A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 167

Chapter 31: Progress (2)

The moment Jun-hoo heard the cheering song, he felt a thrill that went beyond simple admiration.

The hairs on his body stood on end, and his spine tingled with excitement.

Some might scoff:

“Is surgery a joke?”

“Why play a cheering song in the operating room, which should be a sacred and solemn space?”

But that would be an ignorant statement, Jun-hoo thought.

In his view, Jae-hyun’s decision to play the cheering song was both meticulous and insightful.

The purpose of playing the cheering song was clear: to reassure the agitated patient.

It was to make the unfamiliar operating room feel more familiar and comfortable.

Jun-hoo stared at the monitor for observers with an intrigued expression.

“Doctor, why the cheering song?” the surprised patient asked, eyes wide.

“To help you relax. Aren’t you getting surgery so you can return to playing baseball?”

“Of course.”

“Think of the fans waiting for your return while listening to the cheering song. That will give you strength and motivation.”

“Definitely… it’s much better to have the cheering song than not,” the patient admitted.

The patient’s expression, which had been fearful of the surgery, began to ease little by little.

The heart rate and blood pressure, which had spiked suddenly, gradually returned to a normal range.

“Here. Take this.”

“Wow, you even prepared something like this?”

“We have to prepare for everything, even things like this, to avoid failure in surgery.”

Jae-hyun smiled brightly and handed the patient a baseball bat-shaped doll.

The patient hesitated for a moment before taking the doll.

He swung the doll lightly in the air as if it were a real bat.

The bat must have been sterilized before being brought in, Jun-hoo assumed.

“If you’re calm now, let’s start the surgery.”

“Yes, let’s do it. I’m feeling motivated to give it a shot,” the patient answered readily.

His attitude was completely different from before, when he was afraid of the surgery and kept postponing it.

*Amazing.*

*This is the magic of my mentor, the best neurosurgeon in the country.*

*The way he treats patients is an art.*

*If he hadn’t thought from the patient’s perspective in every detail…*

*He wouldn’t have been able to prepare a cheering song and a baseball bat doll….*

*In reality, we haven’t prepared anything like this for Myung-han.*

Jun-hoo thought he had made a good decision to come and see Jae-hyun’s awake surgery [surgery performed while the patient is conscious].

Thanks to this, he was able to realize and learn a lot, and he would be able to apply those things to Myung-han’s awake surgery.

As the patient regained his composure, the surgery began.

The curtain rose on the full-scale awake surgery.

“How do you feel now?” Jae-hyun asked, stimulating the brain tumor and normal cerebral cortex with a nerve stimulator.

“My ankle feels a bit tingly.”

“Is it the left or the right?”

“It’s the left.”

“The nerves connected to the left ankle are located here. How about here?”

“My left fingers are twitching. Around the thumb and index finger.”

“Would you like to swing the bat doll in your current state?”

The patient followed Jae-hyun’s instructions and swung the bat doll in the air.

*Whoosh.*

“How does it feel when you swing?”

“It’s uncomfortable, but not too distracting.”

“Good. Just keep doing that.”

After a long Q&A with the patient, Jae-hyun stepped away from the surgeon’s position.

He stood in front of the monitor displaying the MRI image and held the mouse.

He outlined the area to be resected [surgically removed] from the tumor with the pointer.

Coincidentally, the area was star-shaped.

*I am happy.*

*Sharks, I am happy~* [lyrics from a popular children’s song]

Even though the repeated cheering song could be distracting, Jae-hyun performed the tumor resection with ease.

Jae-hyun’s surgery was meticulous.

He held a Bovie (electrocautery device) [a tool that uses heat to cut tissue and stop bleeding] in his right hand and an ultrasonic aspirator in his left hand.

Both hands precisely resected the brain tumor like the warp and weft of a loom [the lengthwise and crosswise threads in a woven fabric].

There was no sign of hand tremor.

Every time Jae-hyun used the surgical instruments, the tumor that had invaded part of the cerebrum fell away without hesitation.

