A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 354

Martial Surgeon – Episode 354

Chapter 68: Newbie (4)

“Well, it’s not terribly serious. The baby cries and throws up a lot, and can’t sleep well.”

“When exactly did it start?”

“That’s…”

The guardian trailed off, glancing at Jun-hoo.

It seemed like there was a story hidden.

“Don’t make things up. You need to tell me exactly what’s going on. That’s the only way to ensure the examination isn’t distorted.”

“I think I might be making a fuss. But I’m still worried.”

“It’s not a fuss when parents worry about their child’s health.”

Jun-hoo took the guardian’s side.

If Jun-hoo were married and had a child, he would probably be just as concerned about the child’s health as the guardian was.

That was probably love for one’s children.

“It gives me strength to hear you say that. It’s been about a week since the baby got sick.”

“Has the baby been crying and fussing all week?”

“Not really. It’s just been happening more and more often.”

Jun-hoo asked a few more questions.

Has the baby had a high fever?

Has the baby ever fallen?

Does the baby have any congenital diseases, etc.

The patient was new.

Jun-hoo was also new, so he tried to grasp the patient’s condition as thoroughly as possible.

But guess what?

Nothing suspicious came to mind.

The baby looked fine.

According to the guardian.

The number of times the baby cried and fussed had recently increased, but the baby who came into the examination room was just smiling.

Was there really something wrong with the baby?

Or was the guardian’s worry just excessive?

Jun-hoo’s suspicion began to target the guardian, not the baby.

“I’m so bored, I’m dying. How much longer are we going to be doing this?”

Austin yawned from behind the monitor. Then he pointed to the wall clock with his eyes.

The examination started at 9:00 a.m., and it was already 10 minutes past.

All Jun-hoo had confirmed in 10 minutes was that the baby was fine.

Unlike the emergency room.

Outpatient care was time-pressed.

Well, a surgeon like Austin would have a lot of patients booked.

Even though he felt the pressure of time, Jun-hoo couldn’t easily make a decision.

His mind was still confused.

1) The baby is sick, but he can’t recognize the baby’s illness.

2) The guardian’s worry is excessive.

3) The baby is fine, but he’s wasting his time looking for a disease that doesn’t even exist in the first place.

Jun-hoo listed the three possible scenarios he had managed to come up with.

Which situation was the scariest?

Of course, it would be number 1.

If so, the top priority would be to completely rule out number 1.

Squeak.

When Jun-hoo suddenly got up from his seat, Austin and the guardian’s eyes turned to him.

The two people’s eyes were saying this.

Why are you getting up all of a sudden?

Jun-hoo received the prickly stares, but he didn’t explain.

He approached the guardian and stared at the baby.

Did the baby have a rash?

Was the baby’s complexion pale?

Were there any unique expressions or gestures that came out when the baby was hurt, etc.

Jun-hoo’s eyes were filled with a sticky tenacity.

That’s because…

Even if he diagnosed 10 patients, it would all be for naught if he missed just one patient.

“Is there something strange?”

The guardian couldn’t resist her curiosity and asked.

“I see something when I look closely.”

“What is it?”

“The baby’s head seems a little big.”

“Really? I don’t know at all?”

There was sarcasm in the guardian’s voice.

Whether she was upset that he pointed out the size of the baby’s head.

Or because the diagnosis wasn’t satisfactory.

Jun-hoo had no way of knowing.

“We’ll know once we check. Professor. Can you give me the measuring tape?”

Squeak.

Austin opened the desk drawer and threw the measuring tape he took out to Jun-hoo.

Jun-hoo used the measuring tape to measure the circumference of the baby’s head.

Jun-hoo’s eye for detail, which he had cultivated since his days in the Murim [martial arts world], was accurate.

It wasn’t obvious enough to be noticeable.

The circumference of the baby’s head was definitely about 1.3 times larger than that of other children of the same age.

Come to think of it, the head felt bulging overall.

“The baby’s head is a little bigger than other babies of the same age.”

“I know that. Is the size of the baby’s head important right now?”

The guardian asked, as if she was questioning him.

Her gaze looking up at Jun-hoo was not kind.

It was at that moment.

“Waaaaah!”

The baby, who had been quiet, began to cry loudly.

