A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 120

The Bracelet (5)

Jun-hoo’s steps were light as he headed to the emergency room.

He had always enjoyed examining and treating patients.

It felt good to alleviate their pain.

And he liked gaining new experiences that would be useful when treating other patients.

So much so that even during his internship, he was eager to work in the emergency room.

Jun-hoo was happy that he could now go back and forth to the emergency room without having to worry about others.

The emergency room, which he had visited after a long time, was noisy and busy.

The staff rushed breathlessly between the station and the patients.

What caught Jun-hoo’s attention first was the sight of the staff performing CPR [Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation].

The emergency physician was urgently performing chest compressions on the patient.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The patient’s body thrashed like a fish out of water.

The guardian next to him wrung his hands, not knowing what to do.

There was also a scene that was the complete opposite.

Some patients and guardians sitting in the waiting area were yawning, seemingly bored.

Life and death.

Suffocating tension and languid weariness.

The emergency room was a place where emotions and situations that could not coexist unfolded simultaneously.

“Doctor, I’m from neurosurgery.”

“Go to bed number 3 in Zone C.”

“Thank you.”

After talking to the station nurse, Jun-hoo soon faced the patient.

The patient’s name was Kim Gi-woo.

He was 23 years old.

However, the patient’s attire was unusual.

He was wearing wide baggy pants and a long-sleeved shirt with a skull on it.

He had a chain-like necklace hanging around his neck.

In particular, his bright yellow hair immediately caught the eye.

The accompanying guardian appeared to be a friend.

The friend was also swaggering and pretentious.

“Hello. I’m Seo Jun-hoo from neurosurgery.”

“Ah, yes.”

Gi-woo answered, tilting his head.

“I heard you have a severe headache and nausea… When and how did it start hurting?”

“It hurt from last night, but it got worse this morning. It feels like someone is stabbing my temples with a spear.”

“Do you usually have headaches?”

“I tend to have them. I sometimes take medicine for it.”

“Is the headache you’re feeling today different from your usual headaches?”

“It’s different. My usual headaches come from my forehead, not my temples.”

“Did you happen to hit your head anywhere?”

“Can’t you tell by looking at me? I’m fine.”

Gi-woo frowned, pointing to his head.

Gi-woo’s hair wasn’t the only thing that was yellow; his attitude was too [a slang term for being difficult or problematic].

“There are cases where traumatic shock that the person didn’t even notice later turns out to be the cause of a brain hemorrhage.”

“…….”

“Like the aftereffects of a car accident that occur later. So, I’ll ask again. You’re saying you haven’t had any impact on your head?”

“…Ah, yes.”

Gi-woo answered, looking at Jun-hoo.

Because Jun-hoo was exuding internal energy externally.

It instilled a sense of intimidation in Gi-woo.

There was nothing like internal energy to tame difficult patients.

Jun-hoo thought that Gi-woo must be embarrassed by the current situation.

His tone was gentle.

His actions were not rough either.

But he felt strangely unable to move.

Jun-hoo continued the medical interview.

He carefully examined the family history of headaches and brain diseases.

Diseases he was suffering from.

Whether he was taking medication.

Unfortunately, it was not enough to obtain sufficient data from the medical interview alone.

“First of all, let me take a look at your eyes.”

The moment Jun-hoo approached Gi-woo.

A strong perfume smell stung his nose.

When he amplified his sense of smell with internal energy, he could faintly smell something like mugwort.

It was a smell that Jun-hoo had often smelled in the Murim [martial arts world].

‘Look at these guys?

They’re worse than I expected.’

“I smell mugwort on you?”

“What… what are you talking about? I only smell perfume.”

“It’s perfume. It’s perfume.”

Gi-woo jumped up and down.

The guardian chimed in with Gi-woo’s words.

“What kind of perfume do you use?”

“Renabo 29. It costs 400,000 won [approximately $300 USD] for 50ml.”

“I see. Open your eyes wide.”

Click!

Jun-hoo turned on the pen light and shined it into the patient’s eyes.