Even in the midst of that, there was no damage to the normal cortex and nerve cells.

Jun-hoo, who flew around with martial arts and internal energy,

Jun-hoo, who had watched the surgeries of many professors,

had never seen a surgeon like Jae-hyun.

The dignity of the undisputed number one was on a completely different level. Jae-hyun was not a master physician but a divine physician.

Moreover, it wasn’t just Jae-hyun who was outstanding.

The skills of the assistants helping with the surgery were also excellent.

They did not obstruct Jae-hyun’s surgical view.

Their hands did not get tangled with Jae-hyun’s.

They did not forget to perform the treatments to optimize the surgery.

Spraying physiological saline solution to prevent the cerebral blood vessels from drying out and causing bleeding.

Wiping sweat from Jae-hyun’s face.

Tractioning [applying tension to] the brain tumor.

Or stopping minor bleeding with gauze, etc.

While watching the surgery, Jun-hoo recalled an experience from the martial arts world.

When he visited the Shaolin Temple [a famous Buddhist monastery in China known for its martial arts traditions].

He was lucky enough to witness the 108 Arhat Formation [a complex martial arts formation] with his own eyes.

Come to think of it, surgery with good chemistry between the staff seemed to be comparable to a combined formation in the martial arts world.

Because several people create synergy by filling each other’s shortcomings.

During the surgery, Jun-hoo’s eyes were glued to the monitor for observers.

His fists were clenched tightly with excitement, tension, and anticipation.

In that way, a full three hours passed.

The awake surgery, which usually takes 5 hours to complete, was shortened by 2 hours thanks to the efforts of Jae-hyun and the staff.

After the brain tumor resection was over, Jae-hyun looked up at the surgery room for observers on the 2nd floor, where Jun-hoo was sitting.

He raised one hand high and made a circle with his thumb and index finger.

It was a sign that the surgery had ended safely.

*As expected of my mentor. Awesome, awesome.*

* * *

The lounge on the 5th floor of Jewon University Hospital.

The lounge at Jewon University Hospital was less impressive than the lounge at Shinwon University Hospital.

The sofas were old and smaller. The wallpaper on the walls was yellowed.

There was a faint smell of cigarettes in the lounge, as if a rude doctor had just been there.

“You worked hard, Professor,” Jun-hoo said, taking out a canned coffee from the vending machine and handing it to Jae-hyun, who was sitting on the sofa.

Then he sat on the sofa opposite Jae-hyun.

“How is it? Was it worth coming all the way to our hospital?”

“It was totally worth it. I was too busy admiring you during Professor’s surgery.”

“You’re just flattering me….”

“I’m serious. I got goosebumps when you played the baseball cheering song and handed the patient a baseball bat doll. Not to mention how meticulously you resected the tumor.”

Jun-hoo said in an excited voice.

The emotion of that time was still vivid.

Jun-hoo felt the ecstasy of watching a surgery that he would feel when watching a great movie or work of art.

It was a first-time experience.

“Jun-hoo, I see you have a talent for making people feel embarrassed. Anyway, I’m glad it helped.”

“I’m the one who’s grateful.”

“I guess I’m getting old. I finished the surgery quickly, but my body aches.”

Jae-hyun smiled bitterly and stretched his neck from side to side.

He kept massaging his wrist with his own hand.

It was the sorrow of a surgeon.

Surgery could take at least 3 hours, or as long as a whole day.

If the surgery time was short, they would sometimes perform surgery up to 3 times a day.

In this brutal schedule, it would be stranger if their bodies *didn’t* break down.

Surgeons have to keep their backs straight throughout the surgery, so their backs hurt.

They can’t take their eyes off the microscope, so their eyes feel dry.

They have to use surgical instruments all the time, so their finger joints and wrist joints are worn out.

On top of that, they have to maintain sharp mental strength and concentration.

It’s no wonder that surgeons are said to work in a 3D (Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous) profession.

But this, conversely, became an opportunity for Jun-hoo to play an outstanding role.

