A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 127

The Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts – Chapter 127

Chapter 23: Conman (2)

That evening, the neurosurgery ward was quiet.

As 10 PM approached, the lights in the rooms began to turn off one by one.

Soft sleep lights illuminated the rooms like moonlight, replacing the bright overhead lights.

The ward hallway, devoid of patients and guardians, felt desolate and even bleak.

Jun-hoo, on night duty, was in the on-call room.

He was studying EEG (Electroencephalography) [a test that detects electrical activity in the brain] images of the admitted patients.

If cardiology had ECGs [electrocardiograms, which measure the electrical activity of the heart],

Neurosurgery had EEGs.

EEGs could help diagnose headaches, strokes, brain tumors, encephalitis [inflammation of the brain], and more.

Above all, a first-year resident had to know how to monitor EEGs during surgery.

Although the anesthesiologist was responsible for vitals during surgery, they didn’t cover EEGs.

Jun-hoo studied EEGs for nearly 30 minutes.

He meticulously memorized the frequency and period of brainwaves.

Amplitude, reactivity, and variability.

The key to EEGs was memorizing as many diverse cases as possible.

The point was to immediately apply the memorized cases in real-world situations.

Jun-hoo easily memorized the stock chart-like fluctuating waves.

Visual cortex, responsible for processing visual information.

He had stimulated this area with acupressure.

As a result, the waves that all looked the same now appeared different.

The subtle differences between the waves were immediately noticeable.

Acupressure stimulation of specific brain regions.

Thanks to that, Jun-hoo’s learning speed was unmatched.

He could activate the brain regions necessary for studying.

“Senior. Are you studying?”

Eun-ha, who had finished her rounds, entered the on-call room.

It seemed Eun-ha was also on duty.

“Oh, I’m looking at EEGs.”

“Wow. I don’t understand any of it. It looks like worms dancing?”

Eun-ha approached Jun-hoo and clicked her tongue, looking at the EEG reading on the monitor.

“That’s how it looks to me too. This one’s dance is especially intense, isn’t it?”

Eun-ha chuckled as Jun-hoo played along with her joke.

“Oh, right, Senior. I’ve been getting special tutoring from you and I’m 5 for 5 on ABGAs [Arterial Blood Gas Analysis, a test to measure the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood].”

“See? I told you you could do well.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Senior. Because I’m good at blood draws, Senior Kyung-soo can’t say a word.”

“Of course. He should have some conscience.”

Jun-hoo smiled, listening to Eun-ha’s excited report.

He was glad that Eun-ha had regained her vitality.

“But Senior, I don’t think Senior Kyung-soo is as bad a person as I thought.”

“Did you forget what he said to you?”

“He apologized earlier. It was curt, but he definitely did.”

“Really? That’s not like him…….”

Jun-hoo stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Perhaps Eun-ha was right.

Kyung-soo might not be as bad a guy as Jun-hoo thought.

A villain and someone with a quirky personality are not the same.

And if the other person wasn’t a villain, Jun-hoo was always ready to embrace them.

“By the way, Senior.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Could you teach me other procedures later?”

“Of course. We can do it now. Nasal tube insertion (nasogastric intubation, nasal feeding tube) is difficult, should I teach you?”

“I’ll…… rest today. My head already feels like it’s about to explode.”

Eun-ha was grateful for the ABGA tutoring and started massaging Jun-hoo’s shoulders from behind.

Her grip was weak, so it wasn’t very refreshing.

Still, it felt good to receive a massage from a junior.

Jun-hoo relieved the fatigue of his colleagues and seniors with acupressure,

But he hadn’t received many massages from others.

“Senior. I have another question.”

“You’re really a curiosity heaven [very curious person].”

“I hear that often. But what is your relationship with Senior Ah-young?”

“Why are you curious about that?”

Jun-hoo tilted his head at the unexpected question.

“I’m just curious. You two were always together since medical school.”

“We’re very close. She’s the only person I can trust and rely on right now.”

As he answered, Jun-hoo stared at the bracelet on his left wrist.

Suddenly, his heart ached as if cut by a knife.

One of the two precious people was already a star in the sky.

“You’re not in a romantic relationship, are you? There were rumors that you two were dating.”

“It’s not like that. Ah-young and I have never thought of each other that way.”

