Dr. Shin Seonhan: The Doctor Who Sees The Future [EN]: Chapter 72

#72 Breath (3)

“What’s today’s date?”

“June 19th.”

“Make sure to remember this. Today is Shin Seon-han’s first chest tube insertion. Don’t forget that Ma Dong-seop was there to watch you.”

My eyes widened.

As I was getting used to the skills required of an intern, chest tube insertion was a skill that far exceeded the difficulty of the existing ones.

And I’m doing that chest tube insertion today?

“Me?”

“You’ll be doing it to the point of exhaustion when you become a first-year anyway, so just think of it as starting a few months early, hehe. I don’t give this kind of opportunity to just anyone.”

It seems that in this person’s mind, I’m already a prospective first-year resident in the Department of Thoracic Surgery.

No, putting that aside, suddenly being thrown into actual practice like this.

I feel like a baby lion being pushed off a cliff.

“Why? Are you worried about whether you can do well?”

“A little.”

“Come on. You’ve pierced a pericardium [the membrane enclosing the heart] in the middle of Gangnam Station, what’s with the sudden change?”

Ma Dong-seop chuckled.

From then on, Ma Dong-seop’s explanation began.

His impromptu lecture, filled with a wealth of experience, proceeded at a rapid pace.

He found a video about chest tube insertion on his smartphone and showed it to me, stopping every three seconds to explain, spitting as he spoke.

I followed him breathlessly, listening to the explanation.

“Okay, do you understand everything perfectly up to here?”

“Yes, I understand.”

Ring, ring!

At that moment, Ma Dong-seop’s pager rang.

“Yes, I’m right in front of the emergency room.”

Ma Dong-seop was about to open the emergency room door but stopped again and said to me.

“Tell me what I just said, in your own words, one more time.”

Only after I repeated Ma Dong-seop’s explanation could we open the emergency room door.

The emergency room that I had not seen for two months.

I was lost in an untimely sentiment.

Fittingly, Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol greeted us.

“Wow, look who it is. It’s Shin Seon-han.”

“Hello, Doctor Yeo Bong-cheol.”

“Looks like you’re rotating in TS (Thoracic Surgery) now?”

Yeo Bong-cheol put his arm around my shoulder as if he was glad to see me.

Then he whispered in a teasing tone.

“TS isn’t much, right? Don’t you miss EM (Emergency Medicine)? Do you know how precious it is to work one day and rest one day?”

“Hey, what are you doing with our intern?”

“Look at him. Can’t you see Dong-seop’s eyes are sunken? If you go to thoracic surgery, you’ll have to live like that every day.”

Yeo Bong-cheol spoke as if he was trying to drive a wedge between us.

Then Ma Dong-seop chuckled and retorted.

“You’re the one who looks like a mountain bandit every time I see you. Don’t you ever shave, Bong-cheol?”

“Hey, this grew in just 12 hours. I shaved before coming to work.”

“Hehe. Anyway, where is the patient?”

“Lying down in treatment room number 2 over there. I’ve given a rough explanation. The nurse has already printed out the consent form.”

We greeted Yeo Bong-cheol briefly and approached the patient.

Yang Song-i.

A 17-year-old female patient.

She looks bright and like she studies well.

Her eyes are full of the curiosity typical of her age.

She has an oxygen tube in her nose, and she is already wearing a patient gown.

“Hello, patient. I’m Ma Dong-seop from the Department of Thoracic Surgery. You have a pneumothorax [collapsed lung] on your right side right now.”

“Pneumothorax… but what exactly is it? I’ve heard of it a lot.”

The student asked back, looking frightened.

Ma Dong-seop explained as kindly as possible with his gangster-like face.

“Our lungs are made up of small alveoli, that is, very small balloons, so we can breathe.”

Ma Dong-seop’s explanation continued.

Sometimes there are big ones among the alveoli.

They have to grow into small alveoli as the body grows, but because the growth rate is fast, they stop as big balloons.

“Big alveoli often burst, just like big balloons are easy to burst.”

The student nodded at Ma Dong-seop’s easy-to-understand explanation and asked.

“Then, did a part of my lung burst?”

“Yes. Just like our skin gets a wound when it’s cut by a knife, think of it as a wound caused by a part of your lung bursting.”

It’s a simple principle.

If the lung is wounded?

Air leaks.

If air leaks, the area around the lung is filled with air.

Eventually, the lung itself is crushed due to pressure.

“Then what should I do?”

“To remove the air, we’re going to insert a tube into your chest now.”

“A tube? Into my chest?”

“Yes, here.”

Ma Dong-seop raised his arm and pointed to the space between his ribs.

“We’re going to make a small hole the size of a fingernail. And we’ll put a thin tube in there.”

“It looks like it will hurt… are you going to anesthetize me?”

Yang Song-i asked, trembling with fear.

“Of course. We’ll definitely do local anesthesia. And we’ll proceed with the handsome doctor here. The female nurse over there will also help us from the side.”

Ma Dong-seop took a step back, put his hand on my shoulder, and pushed me toward the patient.

“Doctor… please make it not hurt.”

The patient seems scared.

With such a patient in front of me, I can’t tell her that I’m inserting a chest tube for the first time today.

“Yes, I’ll make it not hurt.”

That’s what my mouth is saying, but I’ve never done it before, so I don’t know if it will hurt or not.

Still, to the patient who is feeling anxious right now…

I can’t say something like this, can I?

