Chapter 91
Chapter 91
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Spring Conference! (2)
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I saw a single ray of hope, a way out of this hellish situation.
Professor Cheon had accepted my rational argument.
Right, we have to avoid friction with surgery.
I thought Professor Cheon had ultimately decided not to send me to the conference.
Logically speaking, who would make a resident present on such a crazy topic? Especially when it's an awkward situation for them personally?
Even if I were the professor, I'd be too nervous to let me go.
No doubt about it.
Even if I were the professor, I wouldn't send me.
No reason to stir up friction with other departments or ruin a resident from the same department's social life.
So why wasn't he ending this conversation?
What was going on?
Why wasn't he saying anything about wrapping up this horrific meeting?
Shouldn't we be done talking by now?
I'm starting to want to head back home—no, the station.
Then Professor Cheon tapped at her tablet PC, as if mocking my sense of relief.
"Anyway, we're doing the oral presentation on laparotomy!"
"…Pardon?"
That same idiotic, octave-higher voice popped out of my mouth again.
Just now.
What did I just hear?
Laparotomy?
Oral presentation?
'No way, wasn't I just successful in talking her out of it?'
My brain couldn't keep up with the situation.
I'd clearly succeeded in defending myself with the perfect logic that pierced right to the heart of the hospital ecosystem: 'The surgeons are going to hate it.'
Hadn't Professor Cheon herself agreed that it was a rational analysis?
It sure sounded that way, so had my ears gone bad?
Maybe I needed to book an ENT appointment.
She'd clearly agreed, so why had we circled back to square one—no, plunged into an even worse hell?
'I thought she wasn't sending me to the conference... Is this buildup just leading to "Laparotomy's impossible, so REBOA it is!"? Or TTP? Please, anything but that. No, just a poster....'
I barely managed to move my trembling lips and scraped together my last excuse.
Right, second-years are busy.
They're the backbone of the hospital.
What happens if the hospital loses its backbone?
Obviously, the whole place collapses flat!
Then it'd have to hobble around on a cane... No, enough with the weird delusions.
The ER won't run without me.
Yeah, that's the logic to go with.
"Haha, Professor."
I laughed first.
Damn, it came out awkward.
"Last year as a first-year, I put up a poster at the conference too, and taking off for such a short time two years in a row would hurt my reputation…"
'My reputation isn't the issue—the ER shuts down without me!'
I wanted to shout that, but with first-year Baek Eun-seo and Park Seong-jeong bustling around energetically behind me, and now-fellow Lee Min-jae wandering the lounge because he had too much pent-up energy, I couldn't bring myself to say it.
In the end, all I could fall back on was "reputation," a word utterly useless for anything.
"Heh heh. It's fine."
Professor Cheon smiled kindly.
"Pardon?"
"It's fine."
Professor Cheon's voice sounded warm.
Her tone had this really cozy, warm vibe to it.
But to me, it rang colder than a blizzard in the middle of Siberia.
'What's fine? My reputation getting wrecked, or the ER running fine without me? Gotta be the latter.'
I replied in a soulless voice.
"Uh… yes…"
"It's fine."
Professor Cheon drove the nail in with one more repetition.
"Yes…"
"It's fine."
"Yes."
And with that, I sacrificed my second-year spring to the conference.
I was already getting anxious.
Would my third and fourth years get handed over to conferences like this too?
"Good. You understand well."
Professor Cheon seemed very satisfied with my quick surrender and fiddled with her tablet again.
"For now, let's file the IRB exemption application. I'll handle that."
"Yes, Professor."
I answered mechanically.
Ah, that demonic administrative speed.
She'd been like this last fall with that sore throat case too.
I was once again reminded that a professor's scariest power wasn't knowledge—it was clearing IRB with a few clicks, pure authority.
"You… um…"
Professor Cheon looked me over.
"Look into case reports or related references. Probably trauma journals."
"…Yes."
Trauma journals.
In other words, she was telling me to go to an emergency medicine conference and give a presentation encroaching on surgery's turf.
If not for that REBOA case where it looked like I owed a debt to Trauma Surgery's Professor Jeon Tae-jeong, I probably would've knelt right there on the spot.
