Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 41

#41 I See You (8)

An outdoor food stall, ten minutes from the hospital.

People are sitting around circular tables, raising their glasses.

It’s a place with a view of the tranquil street scene at dusk.

“There’s a place like this near the hospital.”

“Didn’t know? Their chicken feet are really delicious here!”

Nurse Cha Yuri and I took a seat at a good spot.

The cool night air of May feels pleasant.

Looking around, I can see office workers who have finished their tiring day, each unwinding.

“Actually, hospital people don’t usually come here. It’s nice because there’s no one to worry about running into.”

“So, your way of relieving stress is…”

“Of course, it’s eating!”

Cha Yuri says cheerfully.

Just how good is this place?

Seeing her face full of anticipation, I became curious too.

Tap―

Soon, chicken feet appeared on our table.

A bright red color with a glossy sheen.

“Kyaa, looks delicious~!”

Cha Yuri put on plastic gloves as excitedly as a child at an amusement park.

I also put on gloves and picked up a chicken foot.

And the moment I put it in my mouth, I snapped to attention.

“Ugh.”

“How is it?”

“It’s good, but…”

…It’s spicy!

It’s an incredibly stimulating taste.

Can this even be called food?

Could it be that the owner made this to assassinate us?

But Cha Yuri chews on the chicken feet, rolling them around in her mouth as if it’s the most delicious food in the world.

She eats so deliciously….

I feel like I’d be committing a great crime if I didn’t enjoy it in front of her.

“Are you a regular here?”

“When I was a new nurse, I got scolded a lot by the senior nurses. Since then, whenever I had a hard time, I came here alone to eat chicken feet and drink soju [Korean distilled spirit].”

Kkeu~!

She says, then throws back a shot of soju.

Well, the stimulating taste is perfect as a soju snack.

I also swallowed a glass of alcohol following her lead.

Kkeu.

There are days when soju tastes particularly sweet, and today is one of those days.

“Eat it with the broth. Take care of your stomach.”

“Thank you, Auntie!”

The owner nonchalantly throws us a service [free side dish or extra serving] and passes by.

Cha Yuri smiles brightly.

She must be a regular, so they know each other well.

Anyway, she’s an incredibly sociable person.

I stared at her face and asked.

“Come to think of it, how many years have you been a nurse, Cha Yuri? I don’t even know your age.”

“My age?”

Cha Yuri grinned and suddenly raised a chicken foot.

Then, she counted three toes of the chicken foot in order and showed them to me.

“Tada. Thirty.”

I laughed.

What a novel way to tell someone your age.

It’s the first time I’ve seen someone tell their age like that.

“Thirty?”

“I’m older than I look! Didn’t you know?”

She says, laughing.

I heard that she has been working in the intensive care unit at Yeonguk University Hospital for three years.

Now that she has enough experience, she has been assigned as a preceptor (a role that teaches new nurses) starting this year.

“There’s a saying that if a dog stays in a school for three years, it can recite poetry, right? Come to think of it, our ancestors were very accurate. It takes exactly three years for intensive care unit nurses to become proficient in their work.”

“Isn’t the intensive care unit tough?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Cha Yuri chuckled.

Of course, even among nurses, there are preferred and avoided departments.

Among them, the ICU is the place with the highest turnover rate for nurses.

That means it’s a tough place.

The proportion of new nurses is high, while the proportion of skilled veteran nurses is low, so there is a severe shortage of manpower.

It can be said to be the sorrow of the intensive care unit, which is not well seen outside the hospital.

“But Sunhan-ssam doesn’t seem to be in a position to talk about others?”

“Me?”

“I saw it all in the TV interview. You said you wanted to go into surgery? You’re still an intern, so you have plenty of time to think, but why are you trying to walk such a thorny path?”

…Come to think of it, that’s true.

When I think about it, the path I’m trying to take is also quite difficult, isn’t it?

I shouldn’t be worrying about others.

Gulp―

Cha Yuri swallowed her second glass of soju and said with a grin.

“Well, still, Sunhan-ssam seems like he’ll become a good surgeon.”

“Thanks for the empty compliment.”

“It’s not an empty compliment? I can tell by watching you suture.”

Suture?

I tilted my head.

I’ve only sutured once so far.

It was only the simple one I did after Grandma Kim Hye-jung passed away….

“Nurses can tell just by watching for a moment whether a doctor has good hands or not.”

I’ve heard that somewhere before.

I remember hearing a similar story in internal medicine.

Hearing the same story from nurses in a row, it seems like it’s not an empty compliment.

“And more than anything…”

“?”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen an intern put so much care into suturing a patient who has already passed away.”

Nurse Cha Yuri’s voice suddenly becomes affectionate.

Her eyes become moist as if she is reminiscing about Grandma Kim Hye-jung.

Well, it’s understandable.

I only saw Grandma for ten days, but she was with her for more than two months.

They would have spent short but almost family-like times together.

My nose also tingled for a moment, and I silently filled her soju glass.

“Come to think of it, it must have been hard for you too, Cha Yuri.”

“Of course. I usually force myself to smile brightly. I can’t stand it otherwise.”

“……”

“It’s bearable when my body is tired. Nursing work is hard no matter where you go… but watching patients die next to me is sometimes hard.”

