Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 20

Dr. A Doctor Seeing a Fresh Future-Episode 20 (20/241)

#20 Triage (5)

I grabbed Jo Jin-gi and asked urgently,

“Hey, did you make any mistakes today?”

“Why are you suddenly picking a fight?”

Jo Jin-gi retorted, sounding displeased.

“I’m just asking in case.”

“Hey, I was called an ace during my internship. I know how to do my job, so mind your own business!”

His expression twisted.

Well, his pride must be hurt. It’s not a senior, but a peer questioning him.

But if there’s even a slight suspicion, I can’t just let it go today.

“There weren’t any problems during the thoracentesis [a procedure to remove fluid from the space between the lungs and the chest wall], right?”

“There weren’t.”

“What about the post X-ray? You took it after the procedure, right?”

“I took it, but I haven’t checked it yet…….”

“What?!”

“Ah, jeez. You’re being so serious.”

Jo Jin-gi frowned.

Soon, a frustrated excuse followed.

“Hey, do you think you’re the only one working hard? While you were dealing with the traffic accident patient, I was busy too! Can’t that be put off for a bit?”

“…….”

Sweat trickled down my back.

Checking the X-ray after removing pleural fluid is a basic requirement.

How could he neglect that, no matter how busy he was?

The suspicion grows.

‘Wait. If there was a problem with the patient, wouldn’t the nurses have noticed?’

Thinking that, I looked towards the station…….

Unfortunately, it’s the nurses’ change of shift. They seem too busy with the handover to notice anything.

The anxiety about a medical accident gradually creeps in.

“Open it now, quickly.”

“What?”

“The X-ray, I mean!”

“Ah, jeez, you’re so impatient. I’ll check it, okay?”

Jo Jin-gi grumbled and checked the X-ray on the monitor.

“Uh…… the pleural fluid is still there? No wonder it didn’t come out well even when I poked. Should I try again?”

Jo Jin-gi stared at the left lung with a bewildered expression.

But my gaze is fixed on the opposite lung, examining it closely.

Damn it, what is this?!

For a moment, I barely managed to stop myself from cursing out loud and said,

“Can’t you see this?”

“What?”

“There’s a pneumothorax [collapsed lung] this big on the opposite side where the fluid is?”

“Huh?”

Soon, Jo Jin-gi’s face turned pale.

He’s clearly an intern at Yonkuk University Hospital. It’s enough time for him to realize that something is wrong.

‘Clearly, the treated lung is the left one, but the pneumothorax occurred on the right side?’

Soon, one possibility comes to my mind.

This bastard, could it be…….

“Hey, did you accidentally poke the opposite lung?”

Jo Jin-gi doesn’t answer my question and freezes.

There’s a term called tunnel vision.

It refers to the phenomenon where the surroundings appear dark, as if you’re in a tunnel.

It was Jo Jin-gi’s fatal mistake, as he hadn’t performed the procedure in a long time.

“Where’s the patient?”

I asked urgently.

If Jo Jin-gi poked the opposite lung, it’s the worst-case scenario.

He poked a hole in the only functioning lung, so we need to take action right away.

“J-Just a moment!”

Whack!

Suddenly, he grabs my sleeve.

And says with a desperate expression.

“Sun-han, if this gets out, my intern evaluation this month is really screwed.”

“What?”

“I’ve already been getting a lot of flak because of the cast on my hand…… Can’t we just let it pass quietly?”

What?

What is he even saying right now?

As I stare at him with a dumbfounded expression, Jo Jin-gi mumbles in a small voice.

“The pneumothorax is small, so maybe we can just leave it alone…….”

“You crazy bastard.”

My voice lowers.

I’ve never lost control of my emotions this much since becoming a doctor.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not about your intern score, the patient is going to die because of you!”

Flinch—

As I press him, he takes a step back.

“Where’s the patient? This X-ray is 30 minutes old! Where is the patient?!”

“A-8 section…….”

Thud, thud!

I ran towards the patient.

Swish!

