Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 105

‘Alright. First mission clear!’

I felt proud.

Of course, it wasn’t over.

From morning till midnight, emergency patients kept pouring in.

Every time, Geun-wook and I rushed to the patients to conduct initial examinations.

“Doctor, I have a headache. It just hurts. Please fix it quickly.”

“Oh, doctor. The world is spinning, and I’m so dizzy I can’t open my eyes…….”

“I’ve been feeling something in my chest since this evening. So I looked it up online, and it says men can get breast cancer too? Is this breast cancer? I have a bit of gynecomastia [enlargement of breast tissue in men]…….”

“Doctor…….”

There are really so many different kinds of patients.

Ten patients, ten different symptoms.

Each time, we treated the patients as if we were playing Twenty Questions.

The highlight was the grandmother that Geun-wook ended up treating.

“Grandma, where does it hurt?”

“Oh, young man, just wait till you get to my age. There’s nowhere that doesn’t hurt.”

The grandmother started to whine to Geun-wook.

“Still, you need to tell me the specific symptoms…….”

Geun-wook said, looking embarrassed.

But the grandmother hardly gave him a chance to speak.

She just kept talking about what she wanted to say.

“Come to think of it, my mother used to say she was sick all the time~ I understand now that I’m older. Raising seven children and farming, her body must have been worn out.”

Then, she suddenly wiped away tears and grabbed Geun-wook’s arm.

“Oh my, I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“…….”

Geun-wook must have sensed that the history taking process wasn’t going smoothly.

“Come to think of it, young people these days don’t know much about the old days, do they? Should I tell you about when I was a refugee?”

“A refugee?”

“Yes. I was six years old then, and my mother gave me a bundle of rice to hold in my hands and said…….”

The grandmother’s long, drawn-out story unfolded.

Kind-hearted Geun-wook couldn’t refuse and listened to the grandmother’s life story.

For a whole hour.

And later, he was severely scolded by the head.

“Hey! Do you think this is a life counseling center? Why are you listening to an old woman’s life story for over an hour?”

Then Geun-wook lowered his head and said.

“I’m sorry…… the grandmother’s life story was so heartbreaking and sad…… I couldn’t help but empathize…… sniff.”

“Oh, really?”

The head looked at Geun-wook, who was a large man sniffling with a reddened nose, with a dumbfounded expression.

“Hey, that grandmother comes every month when the interns change and tells her story!”

“Ah…….”

“Didn’t you get the handover that she comes here because the public health center doesn’t listen to her, and she ends up getting a month’s worth of knee pain medication?”

“I will definitely hand it over to the next intern.”

Geun-wook’s broad shoulders seemed to shrink.

A moment later, I patted Geun-wook’s back to cheer him on.

“The grandmother must have liked it.”

“Don’t talk about the grandmother.”

“Why?”

“Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. Sniff…….”

What a soft-hearted guy.

Gradually adapting to the new environment, our first day at Gokdam ER was passing by.

* * *

2 AM.

The ER finally became quiet.

Of course, there were still some patients left in the beds.

But they were all patients who had been properly diagnosed and had treatment plans in place, waiting to be discharged.

In other words, it was finally time to rest.

“Phew.”

We took a breather.

We got through the first day without any problems.

Except for Geun-wook being caught by the grandmother and struggling.

But…….

‘There are more patients than I thought?’

Was it said that this place was so busy?

Suddenly, I remembered the note on the dorm door that said .

It was also a relatively recently attached memo.

Geun-wook seemed to be thinking the same thing as me.

“That’s strange. The seniors last year said it was easy…… but instead of being easy, patients are constantly pouring in?”

Geun-wook whispered in an exhausted voice.

At that moment, someone approached us.

“Oh my. You must be tired on your first day, doctors. Are you sleepy? Would you like to have some of this with me?”

A good-natured-looking emergency medical technician handed us a box of energy drinks.

“Thank you!”

“We’ll enjoy it.”