The guardian calmly checked the baby’s diaper with one hand, but the baby had not urinated or defecated.

“Is the baby hungry?”

“No. I fed her before I came. That’s why I’m going crazy because she cries for no reason.”

As if trying to calm the baby down.

The guardian’s arms holding the baby moved rhythmically.

Jun-hoo sensed that the time had come to make a decision.

It was certainly important to examine patients thoroughly.

But Jun-hoo wasn’t the only one waiting for patients. He also had to consider the patients who were waiting.

Normal and abnormal.

To confirm that boundary.

Jun-hoo played his last card.

He decided to do something that only Jun-hoo could do on Earth.

“Peek-a-boo! You can’t cry because Mom is embarrassed.”

Jun-hoo pretended to calm the baby down and briefly placed his hand on the baby’s forehead before taking it off.

Jun-hoo’s eyebrows rose and fell in a very short moment.

After that, Jun-hoo returned to his seat and sat down.

“It took a long time, but your observation skills are pretty good.”

Austin continued, with his arms crossed.

“That baby has macrocephaly [abnormally large head]. In other words, it means the head is big. There doesn’t seem to be any developmental disability, so you should just think of it as a big head.”

“Professor, you’re so mischievous until the end.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

Austin shrugged and asked.

Jun-hoo kept his mouth shut without explaining.

“Doctor. If the baby is okay, tell me she’s okay, and if there’s something wrong, tell me there’s something wrong. I can’t wait any longer.”

The guardian, who had barely calmed the baby down, said in an annoyed voice.

“Thank you for waiting so long and for your hard work.”

“I’m glad you know that.”

“In my opinion, the baby is not normal. I think we’ll need to do a detailed examination to find out what’s wrong.”

“Is having a big head a disease?”

“Having a big head can be a disease, or it can’t be.”

“You’re not trying to rip me off with examination fees at a place like the Mayo Clinic, are you?”

The guardian’s eyes toward Jun-hoo were sharp.

She already seemed to be upset.

But even in the face of the guardian’s fierce energy, Jun-hoo’s expression remained calm.

Jun-hoo was certain.

That his judgment was 100 percent correct.

“We’ll see you again after a brain CT scan. You may need surgery.”

* * *

“You were saying some pretty bold things, weren’t you? Ordering a CT scan for a patient who looks fine and saying they might need surgery?”

After the patient left, Austin looked at Jun-hoo and said.

Jun-hoo was writing the chart at an unbelievable speed.

The sight was reminiscent of a pianist. It was hard to keep up with his hands with your eyes.

Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.

The cheerful sound of the keyboard echoed in the examination room.

“Wasn’t it too much to set a trap, Professor?”

Without answering Austin’s question, Jun-hoo only said what he wanted to say.

Austin’s heart fluttered slightly at Jun-hoo’s remark.

Because it wasn’t wrong.

According to Austin’s diagnosis, the patient had hydrocephalus [fluid accumulation in the brain].

Hydrocephalus.

Literally, it is a disease in which water (cerebrospinal fluid) accumulates in the head.

If a hydrocephalus patient is under 2 years old.

The patient’s head circumference becomes abnormally large, and they cry often, fuss often, and vomit food.

If hydrocephalus is severe.

In other words, if the head circumference is large enough for anyone to see, the examination is easy.

But this case was ambiguous about the patient’s head circumference.

It was a perfect case to be mistaken for macrocephaly and overlooked.

In fact, Jun-hoo succeeded in seeing that the size of the baby’s head was abnormal.

This alone was a great achievement.

It wasn’t easy to have that kind of eye for detail on the first examination.

The guardian was uncooperative.

The baby was crying loudly.

It was like picking stars in the sky to make a calm judgment in a situation where the pressure of examination time was overwhelming.

If another trainee other than Jun-hoo had come in, they would have stammered and said the patient was fine.

There was a high probability that the patient would have been sent home.

But what about Jun-hoo?

He finished the examination while maintaining his composure.

He even saw that Austin had set a trap.

He had escaped Austin’s grasp, even though he was a rookie doing outpatient care for the first time.

But Austin was impressed with Jun-hoo, but he didn’t express it.

“A trap? What trap are you talking about?”

Austin asked back, pretending not to know.