I have no choice but to do my best as I learned from Ma Dong-seop.

“As with all medical procedures, complications can occur. What are some of them…”

Ma Dong-seop’s explanation continued.

But Yang Song-i is not listening to Ma Dong-seop’s story, but is staring at me intently.

“But doctor, by any chance…?”

Huh? What is it?

Does she know me?

The student’s eyes widened as she continued to look at me.

“Are you the one from Gangnam Station?”

* * *

Song-i recalled her memory.

A few months ago.

The main character of that video that became a national sensation was right in front of her eyes.

“Are you the one from Gangnam Station who said, ‘Everyone, please move aside, I’m a doctor!’?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Wow… you’re even more handsome in person. Is it okay for a doctor to be this handsome?”

In an instant, Song-i’s true feelings burst out.

It was a pure admiration that had not been filtered.

Then, the doctor in front of her burst into an awkward laugh.

It was a smile as clear as crystal.

‘Wow, so handsome…’

Thump, thump.

Yang Song-i’s heart rate increased.

In an instant, a fight broke out in her heart.

Yang Song-i was conflicted between the image of Ban Jin-ho, whom she had encountered an hour ago, and the doctor who had appeared before her eyes now.

‘Oh no, there’s only Ban Jin-ho in my heart…!’

Yang Song-i, who was born to be attracted to good-looking people.

Moreover, she was in puberty.

To her, the doctor in front of her was a shock.

Moreover, should it be called a kind of appearance 몰아주기 [spotlight sharing] effect? [A Korean slang term where someone’s looks are amplified by the less attractive people around them.]

The impressions of the doctors standing on both sides are excessively intense.

On the left is a wild bear, on the right is a mountain bandit.

Because they are in between, the appearance of the doctor in the middle stands out particularly.

‘Wow… how can there be such a visual in the hospital? Amazing. I’m going to die from heart palpitations, not pneumothorax, right?’

Whether he knew Yang Song-i’s heart or not, Shin Seon-han was talking to the patient.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it not hurt. Listen carefully to Doctor Ma Dong-seop here.”

“Yes, oppa.”

“Huh?”

“No, no, doctor.”

Yang Song-i slapped her own mouth in her heart.

Crazy, why oppa [term for older brother used by females] to a doctor she’s meeting for the first time?

Shut up, if you’re handsome, you’re all oppa!

Yang Song-i was unable to come to her senses amidst the jumble of voices coming out of her heart.

“Anyway, to explain about the procedure…”

Ma Dong-seop began to talk about the complications that could occur after the procedure.

Bleeding, the possibility of surgery due to it. A situation may arise where the chest tube has to be reinserted, and the wound may become infected.

And he continued to explain that there is a possibility of surgery due to recurrence of pneumothorax in the future.

‘They’re going to do something this dangerous to me?’

Yang Song-i listened to the explanation with a puzzled expression and soon thought.

‘I’m lucky to be able to receive something like this from a handsome doctor. But it’s so scary because this gangster-like 아저씨 [term for middle-aged man] is explaining it… I feel like he’s going to hit me if I don’t sign it.’

Yang Song-i signs the consent form willingly.

Shin Seon-han is nervous as the chest tube insertion is about to begin in earnest.

Ma Dong-seop thinks that if Shin Seon-han even inserts the chest tube, it is a foregone conclusion that he will come to the Department of Thoracic Surgery.

That’s how the chest tube insertion began.

* * *

Shortly after, in the treatment room.

We laid the patient on a makeshift treatment bed and said.

“Patient. Now, please raise your right hand above your head like this.”

“Yes…”

The patient raises her hand with a slightly frightened expression.

Next, we need to lift the patient gown and expose the chest.

Doctor Ma Dong-seop and the nurse seemed used to this situation.

“It would be good if this side was exposed, right?”

“Yes. Please do it as you always do.”

At Ma Dong-seop’s words, the female nurse skillfully exposed the patient’s treatment area.

She left only the top two buttons of the patient gown buttoned and unbuttoned the bottom.

Then, she attached the skin and clothes with plaster (medical tape) so that the folded-up clothes could be fixed.

Then, the side of the patient’s right chest was fully exposed to me.

‘It’s definitely much easier when skilled doctors take the position for me.’

I was impressed.

‘The importance of position.’

I think I know why Doctor Ma Dong-seop emphasized it so much.

In front of the emergency room door, Doctor Ma Dong-seop said this.

Positioning…

Five stars.

I made a note in my head.

The basics are always important.

You must take an appropriate posture according to the purpose of the procedure to perform the procedure safely and easily.

“Doctor, I’m a little scared.”

Suddenly, I heard an anxious voice.

The patient was raising her right hand above her head, exposing the treatment area to us.

Her body was stiff, probably because she was nervous about the first procedure.

“You don’t have to be too nervous.”

I reassured the patient.

Meanwhile, Ma Dong-seop gestured to me, drawing a picture-like shape on the patient’s skin with his fingers.

‘Look here carefully.’

.

Like the Bermuda Triangle, it is a term that refers to the safest triangle when inserting a chest tube.

It is a space formed by the side line where the chest muscle ends, an imaginary line drawn from the center of the armpit, and an imaginary horizontal line drawn from the nipple to the side.

“If there is a triangle like this, where is the 4th intercostal space, Doctor Shin Seon-han?”

Huh?

Doctor Ma Dong-seop suddenly speaks to me in 존댓말 [formal Korean speech].

Why did his tone suddenly change?