A Surgeon Who Uses Martial Arts [EN]: Chapter 61

Martial Surgeon – Episode 61

Chapter 10: Surgical Constitution (6)

Step. Step.

Jun-hoo walked through the pediatric ward hallway.

Through the windows, he saw children of various ages hospitalized in the rooms, from kindergarteners to high school students.

Lives that hadn’t yet blossomed, confined and stifled in the hospital.

His heart ached at the thought of their suffering from diseases.

*What sins did these innocent beings commit that the heavens would inflict such harsh trials?*

Jun-hoo found himself blaming the unjust heavens.

Creak.

Entering a room at the end of the hallway, Jun-hoo faced the patient.

The patient’s name was Geon-woo.

He was 9 years old.

He had undergone surgery this morning for a torn anterior cruciate ligament [ACL, a major knee ligament]. Jun-hoo visited the room to put a cast on Geon-woo.

“Geon-woo, hello?”

“…….”

Jun-hoo greeted him, but Geon-woo didn’t respond.

He just stared at Jun-hoo with wary eyes.

*Is he shy with strangers?*

“He’s not a bad person, kid. He’s here to treat you. Where did your mother go?”

Jun-hoo tilted his head and asked.

He couldn’t see the guardian who should be by the child’s side.

“Yes.”

“How’s your leg?”

“It doesn’t hurt much.”

“That’s good. Aren’t you bored just lying here?”

“No. I can watch cartoons.”

Geon-woo held out the phone he was holding towards Jun-hoo.

Geon-woo was watching something like a children’s animation.

*These days, young kids can play well for hours if they just have a phone in their hands…*

That seemed to be true.

“I have something to do for you. It won’t hurt, so just follow my instructions.”

Jun-hoo used the supplies he had brought on the dressing cart to put a full cast on Geon-woo’s left leg.

He wrapped the plaster bandage, which had been thoroughly soaked and wrung out, around Geon-woo’s leg.

He wrapped a regular bandage over it.

He wrapped a green plaster bandage over it.

Of course, the full cast was perfect.

The number of times and direction of wrapping the bandage, of course.

It achieved a high level of quality that firmly fixed the leg while not causing problems with blood circulation.

It was thanks to absorbing 100 percent of Hyun-jin’s casting skills.

It was his first time putting a cast on a child, but that wasn’t a problem.

He could just modify the absorbed casting skills appropriately.

Jun-hoo neatly succeeded in his first pediatric cast with the flamboyant hand movements he once used to make a living.

He felt proud to be proficient in treatments that only orthopedic surgeons could do.

*That’s why being an intern rotating through various departments is so good.*

Because there are things to learn in each department.

“How’s your leg? Tell me if it feels too tight.”

“Umm… I think it’s okay.”

“That’s good. Rest well until your mom comes.”

“But, doctor.”

The moment Jun-hoo turned around, Geon-woo called out to Jun-hoo.

“Is there anything uncomfortable?”

“It’s not that. Doctor, are you good at drawing?”

“Why the drawing?”

“Can you draw a picture on here? Other kids draw pictures on theirs.”

Geon-woo pointed to the cast with his finger.

It was a long-standing tradition to have acquaintances write on casts.

Geon-woo probably envied that.

“There’s no reason I can’t. Is there a character you like?”

Jun-hoo asked, taking a marker out of his gown pocket.

“Seonbi.”

“A scholar from the Joseon Dynasty [Korean kingdom from 1392-1897]? Is that kind of character popular these days?”

“The Seonbi I’m talking about is this one.”

Geon-woo held out the phone he had been watching once again.

The face of a round, two-headed character was floating on the screen.

According to Geon-woo, Seonbi was a kind goblin and one of the most popular characters among elementary school students these days.

“I’ll draw it exactly the same. Look forward to it.”

“Yes.”

Receiving Geon-woo’s expectations.

Jun-hoo confidently began to draw.

Honestly, Jun-hoo was confident in everything he did with his hands.

