Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 189

Fifth Vital Sign – Episode 189

189. Just One Person

“That’s right! My dad’s name is Cha Dae-han.”

Hyeong-woong, who was playing with a toy airplane, answered with a bright expression instead of his mother.

“Hyeong, Hyeong-woong-ah?”

Startled by her son’s unexpected remark, Lee Soo-jung tried to stop him, but it was no use.

“Why? It’s Dad’s name, isn’t it?”

“Your husband is hospitalized in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Shinhwa University Hospital due to a traffic accident, right?”

“…….”

“Everything from coming to our hospital today to insisting on seeing me for treatment. Is it all related to Go Gye-deuk?”

Thud-

Lee Soo-jung dropped the phone she was holding upon hearing Tae-kyung’s words.

In that instant, she lost strength in her hand without realizing it. But she still didn’t open her mouth.

Seeing Lee Soo-jung’s continued silence and demeanor, Tae-kyung, along with Lee Dong-hoon’s guess, became convinced that Go Gye-deuk was involved.

“Let me be frank with you. There’s a doctor named Lee Dong-hoon among our hospital’s anesthesiologists, and he was the one who administered anesthesia at the time of your husband’s traffic accident. When you collapsed earlier, he was in the waiting room and recognized you, so he told me. It seemed like the patient’s guardian wasn’t here for a genuine consultation.”

Listening to Tae-kyung’s deduction of all the circumstances, Lee Soo-jung’s fingertips and lips trembled.

“Is your visit today related to Go Gye-deuk?”

“That, that’s…”

“Nurse Lim, please come in for a moment.”

Seeing Lee Soo-jung hesitate and look at Hyeong-woong, Tae-kyung called Lim Jeong-sook, the nurse.

He figured it would be difficult to talk with her son right next to her.

“Hyeong-woong-ah, are you hungry by any chance?”

“I’m hungry.”

Hyeong-woong, who had been hungry for a while, responded immediately.

“Madam, why don’t you talk comfortably with the doctor, and I’ll take Hyeong-woong to the staff cafeteria for a meal?”

“Mom. I’m hungry, can I go eat?”

“Then, I’ll ask you to do that.”

At her son’s words that he was hungry, Lee Soo-jung agreed. Above all, she had seen Tae-kyung and Nurse Lim Jeong-sook’s demeanor towards Hyeong-woong, so she could trust them.

Click-

“Now you can speak comfortably.”

“…….”

“I’ll help you. But before that, I need to know what happened to help you.”

“……!”

“Lee Soo-jung, did you really come here only for a consultation today?”

“No… No.”

Lee Soo-jung, moving her parched lips, finally spoke.

“No. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry… I’m not really here for a consultation. Sniff!”

The reason Lee Soo-jung decided to confess everything was because of Tae-kyung.

Seeing his genuine attitude towards her son and herself, as well as other patients, she could feel that he was a completely different person from Go Gye-deuk.

Above all, his words that he would help were not false, so she shamelessly wanted to receive that help.

She couldn’t see any way to do anything on her own.

“Everything you’re guessing is right. Go Gye-deuk, that man, asked me to help him. He said that you caused problems and left when you were at Shinhwa University Hospital. He said you behaved badly towards patients, so if I helped him, he would support my husband’s…”

Lee Soo-jung, who was momentarily choked up, barely controlled her rising emotions and continued.

“…husband’s hospital bills. He told me to do an interview saying that you acted strangely towards me. It’s embarrassing, but our family situation isn’t good right now. So I couldn’t refuse his request, and I came to see you today with impure intentions. I’m really sorry. Sniff!”

Lee Soo-jung, who had been feeling heavy-hearted all along, confessed everything and eventually shed tears.

Tae-kyung quietly handed her a tissue and was shocked by the unbelievable truth.

He knew what kind of person Go Gye-deuk was because he had experienced it, but he never imagined he would have such an evil side.

To bargain with a patient’s guardian—it was shameful and embarrassing to be the same doctor.

‘Go Gye-deuk, you crazy bastard!’

He felt like he would swear out of boiling anger.

How could he think of dragging in a blameless guardian and patient for his own purposes? He must be out of his mind.

“Doctor, I’m sorry.”

Lee Soo-jung continued to apologize while shedding tears.

“I’m really sorry. I was short-sighted and had bad intentions for a moment.”

Tae-kyung felt sorry and pitiful for her.

Clearly, what Lee Soo-jung was about to do was wrong. But as a result, Lee Soo-jung did not go down the wrong path, and she confessed everything honestly and admitted her mistake.

She’s not a bad person.

She was just a guardian of a powerless patient. And from Lee Soo-jung’s point of view, she had no choice.

It is difficult for a guardian in desperate need of help to refuse the words of the director of a large university hospital.

Go Gye-deuk’s personality would have definitely found a suitable person to move according to his will, and that’s why he deliberately approached Lee Soo-jung.

‘How can you do this to patients and guardians… What a doctor is doing is really…!’

The power and knowledge that doctors have exist not to put patients in danger, but to heal and save them.

The patient’s well-being must be the priority no matter what, and that power and knowledge must be used only for the patient.

Go Gye-deuk was not qualified as a doctor.

“Are you feeling a little better?”

When Lee Soo-jung showed some signs of calming down, Tae-kyung, who had been standing, sat down opposite her.