It was a test to check for abnormalities in the nervous system by seeing how the pupils reacted to light.

While checking the pupillary reflex.

Jun-hoo put the internal energy he had drawn from his dantian [energy center in the body] into his eyes.

It was a martial art called Angong (Eye Attack).

Using Angong allowed him to maintain vision comparable to a fine microscope.

In other words, if there was an abnormality in the pupillary reflex, it meant that it could never escape Jun-hoo’s eyes.

‘As I expected.’

Jun-hoo found a pin point in the patient’s pupil.

The patient’s pupil had shrunk the moment the pen light’s light touched it.

“Have you seen enough? Just prescribe me some good headache medicine. Then I’ll leave quietly.”

“Who said you could? Stay still.”

Now that he had confirmed the pin point.

He couldn’t let the patient go so easily.

Jun-hoo placed his hand on the patient’s head.

He poured internal energy into the patient’s head.

He was using the internal energy angiography that had now become Jun-hoo’s specialty.

With the principle of Tongbaekgwon [a martial arts technique].

With the principle of Naegae Gi Gong [internal energy cultivation method].

The internal energies that had passed through the skull spread out like a spider web.

Internal carotid artery.

Anterior cerebral artery.

Left middle cerebral artery.

Right middle cerebral artery, etc.

The internal energy quickly spread to every corner of the cerebral blood vessels.

Thanks to Jun-hoo’s constant training.

The internal energy cerebral angiography ended in less than a minute.

Jun-hoo’s internal energy angiography was faster than cerebral angiography using contrast agents.

No, even faster than a head CT scan.

“Hey doctor. You’re really funny. Why are you suddenly putting your hand on someone else’s head?”

Gi-woo raised his voice when Jun-hoo stepped back after completing the examination.

“Am I asking you to do something great? I’m just asking for headache medicine.”

“The patient’s condition is not at a level that can be cured with headache medicine.”

“Then what serious illness am I suffering from?”

“There is a high possibility of that. Let’s start with a CT scan.”

“CT? Isn’t that an expensive test?”

“You use 400,000 won perfume without hesitation, but you’re stingy with the cost of a test to check your body condition?”

Gi-woo bit his lip when Jun-hoo retorted.

“Are you a quack? You’re doing all these tests because you’re not confident.”

“We’ll see if I’m a quack or not with the CT scan.”

“…….”

“If there’s nothing wrong on the CT, I’ll refund the test fee. Would that be okay?”

“Don’t change your mind later. I’m really going to turn everything upside down.”

Gi-woo huffed and left with his guardian.

Jun-hoo stared intently at Gi-woo’s receding figure.

Then, he searched for a perfume called Renabo 29 on his phone.

Renabo 29 is a citrus fragrance.

So it had nothing to do with the smell of mugwort.

* * *

“Fucking hell. That doctor is so annoying. He only has a pretty face, but he doesn’t seem to have any skills.”

Gi-woo stormed out of the emergency room.

He moved to the CT room on the 3rd floor.

“Still, you have to be patient. Still, if he’s a doctor at a university hospital, he must have basic skills.”

Soo-cheol tried to appease Gi-woo.

“Are you taking that bastard’s side right now?”

“Hey. That’s not what I meant. He said he’d refund the test fee if there’s nothing wrong with the test. Doesn’t that mean he’s confident?”

“It’s obviously a bluff… Ugh.”

Gi-woo couldn’t finish his sentence.

It felt like thick needles were piercing through both temples.

Soo-cheol supported Gi-woo as he staggered, unable to support his body.

“Are you okay?”

“Fuck. I’m not okay at all. If I had taken headache medicine at the hospital earlier, this wouldn’t have happened. Let’s go to the bathroom for a second.”

Gi-woo, who had found the bathroom, knelt down and vomited into the toilet.

His stomach was also upset because of the headache.

It felt like his stomach was spinning 360 degrees.

“Did we smoke too much yesterday? I’m not feeling well either.”

“When else would we be able to smoke like that if not yesterday? I have no regrets.”

