Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 190

“Cha Yuri, what are you doing here?”

“Didn’t you know? I transferred from the surgical ward to the cardiac surgery ICU!”

Nurse Cha Yuri says with a bright smile.

Nurses rotate assignments after a certain period.

It seems Nurse Cha Yuri’s current assignment is here in the cardiac surgery ICU.

‘She’s as energetic as ever, even after all this time.’

Cha Yuri’s uniquely bright personality is still the same.

Come to think of it, there really seems to be such a thing as fate between people.

I had a feeling we wouldn’t just see each other briefly…….

I never thought we’d meet again here as I was about to start my first year of residency.

“By the way, did Dr. Seonhan get into TS [thoracic surgery]?”

“Yes. I’m Shin Seonhan of thoracic surgery starting this year.”

At my answer, Cha Yuri playfully glared at me.

“You’re as stubborn as ever.”

“Am I?”

“You even received the Top Intern Award, so I wondered if you might choose another department, but you ended up choosing TS after all, right?”

Come to think of it, Nurse Cha Yuri used that expression before.

.

“You could have gone to a minor surgery department (plastic surgery, ophthalmology, etc.)…….”

“Well, Nurse Cha Yuri, you’re in the ICU again too.”

“That’s right. And the most dynamic cardiac surgery ICU at that.”

We chuckled.

We could feel each other’s emotions without having to say anything.

You could say it’s a sense of camaraderie between people facing a difficult path.

In particular, I have memories of suffering together with Nurse Cha Yuri in the ICU before.

We even cried while watching patients pass away…… and became close enough to share drinks at a chicken feet restaurant.

There were many things that happened last year, but that experience, in particular, is unforgettable.

“Anyway, it’s nice to see you in thoracic surgery after all this time!”

“Nice to see you too.”

I replied with a smile.

It wasn’t just an empty platitude; I was genuinely glad to see her.

Nurses often disappear from the hospital after working for a while.

For example, nearly half of new nurses resign within a year.

But in Nurse Cha Yuri’s case, she’s been at Yonsei University Hospital’s ICU for four years.

There will be many times in the future when I’ll need her help.

“Please take good care of me.”

“Okay, Dr. Seonhan. Let’s work well as a team!”

.

I’m hearing that word a lot today.

It’s a given, but doctors and nurses must also cooperate effectively.

In particular, residents have a lot of contact with nurses.

If this relationship goes wrong…….

: If the patient’s condition was like this, you should have contacted me one more time!

: I called, but you didn’t come! I only did what was ordered!

……There are many cases where they fight like enemies.

I’ve even heard that they badmouth each other behind their backs.

: How can we manage if the ICU nurse is so thoughtless?

: This attending physician is terrible…… I feel sorry for the patients, tsk tsk.

At this point, there’s no solution.

A medical team that doesn’t trust each other can’t possibly perform properly.

I’m sure I won’t have that kind of problem with Nurse Cha Yuri.

‘It’s good that there are so many trustworthy people in thoracic surgery.’

Chief Song Yoo Joo.

Chief Ma Dong Seop.

ICU Nurse Cha Yuri.

At least those three are people I can definitely trust and work with.

My personal relationship with them is also good…….

I don’t know how my life in thoracic surgery will unfold, but it’s clear that they will be a source of strength to me.

“But what brings you to the ICU? Are you here to see patient Kim Deok Sang?”

“I came to see Dr. Ahn Gyeong Sik. Actually, this patient was the first one I performed a sternotomy [surgical incision through the sternum or breastbone] on…….”

“Oh― sternotomy? You opened him up, then?”

“Dr. Ma Dong Seop helped me a lot. But is the patient okay?”

“The chest tube drainage is high, but…… the attending physician knows about it, so it should be fine. Professor Kim Seong Tak is very good at surgery.”

After every surgery, a drainage tube is inserted near the surgical site.

This is to monitor the amount of bleeding in the surgical area.