“Yes… Doctor, I’m grateful for your offer to help me, but I don’t think I should.”

Lee Soo-jung was serious, not just saying empty words.

Of course, she was sincerely relieved to hear that he would help her. But this didn’t seem right.

When you think about it, it’s Go Gye-deuk and her family’s business, and she wondered if it was right to receive help from Tae-kyung, who had nothing to do with it.

Above all, she thought she had already received enough help today because of her son’s matter.

“It’s not something Lee Soo-jung should be sorry about. Rather, do you have any ideas? Why suddenly…”

“No. I don’t have anything like that. I’m just worried that something might happen to you if you get involved in this matter when you have nothing to do with it.”

“It’s something Go Gye-deuk planned to use me to get ahead, so why do I have nothing to do with it? And if we just let this go, he’ll probably do the same thing to other patients. First, do this.”

“How?”

“Don’t contact Go Gye-deuk directly in the future, and if you inevitably have to talk to him, keep it short and record it.”

“Yes, I will.”

“And for now, say that you saw the doctor as he told you to. Also, tell him that you contacted that YouTuber.”

“You mean pretend to contact him?”

“That’s right. If Go Gye-deuk asks when the interview date is, say that the channel operator will contact you.”

“But what if Go Gye-deuk checks directly?”

“That probably won’t happen. Once things get going, Go Gye-deuk will be very careful not to reveal his identity. It’ll be noisy if it’s known that the director of a university hospital planned it.”

Tae-kyung hadn’t come up with a good way to punish Go Gye-deuk yet. However, he couldn’t just send Lee Soo-jung away, whom he had promised to help, so he first set up an alternative that Go Gye-deuk wouldn’t suspect.

“And when you contact him, don’t mention the hospital bill, but emphasize once that you must keep your promise. Then Go Gye-deuk will know that Lee Soo-jung is completely involved in this.”

“I understand what you mean.”

“I’ll think of a way. If anything happens, please contact me.”

“Yes, I will. Thank you so much for your concern in many ways.”

After that, Lee Soo-jung had several conversations with Tae-kyung and headed home with Hyeong-woong, who had come out after eating.

* * *

“That crazy bastard is like no other!”

Tae-kyung, who had been treating patients for a while, gathered in the medical office with Lee Dong-hoon and Eui-jin, and occasionally Lee Chan-hee and Choi Mona came in to have heated discussions and share opinions about Go Gye-deuk.

“What I expected was exactly right, wasn’t it?”

Lee Dong-hoon forgot about going home and excitedly chewed out Go Gye-deuk with the most passion.

“Anyway, that human’s actions are like a dog.”

“But shouldn’t we transfer that patient for now?”

Eui-jin, who was listening to Lee Dong-hoon’s story, offered an opinion.

“Transfer?”

“Yes. One way or another, her mind must be complicated, so I think the guardian’s mind will be uncomfortable at the hospital where Go Gye-deuk is.”

“Well, the evil Go bastard might do something. What do you think, Director Kim?”

“I don’t think that’ll work.”

“Why?”

“No, why?”

“You two know that it’s not easy to send a trauma patient to another hospital.”

“Of course, I know that well. But I’m worried about that Go bastard.”

It was difficult to secure a bed for a trauma patient, not just a general patient, and changing the doctor in charge who knew everything about the patient from surgery to the present was not a simple matter.

Frankly, if the guardian felt that the attending physician’s treatment attitude was not good or that the patient was not receiving good treatment, they would promote it, but that was not the case.

If Tae-kyung had directly operated on Lee Soo-jung’s husband, he would have prepared to transfer him to our hospital even if it was unreasonable.

Above all, he couldn’t tolerate the fact that an innocent patient had to be transferred because of a human being named Go Gye-deuk.

“When I asked earlier, the attending physician was Professor Gu Si-kyung.”

“That’s right! Professor Gu operated, right? Professor Gu is an opposition, so it’ll be okay, right?”

Gu Si-kyung, who was in charge of neurosurgery, was taciturn, but he was a doctor who took care of patients meticulously. And as Lee Dong-hoon said just now, he was not in Go Gye-deuk’s line but in the vice president’s line, so he would not be shaken by Go Gye-deuk.

“Lee Soo-jung said that Professor Gu is very attentive to her husband.”

“Then the problem is to solve it by taking out only that Go bastard… Geez! I can’t think of it.”

“But in fact, it’s not easy to deal with the director of a university hospital that ranks among the top five in Korea.”

“Frankly, we can’t just rush in and surround him and beat him, and he’s not the kind of guy who would listen if we told him that we knew everything he had done and told him to quit. Now that it’s come to this, should we expose it to the hospital?”

“That could make things difficult for Lee Soo-jung.”

Eui-jin’s words were correct.

Lee Soo-jung also accepted Go Gye-deuk’s offer, so if they held on to this part, it was the same as giving Go Gye-deuk an excuse to escape.

“It’s harder than I thought.”

“Ha! Damn it. Is there really no way to keep Go Gye-deuk from doing anything?”

“No. There is.”

Tae-kyung, who had been lying on the bed and thinking while the two were having a heated discussion, jumped up and said.

“We’ve been thinking wrong so far.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“We need to let the person Go Gye-deuk fears the most know.”

“Who is that human afraid of?”

“There is. Just one person who can tie Go Gye-deuk’s hands and feet and send him to hell with one word.”