question, God's Scalpel gave another crystal-clear answer.
God's Scalpel: ...Muddle through that too.
HellKoreaSlave1: That's the most important part you ghost bastard!!!!!!
God's Scalpel: What can you do? Can't say 'I'm actually a hidden surgical genius but hid my skills out of humility.' Just go with 'In my determination to save the patient, I executed techniques honed solely through mental imagery training with superhuman focus.' There's no logical explanation from the start.
I despaired again at those words.
Yeah. No logical explanation.
Because something illogical actually happened.
In the end, I had to wrap my miraculous hand skills in a fantasy-novel line about 'superhuman focus and mental imagery training.'
Who the hell would buy this?
***
Meanwhile, Yoo Sung-hoon sat in the station chair, pressing his temples hard and holding his head.
He couldn't tear his eyes from the empty Bed 2 in the resuscitation room.
What had just happened there didn't feel real at all.
His brain refused to process the information.
Yoo Sung-hoon desperately replayed the last hour. Everything was off.
First, Han Hyun-jae was crazy.
Plain fact. He suddenly turned into a dead fish-eyed maniac and spat informal speech right in the seniors' faces. Not just stress reaction or temporary shock. Clear mental issue.
Second, that crazy bastard put a knife to the patient.
Emergency med first-year. The same Han Hyun-jae who couldn't start an IV without bruising the patient's arm worse than his own, who had zero skills. He picked up a scalpel and sliced open a person's belly.
Up to there, it should've ended as a horrific medical accident—just a deranged resident's unprecedented attempted murder.
But.
Third, that crazy bastard saved the patient.
The dying patient. The one with one foot in the grave from massive hemorrhage.
Fourth, he did it with surgery.
Not sloppy knife work. Even to Yoo Sung-hoon himself, no—to Professor Kang Hyun-jun from surgery—it was near-perfect, swift, precise damage control.
Fifth, it happened not in a state-of-the-art OR but in the contaminated ER resuscitation room.
Sixth, performed not by a decades-experienced surgeon but an emergency med doc.
Seventh, and the most absurd fact.
All that by a resident barely a year in, not even a specialist.
Does that make any sense?
Each proposition could exist alone.
Crazy first-year.
Doctor who saved a patient.
ER procedure.
But all those propositions happened simultaneously in one person: Han Hyun-jae.
Logical contradiction.
Breakdown of causality.
Yoo Sung-hoon's brain stopped thinking. Reason couldn't handle it anymore.
Yoo Sung-hoon called out to Nam Joo-hyun, sitting next to him with the same dazed expression, staring into space.
"Hey, Joo-hyun."
"...Yes, sir."
"This..."
Yoo Sung-hoon couldn't continue, just moving his lips.
"You think this makes sense?"
"Yes? What?"
Nam Joo-hyun asked back with unfocused eyes.
"Hyun-jae."
At those two syllables, Nam Joo-hyun furrowed his brow like he was trying to think, then shook his head.
"Ah... I dunno?"
Seeing that reaction confirmed Yoo Sung-hoon's thoughts weren't wrong.
Yoo Sung-hoon leaned toward Nam Joo-hyun and lowered his voice.
"No, seriously. You think something possessed him or what?"
"...Yes?"
"Think about it. Those hand movements. The informal talk. Can't explain it as awakening or potential burst."
Yoo Sung-hoon's voice grew more convinced.
Facing a phenomenon beyond reason, he reached the most irrational conclusion.
"No shamans nearby our hospital? Maybe we need an exorcism?"
At the serious question, Nam Joo-hyun just gave him a look that said, 'Why are all our EM fourth-years like this...?'
***
I stared blankly at the just-finished report.
EmergencyMed_HanHyunjae_IncidentReport_FinalFinal.docs
Who'd believe this bullshit.
With a deep sigh, I closed the laptop.
Whatever happens, happens.
My head was a mess.
I wanted to forget for a bit.
Without thinking, I logged back into the [Fallen Doctors Gallery].
I scrolled down to find the trace of my scream.
And discovered a new festival unfolding in an utterly unexpected direction below it.
Taking my incident as a cue, the ghosts were spilling their own buried disciplinary tales.
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Title: [Story] HellSlave's heading to disciplinary committee, so here's my latte story.
Author: Anonymous (118.235)
There was this time on the doc-helicopter where I couldn't wait for landing and jumped from 1.5m up.
Below, a polytrauma patient dying from hemorrhage, chopper stuttering in strong winds.
Pilot and flight medic freaking out trying to stop me, but I jumped anyway.
Saved the patient, but back at hospital, aviation law violation bullshit, disciplinary committee, incident report, total clusterfuck lol
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I let out a hollow laugh.
OperatingRoomGhost3: Madlad hero lmao how's the ankle?
ㄴ Anonymous (118.235): Fine. Don't underestimate special forces alum.
LatteIsJustTalk: Hmm, yeah, that deserves discipline.
ㄴ Anonymous (118.235): This boomer asshole fr.
Starting with that post, legendary hero tales or just madman escapades poured out.
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Title: My disciplinary reason was 'assault.'
Author: ERFighter
Crazy guy with a knife rampaging in the ER.
He was a guardian pissed his dad wasn't seen fast enough.
Security helpless, cops 5 mins out.
Couldn't just watch anymore.
Decided on the fastest, most effective sedation.
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Anonymous (118.235): Ketamine?
ㄴ ERFighter: Right straight to the jaw. KO in one. Later sued for excessive force, hospital opened disciplinary for inciting violence. But all the other guardians that day backed me up, so light discipline. Psycho got locked up. Still think it was best treatment.
Reading that, I unconsciously clenched my fist.
This guy's a madman for sure.
The next post was a bit more academic.
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Title: I almost got disciplined for attempted murder.
Author: CardioGhost
When I was a first-year fellow, massive PE patient rolled in, BP tanking, cardiac arrest imminent.
Back then, only answer was surgery to scrape the clot.
OR in 2 hours. Patient had 30 mins.
So I tried tPA from that one paper I'd seen.
Off-label for PE then? Could kill with systemic bleed?
Sure enough, our director rushes in, grabs my collar yelling I'm trying to kill him.
Told him to fuck off and pushed through. Yeah.
30 mins later, sats up, BP back.
Miracle recovery.
Of course, disciplinary committee, half-year pay cut, reamed like a dog.
But it ended up in standard guidelines? Heh, I was just ahead of my time.
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Starting with those, the gallery filled with all sorts of outlandish disciplinary tales.
I scrolled through them one by one, bursting into laughter without realizing.
These mad bastards had crossed lines and broken rules in their own eras, their own ways.
The disciplinary committee didn't seem so scary anymore.
Sure, still terrifying, shitty, wanted to avoid.
But I wasn't shaking in fear that my doctor life was over like before.
Felt a weird sense of belonging even.
My name was joining those legendary madmen.
As 'the guy who sliced open a patient belly in the ER.'
...But since I didn't do it myself, kinda weak?
I chuckled and closed the laptop with the saved report.