As we accepted the drinks, the EMT smiled kindly.

Emergency Medical Technicians.

These are the people who perform significant tasks in the ER along with doctors and nurses.

Especially in ERs with a shortage of staff, EMTs who can handle various tasks are essential.

“It’s too bad you came this month. If you had come two months earlier, there wouldn’t have been so many patients.”

“Two months?”

We tilted our heads.

It was as if something we didn’t know had happened in the last two months.

“Didn’t you know? It was quite a buzz here in Gokdam for a while…….”

“What do you mean? What’s the buzz?”

When Geun-wook asked, the EMT replied.

“Last month, one of the hospitals in Gokdam City closed its ER. It was pretty much shut down.”

Shut down, you say?

Why was the ER shut down?

The EMT made a bitter expression and continued.

“I guess they kept getting warnings for allowing EMTs like us to provide medical assistance beyond our authority, and they decided they couldn’t do it anymore and closed down.”

“Ah…….”

We sighed.

Of course, in principle, the tasks that each medical professional can perform are strictly defined.

But here in Gokdam City, it was difficult to adhere to that.

Why?

Naturally, because of the lack of manpower.

Whether it was EMTs, nurses, or doctors like us…….

There were many tasks to cover in addition to each person’s assigned duties.

Unfortunately, it was a case where the system and reality didn’t match.

“So that’s why the patients are flocking here.”

“Of course. How could it not be when one of the few ERs closed down? They all flock to this ER.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, those people who don’t know the reality of local hospitals just sit at their desks and tell us what to do, I just want to xxx…….”

Suddenly, profanities burst out of the EMT’s mouth.

Judging by the colorful curses, he must be a Gokdam citizen.

He suddenly became aware of us and laughed again.

“Oh my. This mouth of mine……. I hope I haven’t offended you, doctors.”

“Oh, no. Haha.”

“Anyway, it’s a relief that even intern doctors like you have come. If you have any questions for the next month, ask us anything.”

Then Geun-wook spoke up as if he had something he was curious about.

“By the way…… why does Dr. Jang-poong know the local gangsters so well? Is he perhaps a former gangster?”

“A gangster? Hahaha.”

The EMT laughed heartily.

Then he waved his hand at us and said.

“That doctor is just a big bluffer.”

“Yes?”

“You’ll soon find out what I mean. Anyway, he’s a funny guy the more you see him.”

We came to understand what that meant as we worked for several days.

* * *

Real world.

Meaning the actual medical situation, not just sitting at a desk.

A term used worldwide by doctors when emphasizing the actual situation on the ground.

Here in Gokdam City, in the real-world ER, there were three attending physicians.

Two of them were ordinary.

They weren’t much different from the doctors we commonly saw at Yeon-guk University.

But only one person was uniquely different.

Jang-poong.

His very existence was a mystery.

A doctor who reeked of the wild, befitting the real world.

What on earth is his true identity?

He doesn’t use the local dialect and speaks Seoul dialect, so he’s definitely not from this area.

But the nurses and EMTs all liked him.

“I miss Dr. Poong. I haven’t seen him in three days because our schedules don’t overlap.”

“I need to ask Dr. Poong to explain to the guardian. They’re not understanding.”

“Where is Dr. Poong?”

An icon of Gokdam ER, perhaps?

Everyone looked for him in times of emergency.

And we often saw them talking to him casually, as if they were talking to the neighborhood uncle.

And the moment he shone the most was when he subdued a patient who was causing a disturbance.

For example.

“Hic…… why did you bring me here!”

Crash!

Things spill.

A patient who was drunk and brought to the ER was talking nonsense and causing a disturbance.

There were quite a few patients like this in Gokdam’s ER.

But whenever that happened, the nurses didn’t panic much and called Dr. Poong.

“Dr. Poong!”

They send a distress signal as if they were displaying a bat-shaped light in the night sky.

Then, Dr. Poong invariably appears.

“Who’s causing a ruckus in the sacred ER?”