Opening the curtain, I see a 60-year-old patient lying alone, gasping for breath.

With each inhale, the area above the collarbone sinks deeply, and the breathing is very rapid.

He’s breathing so heavily that it’s hard to speak, and he’s expressing his current difficult situation with gestures and expressions.

A nasal cannula [a device used to deliver supplemental oxygen] is in his nose, but the oxygen saturation shows 53%.

It’s a more serious situation than expected!

The alarm is ringing, but it seems like they didn’t hear it because the emergency room is in chaos.

‘This was it!’

The future I saw in my dream.

The future of being sued for medical malpractice due to an intern’s mistake was unfolding before my eyes in real-time.

I increased the oxygen flow and shouted,

“Get a facial mask O2 ready here!”

A nurse who heard my loud voice was startled and ran over from afar.

Jo Jin-gi, who was watching this situation, is frozen and doesn’t know what to do.

I urged him.

“Don’t just stand there, show the X-ray to Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol and contact TS (Thoracic Surgery)!”

“Ah, okay!”

He also knows that the situation is serious at this point, so he runs off in a hurry.

I turned my head and focused on the patient again.

Let’s think!

What can I do right now?

The patient is currently suffering from pneumothorax.

Pneumothorax means that there is air inside the chest where there should be no air.

The answer is to quickly remove the air so that the lungs can breathe smoothly again.

—Needle aspiration.

I quickly came to a conclusion and shouted,

“Bring me a 16G needle!”

“Yes!”

The nurse moves quickly, and soon a sharp, long needle is in my hand.

Hesitate—

I looked down at the needle and hesitated for a moment.

……Is it right for me to do this?

Maybe I should wait until more skilled people arrive.

But there’s no time.

The patient is gasping as if he’s about to stop breathing at any moment.

Since he’s an elderly man, there’s no telling what will happen if this condition persists even a little longer.

‘Yes, I have to do it.’

I stopped hesitating.

Even as I’m hesitating like this, the patient is complaining of difficulty breathing.

As a doctor, watching this without doing anything is no different from abandoning someone drowning in water.

‘Even if it’s fast, it will take at least 10 minutes for thoracic surgery to arrive. If I don’t do something now, it’ll be too late!’

I put conviction in my own decision.

And above all…….

I want to change this patient’s future with my own hands.

Thump, thump—

My heart beats wildly.

A hot impulse rises from deep within.

As I saw in the textbook, I pushed the sharp needle into the patient’s chest, from the upper side of the nipple to the upper surface of the rib.

Thwack!

The needle enters the patient’s chest.

The 60-year-old man’s body twitches and convulses.

‘It’s still shallow, deeper…….’

I put strength into my hand.

As the needle went all the way in, the sound of air leaking from inside the patient’s body soon escaped.

Whoosh—

Soon, the patient’s respiratory rate slows down little by little, and the oxygen saturation recovers to 83.

And at that moment.

“Cough—”

I heard the sound of the patient taking a quick breath from his mouth, which was covered by a facial mask.

‘It worked!’ I saved the patient for now.

The nurses who were watching from the side brought an e-cart [emergency cart] in preparation for a CPR situation and are preparing for intubation.

Then, I hear Yeo Bong-cheol’s voice from behind, running while talking on the phone.

“Dong-seop, it’s really urgent here. It looks like we need to put in both chest tubes…….”

As soon as he arrives, he opens his eyes wide and says,

“Shin Sun-han! What did you do just now?”

Yeo Bong-cheol’s face turns pale.

As an intern, I independently performed emergency treatment, so he’s horrified.

“Are you crazy! Who authorized you to do emergency treatment…….”

Yeo Bong-cheol, who was about to burst out in anger, calmly assessed the situation after examining the treatment I had done.

“……The SpO2 (arterial oxygen saturation) has risen for now, thoracic surgery will be down soon, so come out!”

Soon, Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol switched places with me and shouted to the nurse.

“Give me a three-way and a 50cc syringe!”

