Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 54

#54 Isn’t Thoracic Surgery a First? (2)

“Yeonseo, what… what happened to you?”

Yeonseo, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, looked noticeably gaunt.

Chapped lips from fatigue.

Pale cheeks.

Wrinkled clothes.

And unkempt hair.

“You’ve changed a bit since I last saw you….”

“What, you mean I look scruffy?”

“No, well.”

I trailed off.

Yeonseo always maintained an appearance as if she had stepped out of a commercial.

But in just a month, her vibe had completely changed.

To exaggerate a bit, it was like a celebrity who used to film ion drink commercials had come back from filming a jungle exploration show.

“I told you not to make fun of my appearance.”

“No, you look more human and better now.”

“Too late. It’s too late to say that now, okay?”

Yeonseo pouted.

“Even Seonhan *oppa* [older brother or male friend] will understand once you spend some time in thoracic surgery. You’ll be like, ‘Ah~ so that’s why Yeonseo looked like that back then.’”

Yeonseo said in a disgruntled voice.

Just how hard had it been?

A little later, we sat in front of a computer at the ward station, whispering to each other.

“Did you read all the handovers?”

“Yeah. We have to be the attending physicians, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Sounds fun. I finally feel like a real doctor.”

Yeonseo looked dumbfounded at my words.

“Fun? The patients here are only looking at you, *oppa*! They even come to the station to tell you things if something happens. The pressure is no joke.”

.

It refers to a doctor who is fully responsible for a patient.

Usually, you start as an attending physician after completing your internship, from the first year of residency.

However, thoracic surgery is unique in that it assigns ward attending physicians to interns.

Other departments usually assign this role to residents, but thoracic surgery assigns it to interns.

Why?

Of course, it’s due to the shortage of manpower.

“Thoracic surgery has really few residents compared to the number of patients. So, our interns often have to make decisions on their own for the ward patients.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“Ugh, you’ll be sweating bullets when you actually experience it.”

Yeonseo shook her head.

Of course, our interns are also doctors with medical licenses.

But interns who only rotate for a month are attending physicians?

This only happens in the thoracic surgery department among the 20 or so departments of YeonGuk University Hospital.

‘Attending physician experience……’

I’m already nervous.

Can I do well?

But I’m also excited.

It seems like it will be a test to bring out my abilities as a doctor to the fullest, so a desire for a challenge wells up inside me.

“How many hours of sleep can we get?”

“Let’s see… I think I slept about 3-4 hours during the first week?”

3-4 hours, huh.

Just as expected.

I didn’t expect to get plenty of sleep in thoracic surgery from the start.

“After a week, you’ll get used to it and it’ll be manageable. But if patients suddenly flood in, you’ll become a living earthbound spirit of this ward, adaptation or not.”

Yeonseo smiled weakly.

Hearing that, I understood why thoracic surgery interns weren’t often seen in the dorms.

“And another thing to be careful about…….”

Yeonseo continued.

I focused and wrote down every word Yeonseo said without missing a single syllable.

But suddenly, looking at Yeonseo’s attire, she was wearing a gown over her scrubs.

“Do interns also go into the operating room?”

I asked with half expectation.

Maybe I’ll have my first experience in the operating room.

But the answer was disappointing.

“No, it’s uncomfortable to wear a shirt inside the gown like when you’re rotating in internal medicine, so you can’t work here. You’ll know after working for a few days why TS (thoracic surgery) interns only wear comfortable scrubs.”

Soon, Yeonseo’s grumbling continued.

“It’s lucky if you change your scrubs every day… The colleague who rotates in the same part as me had the same red pepper flakes on their scrubs two days ago still in the same spot today?”

That much?

I was speechless.

How busy must they be to not even have time to take out new scrubs and change?

As I was listening to Yeonseo.

I felt like it was strangely quiet around me.

Suddenly, I looked around the station, and other than Yeonseo and me, the nurses weren’t saying anything.

‘……What is this ominous silence?’

Soon after.

A commotion was heard from the treatment room behind the station.

A fierce voice, as if it were about to eat someone alive.

“Hey Ahn Gyeongshik! Don’t see my patient anymore!!”

“I, I’m sorry!”

“Is ‘sorry’ enough? Is this even a reasonable order? Huh?!”

Thump, thump!

Objects collided with each other and fell to the floor.

Then suddenly, I heard a sound cutting through the air near my ear.

Whoosh―

……What just flew by?

Yeonseo and I looked at the floor at the same time.

The forceps in the dressing set had flown all the way to the station and were spinning on the floor.

Yeonseo and I made eye contact and couldn’t say anything.

“Aren’t you paying attention? Huh?!”

In the meantime, the scolding continued.

I lowered my voice as much as possible and asked quietly.

“What’s that sound?”

“It’s the sound of a rice thresher running.”

“Rice thresher?”

“That’s Professor Han Sanggi… We all call him the rice thresher.”

Yeonseo shrugged.

“I’m lucky I’m in a different professor’s part, so I haven’t experienced it, but he’s no joke when he’s angry. Once you get threshed, your mentality is gone for days… That’s why his nickname is rice thresher.”