“I see. Okay.”

Eun-ha’s voice somehow sounded brighter.

Ring~.

The on-call room phone rang at that moment.

Reaching for the phone, Jun-hoo thought.

Please be a surgery patient.

Or an emergency patient call.

Jun-hoo desperately wanted the surgeries that others found tiring, difficult, and avoided.

The more surgeries he participated in,

The more he could learn.

The more outstanding a surgeon he could become.

Jun-hoo’s desire for surgery was already the best in the world.

* * *

The next day, in the afternoon.

The 5-hour brain tumor surgery assist was over.

The professor and Hee-joon immediately moved to the next operating room, and Jun-hoo left the operating room.

Thud. Thud.

Walking down the 4th-floor hallway, he reviewed the surgery that had just ended.

Reviewing wasn’t just important for chess and Go [a strategic board game].

Surgery was the same.

Surgery was a battle between the patient’s disease and the doctor’s skills.

Jun-hoo reviewed the surgery twice.

The attending physician’s standardized techniques.

The first assistant’s standardized techniques.

It wasn’t difficult because he had been doing it since his internship.

No, because he had been doing it since his days in the Murim [a fictional martial arts world].

Although his body was walking down the hallway,

Jun-hoo’s mind was already in the operating room. He was replaying the tense surgery once more.

Reviewing, he arrived at the convenience store on the 1st basement floor.

Jun-hoo bought nearly thirty various ice creams.

The weather was slowly getting hotter.

He wanted to share ice cream with the ward staff as a snack.

Holding the heavy plastic bag,

Jun-hoo returned to the ward.

First, he handed out ice cream to the station nurses.

“Wow. Thank you, Doctor. Is the department buying?”

Yun-hee asked, picking up an ice cream.

“No. It’s from my own pocket. Everyone’s working hard.”

“As expected, we have to acknowledge Jun-hoo’s generous heart.”

“Doctor Jun-hoo is the best.”

“I really don’t know what I’d do working in the ward without Doctor Jun-hoo.”

Jun-hoo smiled shyly at the nurses’ continuous testimonies(?).

And he thought.

What office workers want from their colleagues isn’t anything grand.

Just small acts of attention and consideration.

He hadn’t expected that just one ice cream

Would liven up the station atmosphere this much.

Slide.

“Eat ice cream while you work.”

Jun-hoo shouted as he entered the on-call room, and the staff flocked around him.

They thanked Jun-hoo and ate the ice cream deliciously.

“As expected, a 100,000-subscriber NewTuber [a YouTuber with 100,000 subscribers] is generous. Buying ice cream with his own money.”

Min-kyung said, eating a cone ice cream.

“Just because someone makes a lot of money doesn’t mean they’ll share, right? Isn’t it because Senior Jun-hoo is kind?”

Eun-ha said, eating a Jaws bar [a popular Korean ice cream bar].

Just like their food preferences, their ice cream preferences also varied,

Jun-hoo was eating a hard ice cream called ‘Real Treasure Bar’.

Jun-hoo liked the solid texture of the ice cream.

“Why did you buy Bababa bars [a red bean flavored ice cream bar]? Does anyone still eat Bababa bars these days?”

Min-kyung, who had quickly finished her cone ice cream, asked, looking at the bag on the table.

The red bean ice cream Bababa bar caught her eye.

“That’s an ice cream that only old people like.”

“I wasn’t sure. Tastes vary.”

“Like you who likes Hawaiian pizza?”

“It’s upsetting to put Bababa bars and Hawaiian pizza on the same level.”

“What? They all look the same to me.”

“They don’t have even 1 percent in common? It’s troubling if you can’t understand that difference.”

While Min-kyung and Jun-hoo were bickering,

Kyung-soo, who had finished his rounds in the ICU, returned to the on-call room.

Hearing that it was snack time,

He grabbed an ice cream.

The ice cream that Min-kyung had been scolding, the Bababa bar.

“Jun-hoo, you and Kyung-soo are definitely the same year. Your minor food tastes are so similar.”

Min-kyung laughed and ate her second cone ice cream.

* * *

Tap tap tap tap.

Jun-hoo processed the orders that had piled up due to surgery at lightning speed.

His fingers danced nimbly on the keyboard.