Because he had moved and trained his fingers, wrists, and arms countless times while learning swordsmanship and martial arts.

So he could easily copy a cute animation character… was bullshit.

Unlike a sword, the marker did not follow Jun-hoo’s will.

The hand went awry, and the gap between what he was looking at and what he was drawing widened.

Jun-hoo’s Seonbi, which he completed in about 5 minutes.

Jun-hoo’s version of Seonbi was not a kind goblin but an evil goblin.

It looked like it would eat children instead of protecting them.

*Damn it… This isn’t it?*

*Were swordsmanship and drawing separate?*

After finishing the drawing, Jun-hoo carefully examined Geon-woo’s expression, feeling a sense of despair.

The sad premonition was not wrong.

Geon-woo’s expression was serious.

He seemed unhappy that the crude and ugly Jun-hoo version of Seonbi occupied the center of the cast.

He looked like he was about to cry.

*If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have bragged about being good at drawing.*

“Geon-woo, this friend is not actually Seonbi.”

“Then who is it?”

“He’s called Sanbi, Seonbi’s friend, and he also punishes bad goblins.”

“There’s no such goblin in the cartoon. His name is weird, and he’s too ugly. And I asked you to draw Seonbi.”

Geon-woo’s voice was full of sadness. Perhaps he was more emotional as he spoke.

It was a situation where it wouldn’t be strange if he cried right away.

Jun-hoo hurriedly moved to the pediatric ward station.

He grabbed Nurse Jung-hwa.

“Nurse, please help me.”

“Teacher. What’s wrong? You look so serious? Is it an emergency?”

Jung-hwa asked with wide eyes, and Jun-hoo calmly replied.

“If you’re good at drawing, please go to Geon-woo and draw Seonbi.”

“Yes? Seonbi?”

“Yes. Seonbi. It’s an emergency.”

Jun-hoo was seriously saying something ridiculous.

* * *

With Jung-hwa’s help, the Seonbi incident was concluded happily.

Jung-hwa was good at drawing.

She drew a real Seonbi next to Sanbi and added cute backgrounds such as flowers and grass around it.

Thanks to that, the cast became literally a picture.

Geon-woo’s expression finally relaxed.

On the way back to the station with Jung-hwa after completing the mission.

Jun-hoo felt a sense of self-disgust for the first time in a long time.

No, he felt a sense of self-disgust for the first time since experiencing the world of martial arts.

To think that he would become so powerless in front of the wall called drawing.

He thought he could do everything well with his hands.

“Drawing is not easy.”

Jun-hoo said with a sigh.

“Of course. You can only draw well if you train and get used to it. You thought it would be easy because the character is simple, right?”

“Yes. But I completely misjudged it.”

“Still, Teacher Seo seems really great.”

Jung-hwa continued, making eye contact with Jun-hoo.

“In what way?”

“It’s amazing that you did the cast by yourself as an intern. And you readily drew a picture for the child. You could have ignored him because you were busy.”

“If the patient can be happy with the few minutes I invest, I should do it.”

Everyone has had that experience.

The experience of being happy all day with a small compliment or consideration received from others.

Jun-hoo wanted to create as many of those experiences as possible for his patients.

It was because he knew that those small and trivial experiences were what sustained a hard life.

“Oh, by the way, where did Geon-woo’s guardian go? I haven’t seen her since earlier?”

Jun-hoo changed the subject to the guardian.

“Really? I’m sure she was with him when I saw her.”

“…….”

“She must have gone out for a while to run errands.”

“It’s not good to leave a young child alone, no matter how busy you are. Unless you take turns with an acquaintance.”

Jun-hoo was not happy with the guardian’s actions.

*Isn’t Geon-woo the one who just had surgery today?*

The loneliness he would feel if he was guarding the hospital room alone would be unimaginable.

“There must be a reason. Geon-woo’s mother is a good person.”

“That’s a relief.”

“She’s coming from over there.”

