Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Poster Presentation (2)
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After enduring a hellish commute home, I collapsed into my tiny officetel like a corpse.
I flung my bag onto the floor, yanked off my tie, undid the buttons on my wrinkled shirt, and staggered toward the sofa.
Haaah…
Ah… I’m so tired…
I closed my eyes.
But sleep wouldn’t come.
Behind my eyelids loomed the cursed words: Autumn Academic Conference.
Friday midnight deadline.
Submit the draft by lunchtime tomorrow.
Professor Cheon Eun-jeong’s bright, devilish smile floated into my mind.
I forced myself upright.
First things first… what should I start with? PubMed? Or… the gallery?
PubMed.
The holy site for medical researchers, an endless sea of information.
I shook my head.
Nah.
I’ve got that damn compass. Temperament like a rabid dog, but performance you can count on.
[Fallen Doctors Gallery]
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Title: Save me, guys… (Paper-related)
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
Professor suddenly tells me to write a poster abstract for the Autumn Conference by lunchtime tomorrow. Topic’s acute myocardial infarction presenting as sore throat. Guys, what papers should I look up first? Give me some keywords at least. Please.
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Anonymous (210.94): ??
Operating Room Ghost 3: Is this a question? Is this a question? Is this a question?
Latte is Just Talk: You diagnosed the case yourself. So you can figure out the search terms, right? If you’re a first-year, isn’t it time you started looking up papers on your own? How long are you gonna keep expecting us to spoon-feed you?
God’s Scalpel: Wuuwu
Knew it, you ghostly bastards.
Latte is Just Talk: Tsk tsk. Poor guy. Listen up. First thing you gotta do is pick your keywords. But know what noobs like you screw up? Searching some dumb shit like ‘sore throat MI’. You think that’ll pull up good papers?
What the hell, then how should I search?
I quietly waited for the next reply.
Latte is Just Talk: ‘Atypical presentation’ or ‘atypical symptom’. That’s the key. And pain from myocardial infarction that’s not chest pain but somewhere else? They call it ‘anginal equivalent’. Combine those two and start searching.
I shot up and dashed to my desk, firing up my laptop.
Cardiology Ghost: Then apply filters. What’re you gonna do reading papers from 20 years ago? Last 5 years, prioritize reviews and meta-analyses. Filter out case reports for now.
Anonymous (39.7): Journals have tiers too. NEJM, Lancet, Circulation, JACC. Best to reference papers from at least that level first, yeah.
I hammered the keyboard and clicked the mouse like a maniac.
Hematoma is Hell: First, prevalence. What percentage of patients have only atypical symptoms without chest pain? And among those, how rare is sore throat alone?
Hematoma is Hell: Second, mechanism. Gotta provide neurophysiological evidence for why heart pain feels like throat pain. Look up papers on referred pain principles.
Hematoma is Hell: Third, prognosis. Patients like yours with atypical symptoms usually get diagnosed late, so worse outcomes than classic chest pain cases. Tons of data on that. Find comparative analyses and conclude early detection is key.
Finally, the ever-silent observer, God’s Scalpel, tossed in a single line.
God’s Scalpel: So, you checked which coronary artery was blocked in that patient? Right coronary issues often refer pain to the jaw or throat. Double-check the angiogram results and discuss the link between the blocked vessel and the sore throat.
These ghostly pricks were still hateful and obnoxious, but damn if they weren’t respectable too.
That unrelenting scholarly passion that doesn’t fade even in death, and this twisted zeal to teach the young’uns (not that I want to think of myself that way).
I sat at my laptop, wringing my empty brain as I mapped out my plan.
Prevalence, mechanism, prognosis.
Build the paper’s skeleton around those three.
Now what?
Skeleton’s set—time for the meat.
My case. My patient’s data.
Oh right. EMR.
Shit.
EMR. Electronic Medical Records.
Only accessible from the hospital intranet.
And here I am, at my officetel desk.
Ha… what now.
Who’s on night shift tonight?
I mentally flipped through my cohort’s schedule. Kim Ji-hoon and I did days, so nights…
First-year Jo Soo-yeon?
‘Should I ask her for EMR access via KakaoTalk?’
A devilish whisper rose in my head.
‘Nah, that won’t fly.’
But reason quickly crushed it.
‘Yeah, thought so. Personal info rules—definitely not.’
No need to check; it’s clearly a violation of medical law.
Gotta go through proper channels.
Yeah.
Give up tomorrow’s day off, drag myself to the hospital, formally request EMR access, and compile the data from my station. That’s the only way.
But… just in case, I decided to post about it.
Maybe there’s some wild hack known only to the ghosts.
Title: Guys, I’m home—okay to KakaoTalk a classmate for EMR data for my paper?
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
Anonymous (118.235): Yeah, go for it. If you two wanna be besties in the slammer.
…Huh?
Papers only today.
And tomorrow’s off day… off day means… head to the hospital…
Let’s do this.
I plopped back down at my laptop.
I started searching with the keywords from Latte is Just Talk: ‘atypical presentation of ACS’. (*Atypical presentation of acute coronary syndrome)
Hundreds of papers poured out.
“Whoa… when am I gonna read all this?”
Cardiology Ghost: Quit whining and skim the titles. Look for ones mentioning Sore Throat (*pharyngitis) or Pharyngitis (*pharyngitis).
I scrolled through titles like mad.
After dozens, one caught my eye.
‘Acute Myocardial Infarction Presenting as Isolated Sore Throat: A Case Series and Literature Review’.
“Hey! This! This looks perfect!”
Hell Joseon Slave 1: What about this one? ‘Acute Myocardial Infarction Presenting Solely as Sore Throat: Case Series and Literature Review’. Title alone sounds gold. Cite it?
Latte is Just Talk: Check the journal first. Skip any no-name third-rate rag. You know about impact factors, right?
I checked the journal.
The American Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Pretty authoritative in emergency medicine.
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Emergency medicine journal? IF over 3, seems solid.
Cardiology Ghost: Yeah, then read the abstract.
‘…Analysis of 12 sore throat-presenting MI patients: 75% male, mean age 62… Most had risk factors like smoking or hypertension…’
Hell Joseon Slave 1: Nice, good data to compare with my patient. Mine’s a male in his 50s with smoking history.
Hippocrates’ Heir: Good!
I went back to the search results. Now hunting mechanism papers as per Hematoma is Hell.
A review paper full of anatomy diagrams and neural pathways jumped out.
Pain signals from the heart climbing the spinal cord, mixing with sensory inputs from the throat and jaw at the same segment, fooling the brain about the source.
Hell Joseon Slave 1: This? Cite this part? Vagus and sympathetic nerve pathways overlapping.
Hematoma is Hell: That’ll be the scientific backbone for your case. Package it up all fancy.
Latte is Just Talk: Perfect! That’s it! You getting the hang of it now?
With real-time coaching, I started collecting papers one by one.
Stats on worse prognoses for atypical symptom patients, case reports of delayed diagnosis after ENT visits mistaken for sore throat.
Time flew by insanely.
I brewed and chugged three more cups of coffee.
But weirdly, the thrill outweighed the fatigue.
Like scattered knowledge fragments, guided by the ghosts’ nagging and centered on my case, snapping into one massive picture.
Around 1:31 a.m. on the clock.
My laptop folder held 15 neatly organized PDFs for references.
Haaaah… done…
I leaned fully back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
I’d conquered the toughest peak.