“Didn’t you try to make it look like the patient had macrocephaly? I was the one who carefully investigated, but other friends would have been completely fooled.”

“It is macrocephaly, isn’t it?”

“Are you going to keep playing with words until the end?”

Jun-hoo, who was typing, glared at Austin.

“I swear to God, I’ve never said anything wrong.”

When Austin stubbornly denied it, Jun-hoo sighed deeply.

“Then can I say it like this? The patient had macrocephaly due to hydrocephalus.”

The word hydrocephalus finally came out of Jun-hoo’s mouth.

Austin couldn’t help but be impressed once again by the fact that the rookie had come to the same conclusion as him.

Look at this cheeky guy?

“What makes you so sure that the patient has hydrocephalus?”

“……”

Jun-hoo stopped for a moment without answering immediately.

It was because there was no way to explain ‘Internal Energy Cerebral Angiography’.

“First of all, the baby’s head circumference was abnormal. I got a hint from the fact that the baby cries often and sometimes vomits.”

“Isn’t that something that can commonly happen among children of that age?”

Austin asked persistently.

He had a desire to get something more out of Jun-hoo.

“If the general symptoms are combined with the head circumference, it is enough to suspect hydrocephalus. I learned that the basis of diagnosis is to combine each symptom into one.”

Austin nodded instead of answering.

It was the right thing to say.

At this point, he wondered if he was the one who had been hit.

All his intentions were figured out.

Jun-hoo even diagnosed the patient himself.

Austin suddenly thought that Jun-hoo might be a better prospect than the promising Raymond.

* * *

Time passed and it became 12 p.m.

With the arrival of lunchtime, the curtain fell on Jun-hoo’s first morning of outpatient care.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“You did all the work.”

Austin smiled awkwardly at Jun-hoo’s greeting.

“Aren’t you going to have lunch, Professor?”

“I’ll have to make do with a sandwich today. There are quite a few patients waiting.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you see patients during lunch time because of me…”

Jun-hoo trailed off, unable to look Austin in the eye.

He had done his best, but he couldn’t stop the patients from piling up.

Perhaps because it was his first time in charge of outpatient care, there were many unfamiliar aspects.

Jun-hoo felt anew that his questioning skills were lacking.

Being thorough was good, but…

He couldn’t ask questions that hit the nail on the head, so the examination time dragged on.

Thanks to this, his mind, which had been proud of his excellent hand skills, was able to regain its humility.

Surgery was very important to a surgeon, but surgery was not the only thing in treatment.

The road to becoming a famous doctor was still long and arduous.

There was still a mountain of things to learn.

But Jun-hoo liked it even more because of that.

If there was no end to learning, there would be no end to getting stronger.

“The results just came out.”

“What results are you talking about?”

“What else could it be? Check it out yourself.”

Jun-hoo, who was about to leave the examination room, turned around and approached the work desk.

A brain CT image was on the monitor.

“It’s the patient you examined for the first time. What do you see?”

Jun-hoo narrowed his eyes and interpreted the CT image.

A butterfly-shaped black shadow was in the center of the patient’s head.

There was no room for doubt.

That black shadow was the cerebrospinal fluid accumulated in the patient’s head.

In fact, Jun-hoo already knew the results through ‘Internal Energy Cerebral Angiography’.

“It’s hydrocephalus.”

“Yes. You did a great job with the examination without falling into my trap.”

“You’re welcome.”

Jun-hoo smiled awkwardly.

As the conversation was briefly interrupted, the examination room door burst open as soon as a knock was heard.

A doctor as tall as a telephone pole came in.

“Professor. Aren’t you going to have lunch?”

“I’m too busy today.”

“It seems like you’re unusually busy, Professor. But who’s the friend next to you?”

“He’s a student taking the Boost Up program. This is Hector. Like Bruce, he’s one of the professors who will guide you. It looks like he just got back from the seminar.”

“Hello. I’m Jun-hoo Seo.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Hector.”

Jun-hoo and Hector exchanged brief introductions.

“Jun-hoo, wait outside the examination room for a moment. I need to talk to Hector for a while.”

“Okay, Professor.”

Jun-hoo went outside the examination room and lingered near the desk.

What are they going to talk about without me?

Suddenly, curiosity was aroused.