Jung-hwa pointed to a woman with a gesture.

The guardian, who appeared to be in her late 30s, was dressed flamboyantly.

She was wearing clothes that would be suitable for attending a school arts festival rather than a hospital.

“Doctor, I’m sorry. I had something urgent to do, so I went out for a while. Did anything happen to Geon-woo?”

“Nothing…….”

Jung-hwa looked at Jun-hoo and smiled, then finished the answer.

“Nothing happened.”

“I shouldn’t leave my seat, but there was no one I could ask to take care of Geon-woo. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then, goodbye.”

As the guardian left, Jung-hwa shrugged her shoulders.

“Did you see that? Geon-woo’s mother is a nice person, right? It’s just that she uses a bit too much perfume. Achoo!”

Jung-hwa sneezed, and Jun-hoo turned around and watched the guardian’s back.

He couldn’t agree with Jung-hwa’s opinion.

Because he smelled cigarette smoke from the guardian. (No matter how strong the perfume was, Jun-hoo, who had a developed sense of smell, couldn’t be fooled.)

Of course, smoking itself was not a problem.

The important thing was that the guardian’s clothes smelled not just of simple cigarette smoke but of stale cigarette smoke.

If the cigarette smell was ingrained in the clothes.

That means she was away for at least an hour.

That means she was in a place exposed to cigarette smoke for more than an hour.

Could that place really be a healthy place?

As questions piled up, Jun-hoo became more suspicious of the guardian.

*I need to find out more about what kind of person the guardian is.*

Bzzzz.

The vibration of the call phone that broke the reverie.

Jun-hoo immediately connected the call.

-Seo Jun-hoo, you said you’d scrub in for me, right? The gorilla says to get ready right away.

* * *

Jun-hoo was finally going to be the first assistant in a regular surgery.

How long he had waited for this day.

How long he had dreamed of this day.

Jun-hoo visited the 4th floor operating room with excited steps.

Whoosh.

As he passed through the automatic door, he saw nurses moving busily.

It was the process of preparing the surgical tools needed for each operating room.

Jun-hoo moved to the changing room, put on surgical gowns, surgical caps, and masks.

He moved the place to the washstand and performed a scrub (disinfection before surgery).

Rub. Rub. Rub.

He vigorously rubbed his fingers, between his fingers, the back of his hands, wrists, and elbows with a brush soaked in disinfectant.

Preoperative hygiene management should always be thorough.

Even if the surgery is completed successfully, if an infection occurs, the surgery is useless.

Jun-hoo, with both elbows raised, looked for the central supply room attached to the operating room.

With the help of a nurse, he put on a surgical gown and even put on surgical gloves.

“Teacher. You’re an orthopedic intern, right?”

The nurse who helped with the dressing spoke to Jun-hoo.

“Yes. That’s right.”

“You better be prepared. The professor you’re going into surgery with is a tiger professor [strict and demanding].”

“…….”

“Besides, the first assistant teacher also has a temper, so he hits the interns.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

Jun-hoo replied in a relaxed voice.

From the beginning, he was not afraid of Gorilla Dong-seok.

If the attending physician has a tiger-like personality, it will be good chemistry with Jun-hoo.

When honing his martial arts in the world of martial arts.

Jun-hoo preferred strict teachers to kind teachers.

Just as a sword becomes stronger when it is hammered countless times.

Jun-hoo was the type to become stronger when others beat him.

“What kind of person is Professor Lee Dong-hoon?”

Jun-hoo asked out of curiosity.

“He’s an amazing person. He’s one of the top five in Korea in orthopedics.”

“…….”

“He does everything except replantation surgery. The success rate of height-increasing surgery is also over 80 percent.”

Jun-hoo smiled happily at the nurse’s answer.

He had a good feeling that he would meet a new teacher.

Bzzzz.

The vibration of the call phone that broke the chatter.

The operating room he entered after finishing the chat.

The automatic door opened, and white disinfectant smoke wrapped around Jun-hoo.