Another Peaceful Day in the ER, Part 2
Thirty minutes later. Leaving behind an unprecedented diagnosis, the Seaweed Man was dragged off to the endoscopy room by a gastroenterology fellow.
I stared at the empty Zone A, chewing on the words Yoo Sung-hoon had tossed out moments ago. "It’s a sight you’ll probably never see again in your lifetime."
Would I really not? In this hellish ER, every imaginable flavor of idiocy occurred on a daily basis. From the guy who downed an entire bottle of Viagra to brag about his stamina, to the gentleman who drank industrial alcohol in a drunken stupor and showed up complaining he couldn't see. The dried seaweed guy had simply added his name to that legendary roster. Who would be the next lunatic to test the limits of my imagination?
Just as I returned to the station and was about to sit down, a bloodcurdling shriek echoed.
"Aaaaaaaagh!"
A man came sprinting into the ER, screaming at the top of his lungs. What was this, a suicide bomber? Actually, "sprinting" was generous; "rolling in" was a more accurate description. Ignoring the nurse shouting at him to check in at the triage desk, the man clutched his stomach and literally crawled across the floor.
"S-Save me!"
Today's second villain had entered the arena.
"Sir, please calm down first... Where does it hurt?"
"My... my stomach."
The man barely managed to squeeze the words out through his agony. His face was slick with cold sweat, and his lips were completely pale. He definitely wasn't faking it; he was in genuine, excruciating pain. I squatted down beside him and asked again.
"Your stomach? How does it..."
"My anus... and my stomach... they hurt..."
His anus? I furrowed my brow.
"My whole stomach feels like it's on fire! Like it's being stabbed with a knife! Argh!"
Acute appendicitis? Diverticulitis? Or maybe a bowel perforation? A terrifying list of differential diagnoses flashed through my mind.
"...Did you happen to eat something?"
Even in his agony, the man answered with crystal-clear pronunciation.
"...Nuclear fire noodles. With extra capsaicin."
"..."
I slapped my forehead without even realizing it. Nuclear fire noodles? With extra capsaicin? Why on earth do people pay their own hard-earned money to commit chemical terrorism on their own bodies? My inner demon roared in frustration.
"Sir, let's get you onto a bed first. You must be in a lot of pain." I gestured to the nearby nurses. "Move him to a bed and get an IV line started immediately! Mix Tagamet and Macperan in one liter of normal saline and run it as fast as possible. Also, give him a gastric mucosal protective gel to swallow right away!"
The nurses moved in perfect unison, transferring the man to a bed. Standing beside him as he continued to groan and clutch his stomach, I said, "Sir, you'll feel better once the injection and medication kick in. And just in case, let me tell you where the restroom is."
I pointed toward the far end of the hallway. "Go down to the end of that hallway and turn left. It's best to know in advance. The call of nature will likely find you very soon."
I rolled up my sleeves as I looked at his arm. "I'll start the IV line."
The nurses looked busy, so the least I could do was handle the line. I confidently tied the tourniquet and wiped his skin with an alcohol swab. His veins were excellent. Thick, elastic, and practically begging to be poked. I could do this with my eyes closed.
Holding the catheter, I took a deep breath. Stab.
...Huh? I definitely felt the sensation of puncturing the vein, but there was no flashback of blood. Failure.
The man flinched. "Apologies, sir. Your vein rolled a bit..."
Making a pathetic excuse, I adjusted my angle. This time, for sure. Stab.
...Ah. I went too deep this time. I had blown right through the vein. As soon as I pulled the needle out, a dark blue bruise began to swell rapidly. Second attempt failed.
I quietly set the catheter down. The veteran nurse watching me from the side had a look on her face that clearly said, I knew it.
Yeah, let's just leave this to the nurse!
I pretended to generously yield the task, acting as if it were no big deal. The nurse took the tourniquet and catheter from my hands and, without a single moment of hesitation, nailed it on the very first try. I tried my best to look nonchalant while weeping on the inside. When will my hands ever get better? When?
The clock read 6:50 PM. Ten minutes. If I could just hold out for ten more minutes, this hellish shift would finally be over. Sitting in the station chair, I stared blankly at the ticking clock hands. Please, let nothing else happen.
But the god of the ER was always cruel.
"Excuse... excuse me!"
At the entrance of the ER, a man walked in with an awkward gait, clutching his mouth. Ah, why did you have to come right now, sir? Swallowing my tears, I approached him.
"What brings you in today?"
The man hesitated before speaking. "My tooth is dangling."
"Your tooth is dangling?" I repeated his words, examining his face. I could see dark bruises and scrapes along his left cheek and jaw.
"How did this happen?"
"I tripped on the stairs and fell face-first."
"Did you hit your head when you fell, or lose consciousness even for a second?"
"No, I don't think so. It's just my tooth... my tooth feels weird."
First, I had to rule out any traumatic brain injury. I checked the patient's pupillary light reflex and performed a brief neurological exam. There were no obvious abnormalities, but with trauma patients, you always had to assume the worst.
"Sir, we'll run a head CT first to make sure there are no issues with your brain."