Gi-woo wiped the saliva flowing from his mouth with his sleeve.

He got up and moved back to the CT scan room.

* * *

“What? Haven’t they gone up yet?”

Min-hee spoke to Jun-hoo, who was guarding the station.

Min-hee was Jun-hoo’s medical school classmate and a first-year resident in emergency medicine.

Before calling neurosurgery, Min-hee was the doctor who had treated Gi-woo.

“Wasn’t he supposed to be given headache medicine and sent away appropriately?”

“Don’t say such a terrible thing. He might even need a craniotomy [surgery to open the skull].”

“A craniotomy? That can’t be?”

Min-hee tilted her head with an incomprehensible expression.

There were no problems with the patient’s medical history.

The patient’s C.C (Chief complaint) was also ordinary with headache and nausea.

The head X-ray results were also normal.

But Jun-hoo was talking about a craniotomy.

“Do you have any evidence?”

“To put it bluntly, I’m ruling out EDH (epidural hematoma, suspected disease) [bleeding between the skull and the brain’s outer membrane].”

“EDH?”

Min-hee’s pupils widened like an owl’s as she asked back.

Jun-hoo’s explanation that followed was even more absurd.

First, he told her the shocking fact that the patient was a drug addict.

He said that he saw a pin point (a sign showing signs of drugs) in the pupillary reflex.

He said that he seemed to have smoked marijuana because he smelled mugwort.

“I also checked the pupillary reflex. But I didn’t see the pin point?”

“The pin point is originally as small as the tip of a needle, so it’s hard to see.”

“How did you see that small thing, Jun-hoo?”

“I have… good eyesight.”

Jun-hoo smiled awkwardly.

“Then how did you smell the mugwort? I only smelled perfume.”

“I have… a good sense of smell.”

Min-hee chuckled at Jun-hoo’s repeated answer.

He said his sense of sight and smell were all good, so there was nothing to say.

Anyway, Jun-hoo was convinced that the patient had a cerebral hemorrhage due to blood vessel damage caused by drug use.

Min-hee also stayed to see the results.

After a while.

The results of the CT scan requested in the emergency room arrived before the patient.

After checking the image that appeared on PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) [medical imaging technology].

Min-hee doubted her eyes.

The patient really had an epidural hematoma.

A white shadow was observed on the right temporal lobe.

At that moment, Min-hee’s heart sank.

To mistake an EDH patient for a common headache patient…

If Jun-hoo hadn’t examined him carefully.

The patient would have just received headache medicine and left the emergency room.

As a result, the patient would have been taken back to the emergency room in an ambulance a few hours later.

And Min-hee might have had to take responsibility for it.

“Min-hee, there’s no need to blame yourself. It was originally an easy patient to miss. But you didn’t just send the patient back and called us, right?”

“…….”

“You did your best.”

Jun-hoo offered comfort as if he had read Min-hee’s mind.

Min-hee’s heart was relieved by the warmth.

She had felt it before.

Jun-hoo existed in a different dimension from other classmates.

He had good hand skills, enough to win first place in the intern suture competition.

He was calm in emergency situations.

He was always kind to colleagues, juniors, seniors, patients, and guardians.

Whether it was personality or skill, Jun-hoo already seemed like a complete doctor.

“The patient is coming. He’s being supported, so his condition must have worsened.”

Jun-hoo frowned and stared at the patient.

“I’m sorry, but can you explain the situation to the patient and guardian? I need to notify neurosurgery first.”

“That’s easy enough.”

Min-hee approached the patient and guardian instead of Jun-hoo and explained the test results.

The patient looked very surprised.

Like Min-hee, he had taken his headache lightly.

“I’ll let you know as soon as the treatment method is decided. But patient.”

“Why?”

“I’ll do an eye exam again.”

The patient just nodded instead of answering.

Click!

Turning on the pen light, Min-hee looked at the patient’s pupils again.

But that’s it.

Even after hearing that the patient had a pin point.

Min-hee couldn’t find the pin point at all.

‘Jun-hoo, how good is his eyesight?’