Patient Kim Deok Sang also came out of the operating room with several chest tubes inserted, and the amount of blood coming out through these tubes is not small.

‘……It’ll be okay, right? Dr. Ahn Gyeong Sik said he knows about it, too.’

Even if I’m treated with distrust, Dr. Ahn Gyeong Sik is a second-year thoracic surgery resident.

He will have seen more patients like this than I have.

At that moment, visiting hours began, and some of the guardians were seen entering the ICU.

Only one guardian.

A mother with snow-white hair looked around anxiously.

“Hello, Mother.”

At my call, the guardian immediately approached and examined her son.

“Oh, my baby.”

As if her heart ached, she kept stroking her son’s cheek.

Feeling sorry for her, Nurse Cha Yuri and I looked away for a moment.

“Doctor, did my son’s surgery go well? When will he wake up?”

“Usually, they take him off the ventilator the day after surgery. Maybe you can talk to him during visiting hours tomorrow morning? The attending physician will come and explain in detail soon.”

The patient’s mother seemed a little relieved at Nurse Cha Yuri’s kind answer.

“……Still, at least he won’t be harassed by loan sharks at the hospital. I hope he can sleep well without doing deliveries or whatever…….”

I was momentarily at a loss for words at the poignant feeling in her words.

While we stepped aside for a moment, Nurse Cha Yuri whispered to me in a small voice.

“According to what I heard from the ward, the loan companies even called and asked directly? About the patient’s schedule.”

“Really?”

I clicked my tongue.

Patient Kim Deok Sang is in a difficult financial situation.

It’s not just illness and disease that threaten the patient.

A bigger monster called ‘livelihood’ is lurking outside the hospital.

“When you work in the ICU, you see a lot of patients who are financially struggling. That’s why some people insist on not going to the ICU after surgery. Because ICU costs are expensive…….”

Nurse Cha Yuri’s expression is bitter as she says that.

How many people lose their health today because they are overworked?

Even after being hospitalized, worries about money never end.

For many people, the saying “health is wealth” is a luxury.

In this case, all we, the medical staff, can do is…….

“It’s better for him to go up to the ward as soon as possible.”

“Yes. We need to take good care of him, reduce his length of stay by even one day, and help him get discharged as scheduled. That way, the hospital bill will be reduced even a little.”

I nodded.

As expected of Nurse Cha Yuri.

As she always has, I can feel her delicate heart for the patient.

“Anyway, the post-operative progress isn’t that bad, so I don’t think you need to worry too much.”

Cha Yuri is right.

But why is it that bad premonitions never miss?

The incident happened that night.

* * *

I’m dreaming.

The vision is blurry.

Like a water container with watercolor paints dissolved in it, various colors are mixed and become turbid.

‘What kind of dream am I having?’

Saaa―

Soon the vision brightens.

A grayish-white space lit by surgical lights comes into view.

It was operating room 16, which is now familiar to me.

“Give me the wire cutter quickly! Hey, suction here!!”

“Has Professor Kim Seong Tak been contacted?”

“He said he was in the parking lot earlier!”

The operating room is in chaos.

The most chaotic operating room I had ever seen before was Noeul’s delivery surgery.

There were anesthesiologists, thoracic surgeons, obstetricians, pediatricians, and cardiologists.

But that surgery was an elective surgery.

It was a scheduled surgery, and we prepared thoroughly, so it was an operating room with many people gathered.

On the other hand, now…….

‘It’s too chaotic, isn’t it?’

The operating room was a market in a completely different way.

It was utter chaos.

The operating room staff are moving busily, but not in an orderly manner at all.

“Get that ICU bed out of here, there’s no room to set up!”

The operating room nurse shouts.

The ICU bed next to the operating table seems to have just come from the cardiac surgery ICU.

The blankets are scattered on the bed, and the sheets with blood on them are half-hanging on the bed and down to the floor.

Water and blood drained through the chest tube are scattered on the operating room floor.