Jun-hoo, who had experienced the martial arts world, had done a lot of dirty work.

He had also done a lot of difficult and dangerous work.

He also didn’t know fatigue with the combination of Qi [vital energy] circulation and nutritional supplements.

Jun-hoo was different from other surgeons from the starting line.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, that I don’t have that much time left.”

“Don’t say scary things. What will the patients and staff do if you retire, Professor?”

“It’s just the usual grumbling I do after surgery. Don’t worry about it.”

Jae-hyun chuckled and took a sip of canned coffee.

“Professor, shall I give you a massage?”

“A massage?”

“Yes. I’m Shinwon University’s magic hands. Trust me.”

“No, thanks. There’s no need to waste your energy on your day off. If it was fatigue that could be relieved with a massage, I wouldn’t have gone through this trouble in the first place.”

“Just try it. You might be surprised.”

Jun-hoo got up from the sofa and moved to Jae-hyun’s side.

After making Jae-hyun lie face down on the sofa, he gently rubbed the muscles around Jae-hyun’s waist with both thumbs and went down.

At the same time as loosening Jae-hyun’s tightly knotted waist muscles with fingers imbued with internal energy, he began to open up the blocked meridians (passages through which Qi flows).

As he pressed on the 11th Sin-do blood point to the 3rd Yo-yang-gwan blood point, Jae-hyun began to react.

“No, what kind of magic is this? My back pain is completely gone?”

There was bewilderment in Jae-hyun’s voice.

The back that had been aching and throbbing until just now had become completely fine.

It was as if the sandbag he had been wearing on his waist had been removed.

Jae-hyun’s waist felt lighter, as if he had wings.

But the miracle didn’t end there.

Jun-hoo made Jae-hyun sit down again and massaged his neck as well.

He pressed down on the blood points around his neck.

He also widened the range of Jae-hyun’s stiff neck joints by turning Jae-hyun’s head 90 degrees to the left and right.

*Crack.*

The gruesome bone sound made Jae-hyun shudder, thinking his neck bone would break, but that was unfounded.

After the neck massage and stretching were over, his neck felt incredibly refreshed.

Jun-hoo’s wrist massage that followed was also very effective. Even his chronic wrist pain was temporarily gone.

Jae-hyun drew circles with both wrists and clicked his tongue.

“How do you feel?”

“Huh… I’m still dazed. I didn’t know massage could be this effective.”

“Now you believe that I’m Shinwon University’s magic hands, right?”

“Of course. But where did you learn this wonderful massage?”

“Martial arts… no, I learned it by pushing myself. One of my relatives does sports massage, when I was in high school.”

Jun-hoo hurriedly took back his slip of the tongue.

“Anyway, thank you. Thanks to you, I’ll be able to perform the next surgery a little more comfortably.”

“It’s nothing….”

Jun-hoo smiled awkwardly.

In fact, Jun-hoo was disappointed that he could only do Chu-gung [energy transfer] and Gwa-hyeol [blood circulation improvement] for Jae-hyun.

Jun-hoo had been indebted to Jae-hyun a lot.

He had received brain tumor data that was like a secret manual.

Today, he even got the opportunity to observe Jae-hyun’s surgery.

Even though Jun-hoo was a resident from another university, compared to what Jun-hoo had received from Jae-hyun, what Jun-hoo could give to Jae-hyun was too small, shabby, and unimpressive.

*The best gift I can give my mentor is definitely that.*

*That I become a neurosurgeon who surpasses my mentor.*

*Then my mentor will be able to focus on reforming the medical system with peace of mind.*

*Please wait a little longer.*

*I will take over your position.*

Jun-hoo steeled himself inwardly and returned to the sofa opposite Jae-hyun.

“Professor, do you have time?”

“Let’s see. I have about an hour left until the next surgery. I have plenty of time.”

“I was wondering if I was bothering you when you should be resting….”

“Don’t worry about unnecessary things. And I even got a fantastic massage, so would I just let it go without saying anything?”

Jae-hyun said jokingly.

Jun-hoo also chuckled.