After sending the patient to radiology, I took a brief breather. The CT scan would read any head issues. But what on earth was I supposed to do about that "dangling tooth"? Slumped in a corner chair, I opened the gallery app out of habit.
Well, this was a first—these guys being absolutely useless. I closed the gallery window with a hollow laugh.
A moment later, the CT results came back. Fortunately, everything was normal.
"Sir, your head is fine. Now let's take a look at the tooth in question. Open your mouth, please."
After all, I didn't go to dental school. I only knew the basics. Just the bare basics. The fundamentals of dental trauma: if a tooth is completely knocked out, it's an avulsion, and you must place it in a preservation solution as quickly as possible and send it to dentistry. But this wasn't knocked out; it was just dangling. A subluxation.
Shining my penlight, I peered into the patient's mouth. One of his upper front teeth was visibly displaced, and blood was seeping from the gums.
"Let me just check how loose it is."
Wearing latex gloves, I gently touched the front tooth. My only intention was to see which direction and how much it was moving.
"Alright, let's see how much it shak—huh?"
It happened in that exact split second. I felt a tiny, sickening click at my fingertips. And there, resting quietly in my hand, was the front tooth that had been attached to the patient's mouth just a moment ago. A perfectly intact front tooth, root and all.
...Fuck. I just pulled a patient's tooth out.
Silence fell over the room. Both the patient and I stared at each other, our eyes wide. Blood trickled from the patient's mouth. I looked back and forth between the tooth in my hand and the empty socket in the patient's gums. My brain was in complete denial. I barely did anything! I literally just touched it!
"D-Doctor... my tooth..."
The patient's voice trembled. That tremble snapped the last thread of my sanity.
"Uh... Uh-oh!! Nurse! Call the dental hospital! Get the dental resident on duty, anyone, hurry!" I practically shrieked. Inside my panicked brain, random scraps of medical trivia began to tangle together. "And this! How do you save a tooth again? Milk? It's milk, right? Go to the convenience store and buy some milk, quick! Not low-fat! Just regular milk!"
Right at that moment—smack.
Someone lightly clipped the back of my head.
"Ugh, you absolute moron."
Turning around, I saw Lee Min-jae, the fourth-year resident, looking down at me with a look of pure pity. He had clearly witnessed the entire fiasco.
"What do you think you're doing? Why are you dragging the poor nurse into this?" Lee Min-jae gently snatched the tooth from my trembling hand, completely ignoring my panic. "What do you mean, milk? We have plenty of stuff lying around the ER. Sterile saline."
He then smoothly instructed another nurse. "Nurse, could we get a 500cc bottle of saline and an empty container? To soak the tooth. And Han Hyeon-jae."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
"Find the dental contact number and call them right now. Tell them we have a patient with a complete tooth avulsion, and politely ask them to come down as quickly as possible."
Thanks to my senior's expert damage control, peace was restored to the ER. About fifteen minutes later, the automatic doors slid open, and a man in a white coat walked in.
"I'm the dental resident on duty. Where is the patient?"
"Ah, hello, Doctor!" I sneaked a glance at the name tag pinned to his chest. His coat read: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Jin Myeongcheol.
Oral and... maxillo... what? Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. What a mouthful. What on earth did that department even do? Wasn't it just dentistry? Did it mean a surgical department that looked at the mouth, jaw, and face? Do dentists perform facial surgeries? Well, that's another mysterious world. Despite going through six years of medical school, one year of internship, and now residency, I knew next to nothing about the world of dentistry.
The dental resident, completely oblivious to my complex inner thoughts, walked straight over to the patient. He took the container holding the front tooth I had pulled out—no, the tooth that had fallen out on its own—and examined it closely.
"Hmm, the periodontal ligament is still alive. The success rate for replantation should be high. Don't worry too much." Reassuring the patient, he skillfully examined his mouth. "The alveolar bone is slightly fractured, but this is manageable. We'll take you up to our clinic right away for a quick procedure."
And so, the Tooth Man headed up to the dental clinic side-by-side with the dentist. Only after their figures disappeared past the elevator did I let out a long sigh. All the strength drained from my body. As the adrenaline faded, a profound sense of reality check rushed in to fill the void.
What on earth did I accomplish today? I gloated about saving a myocardial infarction patient, only to get a reality check from the Dried Seaweed Man, embarrassed myself by failing to find a vein on the Nuclear Fire Noodle Man, and finally, right before clocking out, pulled a patient's tooth. Was I even a doctor? I was just a walking disaster.
I trudged over and threw myself onto the sofa. Then, without thinking, I opened my only sanctuary: the gallery. I had to vent about this somewhere.
I stared blankly at the mockery. Sure, laugh it up, you bastards. It's not like you guys have any teeth left to be pulled anyway. They've probably all rotted away to dust.
After a long round of ridicule, someone opened the floodgates for a serious discussion.
With that single question, the atmosphere of the gallery shifted instantly. These ghosts were always starved for intellectual curiosity, even if the subject fell completely outside their specialties.
The discussion began to drift in an increasingly profound yet idiotic direction.
And finally, they reached an utterly ridiculous conclusion.
...That was enough. I quietly closed the gallery window.
Let's just... go home.