The chest tube bottle seems to have been knocked over and then set up again.

‘Did they push it all the way here from the ICU in a hurry?’

As I was grasping the situation, someone shouted loudly.

“Put a headlight on me. We need to open him up quickly!”

It was Dr. Ma Dong Seop.

Ahn Gyeong Sik is helping Ma Dong Seop in front.

I checked the patient’s name and came to my senses.

M/49 Kim Deok Sang

Patient Kim Deok Sang!

And the date and time written on the wall board is tonight.

I quickly sharpened my senses and looked around.

‘What’s the patient’s vitals?’

The systolic blood pressure on the monitor indicates the 50s.

There is almost no wave in the patient’s blood pressure seen through the A-line (arterial line, a blood pressure monitoring device inserted into the patient’s artery).

‘The heart is almost about to stop, isn’t it?’

Tuk― Tuk―

Ma Dong Seop cuts off the wire hanging on the sternum.

It’s the sternum that I cut open.

When the surgery was over and sutured, Ma Dong Seop was cutting off one by one the wires that were used to reattach the sternum.

“Retractor!”

The sternum is opened, and Ma Dong Seop slowly widens the gap.

However, the heart that should be under the sternum is not clearly visible.

Only hematomas [collections of blood] made of clotted blood are full on top of it.

Ma Dong Seop holds gauze in his hand and carefully removes the hematomas, shouting.

“Damn it, I think the anastomosis (blood vessel suture site) is all messed up while compressing [applying pressure to stop bleeding]?!”

The patient is almost in an arrest situation.

Ma Dong Seop seems to be saying that compression made the patient worse.

Drrr―

Only after Ma Dong Seop opens the sternum by widening the retractor is the operating room nurses’ surgical instrument setup completed.

Only now is it starting to look like a normal operating room.

That’s how much of an emergency surgery the current situation is.

“It shouldn’t be too late already……!”

Ma Dong Seop mutters anxiously to himself.

‘Something was responded to late. Earlier, he said that compression was not a good choice, but…….’

While I was watching the situation carefully, the anesthesiologist was squeezing blood packs by hand to supply volume to the patient.

Seo-eok―

As Ma Dong Seop almost removes the hematomas around the heart, the blood pressure slowly, little by little, begins to rise.

At that time, Professor Kim Seong Tak rushes in.

“What, how long has it been since the arrest? Dong Seop, can you see where the bleeding is coming from? Why didn’t you put him on ECMO [Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, a life support machine] first? Is the heart beating?”

Many questions are poured out at once.

“V.fib (ventricular fibrillation, a type of arrhythmia) was the first event, and it was near arrest, but I think he had tamponade [compression of the heart due to fluid accumulation], Professor!”

Ma Dong Seop also quickly tells Professor Kim Seong Tak about the current situation.

“The blood pressure is slowly stabilizing as we remove the hematoma and add volume, but I don’t know where the bleeding is coming from!”

Professor Kim Seong Tak quickly puts on his surgical gown and enters the field.

“Did you do a lot of compression? You should have opened it in the ICU first, or put him on ECMO if he was in arrest! I don’t know if the patient’s head will be okay……!”

The situation is getting more and more urgent.

The moment I was about to follow Professor Kim Seong Tak’s hand and look at the surgical field―

* * *

“Huh!”

I fell off the bed.

Thud!

I hit my knee on the floor.

Damn it, what’s going on?

Without even feeling the pain, I jumped up.

“Krrr…….”

Geunuk’s snoring is still the same.

What time is it?

After a day with so many things happening, I fell asleep as soon as I put my head on the bed after returning to the dorm.

I sat down on the floor, grabbed my numb knee, and hurriedly checked the time.

’10 o’clock.’

I remember falling asleep in the dorm for a while…….

In the meantime, I had a terrible dream.

I shook my head violently to drive away the remaining sleepiness and thought.

‘……Did I just see the future?’

Was this seeing the future, or just a nightmare?