“Here it is!”

“Shin Sun-han, help me in the middle.”

“Yes!”

Yeo Bong-cheol began to draw air from the patient’s chest with a 50cc syringe.

Whoosh, whoosh—

The sight of him pumping air out with his thick arms is like pumping water at a construction site.

Meanwhile, I helped by turning the valve of the three-way connector, which was made in three directions, by 90 degrees.

It’s a simple repetitive task, but even that alone seems to be rapidly improving the patient’s condition.

“How are you feeling, patient?”

Yeo Bong-cheol asks.

The patient, who was barely able to breathe, nodded and said in a hoarse voice.

“My wife went out for a while, and I felt like I was going to die because I was so out of breath…… I couldn’t even make a sound…….”

“You’ll be fine now.”

Yeo Bong-cheol soothes the patient.

The moment I look at the patient’s face, a feeling of pity and guilt surges up.

He came to the hospital for treatment, but how surprised would he be that it became even more difficult to breathe?

But the old man smiled softly instead of complaining.

“I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe, but it’s much more comfortable now that the doctors are taking care of me…… Thank you.”

“…….”

We were speechless for a moment.

It’s very difficult to confess our mistake in front of a patient who trusts the doctor one hundred percent.

In the midst of a momentarily subdued atmosphere, a large doctor from thoracic surgery arrived.

‘Who is this person?’

I glanced at the name written on his chest.

Thoracic Surgery Ma Dong-seop

He has a strong impression.

If Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol is a mountain bandit, Doctor Ma Dong-seop is like a wild bear.

The pressure is doubled when the two of them stand side by side!

If he wasn’t wearing a white coat, I would have flinched and been scared.

“Bong-cheol.”

“Oh, Dong-seop is here?”

“Good job! We’ll take care of the rest.”

“I’m sorry. Please take care of it.”

Yeo Bong-cheol and Ma Dong-seop had a short conversation and tapped each other on the shoulder, and soon the patient was transferred to the care of thoracic surgery.

While Doctor Ma Dong-seop was disinfecting and preparing for chest tube insertion, Yeo Bong-cheol turned to us and said,

“Interns, follow me for a moment.”

The look in his eyes as he said that is fierce.

As expected, Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol’s personality wouldn’t let it go.

It’s a chilling atmosphere that seems like the emergency room will be turned upside down.

* * *

Conference room.

An ominous silence hangs in the air.

Yeo Bong-cheol stood the four of us interns up and rubbed his forehead with a flushed face.

He can’t control his anger, and steam seems to be rising from his head.

I knew he was originally hot-tempered, but he seems much angrier than usual now.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen such an absurd mistake in our emergency room.”

“…….”

“You’re supposed to be interns from Yonkuk University, shouldn’t you be able to distinguish between the left and right sides of an X-ray!”

Yeo Bong-cheol shouts.

I lowered my head without saying a word.

Clearly, Jo Jin-gi is the only one of the four of us who made a mistake.

But in this situation, making excuses seems like it would be more harmful, so it’s better not to say anything.

“…….”

“…….”

Everyone seems to be thinking the same thing, So-dam and Joong-won hyung are also keeping their mouths shut.

However, I can feel only Jo Jin-gi next to me rolling his eyes around anxiously.

“To a patient whose opposite lung is full of water and can’t function, you created a pneumo (pneumothorax) [collapsed lung] on the healthy side…… and then you didn’t even check the X-ray properly?”

His voice gets louder and louder.

The more he does, the more Jo Jin-gi’s shoulders shrink.

“Aren’t you paying attention? Do you want to kill the patient? Are you guys murderers or doctors?!”

Thud!

At that time, several residents opened the door and entered the conference room.

Their faces are also full of annoyance.

“I heard there’s a bastard who did thoracentesis on the opposite side earlier?”

“I can’t believe it, it’s ridiculous. Who did it?!”

The situation is getting bigger and bigger.

The speed at which Jo Jin-gi rolls his eyes seems to be getting faster and faster.