A Chaotic First Conference (2)
I prowled around the massive convention hall, on a mission to plunder promotional goods for Lee Min-jae. Already, my hands held a ballpoint pen stamped with a pharmaceutical company's logo and two unnecessarily high-quality character sticky notes. Not a bad haul. At this rate, I could easily secure a year's worth of writing utensils.
Next up is that medical device booth over there. Academic conference? Presentations? None of my business. Just as I was about to head to the next booth, burning with such worldly desires, I felt the forum growing noisy when I briefly logged in. It was because of the post I had just uploaded: "Interim Goods Settlement.txt".
Ugh, stop nagging me. Swallowing a curse, I tried to ignore their clamor. But they were relentless. In the end, I surrendered. There was no beating these ghosts burning with a mad passion for academics. Swallowing my tears, I trudged toward the massive Grand Ballroom.
The Grand Ballroom was colossal and dimly lit. On the giant screen, the face of an elderly white professor from Johns Hopkins was displayed as large as a billboard. I took a seat in the very back corner to stay as inconspicuous as possible. It was the perfect spot for a nap. But the ghosts would not tolerate me sleeping.
Reluctantly, I straightened my back and stared at the screen.
I felt like I had practically become a real-time simultaneous interpreter. In the gallery, the ghosts engaged in a heated debate over the contents of my broadcast. "That data lacks reliability," "We had that concept in our day too," "No, that's a completely new approach," and so on.
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I forced the contents of the seemingly important slides into my brain. I tried to escape once the tedious plenary lecture ended, but... unfortunately, the ghosts wouldn't let me go.
In the end, I headed to the small seminar room next door. A young professor took the stage and began presenting on a topic that made my head spin just hearing it: "Development of a Prognostic Prediction Model for Patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)."
I wanted to cry. My fingers flew across my smartphone's memo app. My brain was on the verge of exploding with all sorts of statistical jargon and data that I couldn't even fully comprehend.
I'm so fucking tired... Only after being forced to sit through more sessions was I finally liberated. I felt like my brain... my brain had been fried. Slumping into a chair in a corner of the venue, I stared blankly down at the notes I had frantically scribbled. The new definition of sepsis, antibiotic stewardship strategies, prognostic factors of ARDS, post-resuscitation care protocols...
...But this is actually... Amidst the bone-deep exhaustion, a small realization began to sprout. ...This is private tutoring you couldn't buy even if you paid for it.
I let out a hollow laugh and checked my watch. 1:45 PM. It was almost time for me to stand awkwardly in front of my poster.
Together with Kim Ji-hoon, I headed to the massive hall where the posters were displayed. Hundreds of panels stood in endless rows, and in front of them, young doctors with soulless eyes—just like me—paced around, having taxidermied their research results for display. We stood before the giant sheet of paper bearing our names.
“Hey, aren't you nervous?” Kim Ji-hoon asked, swallowing hard.
“About what?”
“I mean, professors are going to come by later and grill us with questions. What if we can't answer properly?”
“Nobody cares about a first-year's poster anyway. We just stand here, and when the time is up, we tear it down and go home.”
My sole objective was to stand here like a ghost for the next two hours, conserving as much energy as possible, and the moment the clock struck 4:00, rip that poster down and bolt to the hotel.
Just then. “Oh, boys!” a bright voice called out from behind us. It was Professor Cheon Eun-jeong.
“Professor! Hello!” Kim Ji-hoon and I bowed ninety degrees almost reflexively.
“Yes, yes. Is everything ready?” Professor Cheon scanned our poster with a highly satisfied expression, then delivered some absolutely terrible news.
“I just got word from the organizing committee, and the poster session schedule has been adjusted. Yours and Ji-hoon's has been moved from 2:00 to 4:00!”
...Excuse me? 4:00? Two more hours from now?
“Why the sudden change in time...?” Kim Ji-hoon managed to ask.
“It seems the oral presentation session beforehand ran a bit long. Anyway, that's how it is. Isn't that great?”
Great? Is this woman out of her mind?