Cha Yuri spoke slowly, holding the soju glass I had filled.

I feel like her tongue is starting to twist, but is it just my imagination?

“I wonder what kind of wealth and glory I’m going to enjoy to see such terrible things while working… I sometimes think that. But what can I do? This is our job.”

I was lost in thought at Cha Yuri’s words.

That’s right.

This is our job.

I will see many patients in the future, and some of them will surely die.

And I have to get used to it.

Will there ever come a day when I can become indifferent to their deaths?

“Oh my, this girl died again.”

“?”

I raised my head at the owner’s voice.

Nodding, nodding―

Before I knew it, Nurse Cha Yuri was asleep while sitting.

What, she only drank three glasses?

“Anyway, this girl who can’t even drink comes here whenever she has a hard time. Hospital work must be tough.”

“Does she always do this?”

“Oh, don’t even mention it. But she wakes up in about 30 minutes.”

The owner clicked her tongue.

And after laying the passed-out Cha Yuri’s head on the table, she glanced at me.

“But is the young man her boyfriend? It seems like it’s the first time I’ve seen this girl come here with a man.”

The owner’s expression as she asked that was sly.

I think she’s making a big misunderstanding.

I said firmly.

“No. We’re colleagues.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

At my firm answer, the owner smacked her lips as if she was disappointed.

“Tsk. I thought the girl had finally found someone… Anyway, I’ll wake her up and send her home when she sobers up.”

“I will.”

“I’ll keep a close eye on you, so don’t even think about taking her to a strange place.”

The owner glared at me.

I won’t, I won’t.

I took off my coat and covered the sleeping Cha Yuri’s back.

And I tore off another chicken foot.

It’s delicious once you get used to it.

It’s subtly addictive.

It feels like the tongue in my mouth is crying out, ‘Why are you doing this to me,’ but it definitely relieves stress to eat something spicy.

“Oh? It’s raining.”

When I turned my head at the people’s voices, it was raining.

Pat, pat―

The raindrops hit the ground.

Soon, the food stall was filled with the sound of rain.

I filled my soju glass, thinking of Grandma Kim Hye-jung, who had gone to heaven where flower paths were spread.

That’s how the tiring day at the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) came to an end.

Leaving behind the days that would be remembered with a tingling and bitter feeling, like the spicy taste of chicken feet and the aftertaste of soju.

#ICU Marine Corps (1)

After that day, I saw two more futures.

The first was a pulmonary embolism patient.

I saw a future where a man in his 50s was brought into the ICU while receiving CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation].

But the information I could get from the dream was too limited.

I couldn’t find the man in the dream in this big hospital with just the face I vaguely saw.

In the end, the patient fell into a brain-dead state despite ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation] insertion and died a few days later.

The second was an acute viral pneumonia patient.

A very cute 7-year-old girl.

The child who was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit crying while holding a teddy bear on the day I was on duty.

When I was on duty again two days later, she was already on a ventilator.

In less than a week, the child died, and the intensive care unit became a sea of tears due to the parents’ wailing that day.

* * *

After sending several patients to heaven like that.

I was spending my days with a drooping mood.

‘It’s hard.’

It’s not my body, but my heart that’s tired.

I feel helpless because I know what’s coming but I’m helplessly suffering.

It feels like I’ve become a boxer who couldn’t even throw a punch and was knocked out in the ring.

Do I have to just keep getting hit like this?

No way!

I clenched my fist and got up.

Rather, I feel stubborn.

‘Just you wait. I’ll save the next patient no matter what!’

That’s how my intensive care unit internship was passing its midpoint.

“Doctor, this is the surgical intensive care unit. There’s someone who had surgery today and is oozing (fluid leaking out), so we need to redress them.”

“Yes, I understand!”

That day was my duty day, and the pager rang on my way back to the intern’s quarters after a late meal.

<70/M Attacking>

That patient has a unique name.

It was a 70-year-old man who had undergone lung cancer surgery.

I approached the patient and greeted him.

“Hello, I’m here to disinfect the surgical area on your left side again.”

“Are you a medic? Take a look at this wound.”

“……Yes?”

I thought I misheard.

I didn’t know it then.

That I was meeting one of the most unique patients I would never forget in my life.

‘A medic?’

This isn’t the military.

Besides, isn’t a medic an old-fashioned expression for a medical soldier?

I tilted my head, but I had other things to do, so I tried to finish the disinfection quickly.

“Patient, I’ll start disinfecting.”

I removed the gauze that was covering it and disinfected the area around the chest tube with povidone (disinfectant).

But… the patient’s eyes are a bit strange.

Below the half-closed eyelids, I can see eyes shining brightly.

Those eyes have a beast-like murderous intent.

Why is he being like this?

“Patient, are you okay?”

“Focusing on the front, nothing unusual!”

“……Disinfection is done. I’ll go now.”

“Go around the right trench!”

What a ridiculous sound?

He’s like a soldier on a battlefield….

I held back a slight laugh and moved my feet.

At that time, Nurse Cha Yuri, who was taking care of the patient right next to me, muttered in a small voice.

“Oh my, it seems like that person is coming……”

“That person?”