'Professor, if the surgeons mark me, I won't survive in this hospital.'
But Professor Cheon, convinced she'd gotten the perfect answer from me, just waved me off lightly.
"Alright, prepare well. Draft by lunch tomorrow… no, this is oral, so it'll be tougher. At least bring an outline by the day after."
"…Fuck."
I had no idea.
For real.
Was this really okay?
Unable to shake off my needless impatience, I started to open my mouth.
"…But really, just one last question before I write the abstract, before I head off to work and get my brain circulating again. Is it true Professor Kang Hyun-jun said it's fine? When I saw him, he looked at me like I was a murderer…"
"Hey! I said it's fine."
Professor Cheon cut me off sharply.
It was the first stern expression I'd seen on her today.
"That guy's got a bit of a tsundere streak. Anyway, he told me later: he acknowledges that first-year punk. Saved the patient thanks to him. Good enough? Our hospital's trauma god says it's fine—what's the problem?"
'The trauma god's a god, alright… but that ghost bastard who possessed my body is a surgery god too… Do gods have some kind of telepathy?'
I couldn't find any more grounds to argue.
Confirming my resignation, Professor Cheon gave a satisfied smile.
"The day after's too much. Alright, you're a second-year now. And it's oral. Can't treat it the same as a poster session."
Oh.
Was a ray of light finally shining on my presentation career?
"I'll give you five days, so prepare the abstract."
"Yes, Professor."
Going from two days to five? That was something.
I was grateful.
I nodded gladly.
Whether five days or two, nothing was changing the fact that I'd squeeze it out of my underworld slaves instead of doing it myself, but at least I'd pull fewer all-nighters.
"And."
Ah, again.
Why was this "and" connector popping up so much today?
"Professor Kang said the patient's next clinic visit is… let's see. Friday this week. Can you make time then?"
"…Ah, I'm on day shift that day."
I answered reflexively.
Friday day shift.
7:30 a.m. in, 7 p.m. out.
Just thinking about the schedule was nightmare fuel.
"Yeah, I'll slot in one more junior that day."
Professor Cheon tapped away at the schedule effortlessly.
"Pop up to the trauma surgery clinic for a bit."
"Pardon?"
My brain froze again.
Trauma surgery?
Outpatient?
Clinic room?
Me?
A second-year emergency medicine resident like me?
"What, research consent or whatever… something like that."
Professor Cheon trailed off, sounding annoyed.
"He said he wanted to show you how that guy's been living. It's the patient you saved."
"…Pardon?"
I'd never heard of something like this.
I heard the sound of every shred of common sense I'd learned from my first-year emergency medicine days—no, from med school right up to my second-year present—shattering.
As everyone knows, emergency medicine handles primary care for acute illnesses, while family medicine does primary care for chronic ones.
That's why in our tertiary hospital, which requires referrals, those two departments can see patients without one.
But emergency medicine is especially transient—stuff like this just doesn't happen.
We don't follow up on patients.
Save them, they die, or hand them off to another department.
That's our role.
Whether they live well after discharge, if surgery went smoothly, if rehab's going okay…
To put it bluntly, that's not our domain.
We don't need to know, and we don't go out of our way to track every patient's prognosis.
Emergency medicine doesn't even run outpatient clinics to begin with.
Or so I'd heard.
But go to trauma surgery outpatient?
To see the patient I saved?
"Uh… is it really okay for me to go there? An emergency medicine resident in a surgery clinic room… to see a patient…"
"What, why wouldn't it be?"
Professor Cheon brushed off my anxiety without a second thought.
"He suggested it first. 'That first-year guy. No, second-year now? Send him up on Friday,' and he contacted me directly. You saved him, right?"
"…God's Scalpel saved him."
I couldn't spit out that truth and just nodded with a wry smile.
"Ah… yes. Got it."
"Yeah. Just go up when Professor Kang contacts you. Now really get going. You've got work."
"Yes, Professor!"
As I left the office, I replayed this absurd situation.
Spring conference oral presentation confirmed.
Topic: ER laparotomy.
And a visit to trauma surgery outpatient.
'What kind of dogshit nonsense is this?'
Second year.
It was twisting spectacularly right from the start.