“Why is he so angry?”

“I don’t know. From what I heard, the resident [a doctor in training] must have done something really wrong?”

Crash!

No sooner had she finished speaking than something else flew by.

This time it was a 50cc syringe.

I had no idea what would fly next.

“Judging by how many things are flying around, it seems like it’s a super rice thresher day?”

At Yeonseo’s words, I asked, holding my breath.

“Is thoracic surgery always like this?”

“*Oppa*, do you know how I feel right now? I feel like I’m escaping from Shawshank [referencing the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, about escaping from prison].”

Yeonseo’s cheeks looked gaunt as she said that.

It seemed like a lot had happened in the past month.

I heard that the people in thoracic surgery are particularly sensitive and rough, but could that rumor be true?

“Anyway, the handover is over! No more questions, right?”

“Huh?”

“I’m throwing off the shackles and restraints of thoracic surgery and leaving to find happiness! Seonhan *oppa*, be happy too!”

“Hey, wait…….”

“Freeeedoooom!”

Yeonseo spread her arms and ran out.

It was like a prisoner running out of a dreaded prison.

No, how much did she suffer for a month to be like that?

At that moment, I felt a large presence behind me.

“Our friend has finally arrived.”

Thud―

I was so surprised.

I thought it was a gangster who came to collect debts.

The ward itself had a grim atmosphere, and looking up at Ma Dongseop’s face in the midst of all this…….

He looked even scarier because of the shadows on his face.

“Welcome. Is this your first time in thoracic surgery?”

He smiled as he said that.

Don’t the professors also fear Ma Dongseop when dealing with him……?

If a doctor like Ma Dongseop came under my supervision later, I wondered if I would be too scared to order him around.

“You know that the interns are supposed to come to the conference room by 6 o’clock, right?”

Crash!

The sound of someone being thoroughly threshed was still loud on one side of the ward.

On the other hand, Ma Dongseop’s voice was so casual.

Was this situation so natural?

“Why the expression? Are you scared because you saw the professor getting angry?”

“A little.”

“Hehe. Still, he’s relatively gentle compared to the other thoracic surgery professors. He doesn’t grab you by the collar and punch you in the jaw, does he?”

“……Excuse me?”

“Just kidding, hahaha.”

Hey.

It doesn’t sound like a joke at all?

With a scene from a horror movie behind us, Ma Dongseop led me to the conference room.

“Well, you probably got a rough handover from the previous month’s intern, but ask me if you have any questions.”

Ma Dongseop said as he walked.

I hesitated for a moment and asked.

“Do thoracic surgery interns mainly do attending physician jobs in the ward? Is there a chance to go into the operating room…….”

“Operating room?”

Ma Dongseop chuckled at my question.

“My friend. It’s still too early for the operating room.”

“Then, will there be an opportunity to do intubation in the ward?”

“Haha. I saw you watching the intubation last time, so you want to do it? You’re also the type who likes to do things with your hands.”

Ma Dongseop patted my shoulder with a satisfied expression.

“Good, good. It’s very desirable for a prospective surgeon to have a desire for procedures!”

As he said that, he enthusiastically made cutting motions in the air.

“Your hands are itching, right? You want to grab a knife and cut it open, and burn it with electricity. Right?”

No, he’s not wrong…….

You’re scaring me when you say that!

This guy is in big trouble if he doesn’t wear a doctor’s gown.

He’ll definitely be mistaken for a gangster.

“The world of thoracic surgery is profound. To clear the mission of becoming a thoracic surgeon, you have to complete three stages.”

Three stages?

It’s an interesting expression, like explaining a game.

His explanation continued.

―Stage 1: Ward

―Stage 2: Intensive Care Unit

―Stage 3: Operating Room

“Stage 1 is the ward (General Ward, GW). Stage 2 is the intensive care unit (Intensive Care Unit, ICU), and Stage 3 can be seen as the operating room (Operating Room, OR).”

You have to clear stage 1 to get stage 2.

You have to clear stage 2 to get stage 3.

In other words, don’t even think about the operating room before mastering the ward and intensive care.

As the resident’s years increase one by one, experience accumulates, and you can clear each stage as you level up.

‘I still have a long way to go…….’

I realize once again that I’m a rookie doctor.

I want to hold a scalpel as soon as possible, but there are many things to experience before that.

I’m just about to take the first step.

“Then, are the things I’m going to do this month a tutorial?”

Ma Dongseop laughed at my question.

“That’s right. The internship process can be seen as stage 0, a tutorial. By the way, it seems like the boss of stage 0 is here?”

A boss?

Thud―

Ma Dongseop opens the conference room door.

When the conference room door opened, two interns were sitting in chairs in the corner.

They already looked very disciplined.

And in front of the monitor, the back of a woman with long brown hair can be seen.

Her hair was dripping wet, as if she had just washed it and hadn’t even dried it.

‘Ah, that person is……!’

A cat-like impression.

Overall slender figure.

She was wearing an oversized gown, and the loose sleeves of the doctor’s gown were rolled up.

“Did you come, Ma Dong?”

As she said that, she turned her head with a lollipop in her mouth.

It was a familiar face.