“Since you have two hours to kill, go watch some more presentations! I saw they're holding a separate resident oral presentation session over there, and there are lots of interesting topics. Why don't you check that out? You'll learn a lot by watching others present. Anyway, I'm off! Bye!”
Professor Cheon Eun-jeong gave us another "Fighting!" gesture and vanished into the crowd without a backward glance.
I just want to stand here quietly. I don't want to watch any more presentations. My brain is going to melt. Argh.
“Fuck...” Kim Ji-hoon cursed beside me. “Can't I just go sleep on the lobby sofa over there?”
I stared longingly at the leather sofas in the cozy-looking hotel lobby in the distance.
“If the professor catches you doing that, you'll be forcibly nominated as an oral presenter for next year's conference,” Kim Ji-hoon said.
“Ji-hoon.”
“What?”
“I think I'm already getting dragged into an oral presentation next year anyway because of that laparotomy case...”
Our conversation ended in silence. Two hours. We had no idea how to endure this meaningless stretch of time.
“What are you going to do?” Kim Ji-hoon asked in a despondent voice.
“What do you mean? Just keep breathing.”
“No, seriously, are you going to stand here for two hours? Should we just go back to that critical care session from earlier?”
I shook my head. “Look over there.” I gestured with my chin toward a small seminar room with a sign that read: [Resident Oral Presentation Session].
“There aren't many professors in there. It's just low-ranking grunts like us presenting and listening, so there's less pressure. It's the perfect place to hide and kill time.”
At my rational suggestion, Kim Ji-hoon reluctantly nodded. Inside, a new presentation was just beginning. I took a seat in the very back corner and casually read the title on the screen.
[Stress-Induced Cardiomyopathy: A Typical Case Report of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy]
Oh, interesting. Takotsubo. A rare condition that manifests like a myocardial infarction, where the movement of the apex of the heart rapidly deteriorates after extreme mental stress. It was named because the heart's shape changes to resemble a Japanese octopus trap, a takotsubo.
In a trembling voice, the presenter read through the case. “A 65-year-old female patient presented to the emergency room with sudden chest pain, one week after the passing of her husband...”
I began broadcasting the presentation to the gallery. But the ghosts' reactions were lukewarm.
I might get dragged up there as a resident oral presenter next year too. I need to see in advance how they present, how they make slides, and how they answer questions. This isn't someone else's problem.
The presentation proceeded smoothly. The patient's test results appeared on the screen one after another. The electrocardiogram showed a clear ST-segment elevation. Cardiac enzyme levels were slightly elevated. However, in the subsequent coronary angiogram video, the coronary arteries were perfectly clean without a single blockage. Hmm, typical findings.
Finally, the echocardiogram video appeared. The patient's heart in the video was weakly twitching, with only the lower part of the heart ballooning out, looking exactly like an illustration straight out of a textbook. It was practically a definitive finding for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
The presenter concluded, “Therefore, in this case, we were able to diagnose typical Takotsubo cardiomyopathy that occurred after extreme stress.”
Right, right. A textbook case. Good job. Thinking that, I contemplated whether I should slowly move to another session. It was right then. A comment from the Cardiology Ghost, who had seen the photo I uploaded to the gallery, struck my mind.
??? What absolute nonsense. Every single piece of evidence—from the EKG and angiogram to the echocardiogram—pointed to Takotsubo. What did he mean it wasn't? Had this old man finally gone senile? Or was he just trolling because he was bored?
Muscle thickness? Takotsubo is a disease where the movement of the heart muscle becomes abnormal; it has nothing to do with thickness. I couldn't understand what he meant. I stared back at the screen displaying the echocardiogram video.
...Huh? Something was off. Normally, heart muscle paralyzed by stress should stretch out like a balloon and become thin. However, the apical muscle in that video, far from thinning, actually looked much thicker than the other parts of the heart.
A faint memory from my medical school cardiology lectures surfaced in my mind. A disease where the apical muscle thickens. A hereditary heart disease with a completely different mechanism from Takotsubo. One that could worsen under stress, making it frequently difficult to differentiate from Takotsubo...
At that moment, all the puzzle pieces in my head began to align toward one horrifying conclusion. This presentation, from start to finish... was entirely wrong.