The dexterity he had cultivated in the Murim.

The precision of his left hand, gained from perfectly mastering the Ambidextrous Jade Hand technique.

Thanks to that, Jun-hoo’s chart entries were completed in the blink of an eye.

Getting tired?

My body is heavy and my head is heavy too.

I need to take some nutritional supplements and do some Qi circulation [a concept in traditional Chinese medicine involving the flow of vital energy].

Jun-hoo reached for the portable pill case on his desk.

The pill case contained the nutritional supplements that Jun-hoo had pre-sorted neatly.

But it was right then.

Vibrate.

The gown pocket vibrated.

Jun-hoo checked the number and connected the call.

“Yes. Doctor.”

-…….

“Yes. Yes. I’ll check it now.”

“What is it? An emergency room call?”

Kyung-soo, who was working beside him, asked as Jun-hoo hung up the phone.

“No. It’s a station call. Watch my seat for a moment.”

Jun-hoo quickly scanned the chart of the patient he had been notified about and found the patient’s room.

The patient’s name was Lee Jung-hwa.

60 years old this year, she was diagnosed with a ‘brain aneurysm’ through a brain CT scan taken during a health checkup.

Coil embolization [a procedure to block blood flow to an aneurysm] scheduled in two days.

She had a history of hypertension [high blood pressure] and diabetes.

The patient was leaning against the backrest of the hospital bed, looking at her phone.

A guardian, who appeared to be her daughter, was also engrossed in her phone on the guardian’s bed.

“Hello. Patient.”

“Yes. Hello, Doctor. But what brings you here…….”

The patient tilted her head, looking at Jun-hoo.

“I came after receiving a call from the nurse. I heard that your blood sugar isn’t being managed well. Your blood sugar has been high since yesterday.”

As a result of checking the nursing records.

The patient’s blood sugar measured yesterday evening, this morning, and this afternoon was high.

Despite taking diabetes medication, her fasting blood sugar was as high as 180. (Normal is below 100) [mg/dL, a common unit for measuring blood sugar]

If this condition persisted, it could negatively affect the surgery.

In the case of diabetic patients.

There were research results that the mortality rate after surgery was nearly 5 times higher than in the normal blood sugar group.

Infection and vascular disease.

Thrombus (blood clot) formation.

Decreased blood pressure due to decreased fluid volume, etc.

Because they are exposed to various risks.

“Do you perhaps eat snacks in between meals?”

“I don’t really eat anything. I don’t eat fruit, I don’t eat snacks, and I don’t drink carbonated drinks or anything like that.”

“…….”

“You told me not to eat them, Doctor.”

The patient said confidently,

But Jun-hoo didn’t believe her.

Patients sometimes lied.

“If you haven’t eaten anything, your blood sugar can’t rise. You must have eaten something.”

“That’s strange. I don’t eat anything.”

“Can you list all the foods you’ve eaten from yesterday evening to this afternoon?”

“There’s nothing to list. I only ate hospital food.”

Jun-hoo and the patient’s Q&A ran along a tedious parallel line.

They entered a frustrating stagnant section.

But it was right then.

The guardian, who had been silent, stepped forward.

“Doctor. I bought my mother some jam, could that be a problem?”

“Jam?”

Jun-hoo was shocked at the guardian’s words.

Isn’t jam a food made by mixing fruit with sugar?

If you expect your blood sugar not to rise after eating jam, that’s like expecting not to gain weight after eating chicken.

It didn’t make sense.

“Patient. You ate jam and said you haven’t eaten anything until now?”

Jun-hoo asked with a dumbfounded expression.

She took out a jar of jam from her personal locker and held it out.

Jun-hoo examined the jam he received.

The brand name was Muk(Eating) Jam.

As the patient said, it was written that it only had 15 calories even if you ate the whole jar.

Looking at the nutritional information.

Stevia, which is attracting attention as a zero-calorie sweetener these days, was used.

If it was labeled like this.

It was understandable that the patient felt wronged.

“I’ll take the jam for now. You said you don’t eat snacks, so eat your meals as usual.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check your blood sugar level again in the evening and talk about it.”

Jun-hoo retrieved the two jars of jam that the guardian had and left the room.

All the way to the on-call room.

Jun-hoo’s eyes couldn’t leave the jam jar.