Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 209

209. What Was That Teacher’s Name Again?

“It’s fortunate that the professor is reasonable. Now, let me tell you what we want.”

The head of the management team continued, confident that the conversation would go smoothly.

“We would like you to drop that patient.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘drop’?”

Kwon Soo-hyun, who was slowly tapping the desk with his fingers, glanced back and forth between the two men.

“Could you transfer the patient to another hospital?”

“Let me see… By another hospital, do you perhaps mean a transfer?”

“Yes, the constant media attention is a burden to us.”

“A burden…”

“Yes. So, we would like her sent to a place with less accessibility.”

Thump-

“Are you even hearing yourselves right now?”

Kwon Soo-hyun lightly slammed his fist on the desk and glared at the two men.

“I also watched the news footage before you arrived. I haven’t seen the patient in person yet, but it’s a long and dangerous surgery that I don’t particularly want to do. However, as a doctor, I can’t just send away a patient who came to me without a good reason.”

Listening to Kwon Soo-hyun’s seemingly caring words, the head of the management team noticed his intentions and signaled to the employee next to him.

“Professor?”

The head of the management team, who received a white envelope from the employee, placed it on the desk and continued.

“It’s quite rude, but we were hoping to ease your discomfort a little. Would that be alright?”

“Oh, my! This is…!”

Kwon Soo-hyun smacked his lips, unable to take his eyes off the envelope.

“I shouldn’t be doing this… So, how much easing is possible?”

“We’ll give you ten million won in department store gift certificates. How does that sound?”

“Well! Not bad. But, you know, there might be some variables…”

“Pardon? Variables?”

“Well, wouldn’t you agree? If, by any chance, this gets out, there’s clearly room for me to be criticized. Considering that, the amount seems a bit lacking. It’s not that I’m short on money, but shouldn’t there be fair compensation for something like this to ensure certainty for both parties?”

“Ah! I understand perfectly. How about fifteen million won then?”

“Well, not bad, but… If it’s a clean twenty million won, I can proceed right away, you know?”

“Yes, Professor. Let’s do that. We’ll give you what we have on hand now, and you can give us your account number so we can wire the rest immediately.”

“Oh, my! You’re very easy to talk to. Alright, let’s do that. Then, please be on your way.”

“Yes, Professor. Please take care of the aftermath.”

Having completed some sort of deal with the department store employees, Kwon Soo-hyun smiled with satisfaction as he said goodbye and picked up his phone.

At that time-

The resident was closely examining Gam Ji-yeon’s CT scan.

“Doctor, can this patient be saved?”

The nurse next to him asked with a worried expression.

“If we go into surgery right now, it might be possible. Of course, if you look here, there’s something in the middle of these blood vessels. If we can remove that, the rest is just a matter of removing them one by one.”

“What is it?”

The nurse stared intently at the monitor the resident was pointing at.

“Judging from this, it’s probably glass. It’s still sticking out of the patient’s abdomen.”

As the two people’s gazes turned to the shard of glass stuck in Gam Ji-yeon’s abdomen, Rrrrrrrrrr

“Yes, Professor.”

The person who urgently called the resident’s cell phone was Kwon Soo-hyun.

-About that patient, the woman from the department store?

“Ah, yes. I was just about to start surgery…”

-No. Don’t do that.

Kwon Soo-hyun cut off the resident, who was about to talk about the patient’s surgery, and left a series of absurd remarks.

-Send that patient to another hospital.

“…Yes? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you correctly.”

The resident, momentarily doubting his ears, asked again as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

-What do you mean, ‘yes’? I said send that patient to another hospital.

“Suddenly? What’s the reason for this…”

-Hey!

A sharp shout struck the resident’s eardrums as he asked for the reason.

“Yes, Professor.”

-Do I have to explain every single decision I make to you? Huh?

“Ah, no. Then, where should I send her?”

-Do I have to find that for you too? Just find a small hospital on the outskirts and send her there.

“Yes, I understand.”

The resident’s expression changed to one of disgust after ending the call with Kwon Soo-hyun. Then, the nurse next to him carefully asked.

“Doctor? What’s wrong?”

“That son of a bitch…”

“Pardon?”

The nurse asked back, flustered by the sudden outburst of profanity.

“What’s wrong? Was that Professor Kwon? What did he say?”

“Ha! It’s nothing. And we’ve decided to transfer that patient.”

“Yes? What do you mean all of a sudden? Is it okay for her to go in that condition?”

“Hey! Intern?”

Leaving behind the nurse who was curious about what was going on, the resident loudly called out to the intern who was working on one side.

“Yes, Doctor!”

“You probably heard most of it there, right? We’ve decided to transfer that patient, so you take care of smoothing things over and find any hospital in the outskirts of the metropolitan area to send her to. If the guardian refuses to go, tell them we’re sorry, but we can’t help it and can’t treat her, so send her away.”

“Ah. Yes, I understand.”

The resident ran a hand down his face and frowned deeply.

Even though Kwon Soo-hyun was a bad guy who treated patients like dirt, he couldn’t figure out the specific reason why he was suddenly sending the patient away.

Of course, there had been similar cases before, so it wasn’t surprising, but this time it was different.

Before, it was definitely because he was annoyed or didn’t have confidence. But it was different from then.

The decision was made after those department store employees came, so it seemed like there was some dirty reason behind it.

“I’m going crazy. Seriously!”

Honestly, it felt like shit that a young woman came in with her abdomen pierced, and now he couldn’t help her but was actually harming her.

As a doctor, he naturally didn’t feel good about this situation.

“This isn’t right… This is crossing the line…”

The resident, walking and talking to himself, thought about it over and over again, but it didn’t seem right.

“Doctor?”

The resident, who had suddenly stopped walking, called out to the nurse he had been talking to.

“Yes? Did you call me?”

“That, um… What was the name of that great teacher again?”

“Yes? Who are you talking about?”

“You know, the one you and I always said was amazing and wanted to be like in the emergency room. The one who was in surgery but got pushed back because of that bastard on duty today, and who was on TV recently… I’m so angry that I can’t even remember his name.”

“Ah!”

The nurse, immediately understanding what the resident was saying, knew right away who he was talking about.

“You mean Doctor Kim Tae-kyung.”

“That’s right. Doctor Kim Tae-kyung. Do you happen to know where he’s working now?”

“Why? I heard he’s the director of a small hospital.”

“Is that hospital on the outskirts? And is it small?”

“Probably? I think it’s near Seoul in Gyeonggi Province, and it’s smaller than here, so it probably is.”

“Do you know the name of the hospital?”

“Doctor Kim Tae-kyung became famous after being on TV, so you can probably find it easily if you search for it.”

The resident immediately searched for the hospital on his phone and looked around.

“Intern?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Wait a minute. I’ll take care of it, so you just do your work. I’ll take care of sending Gam Ji-yeon.”

“Ah. Yes, I understand.”

The resident, after speaking to the intern, was about to call Tae-kyung.

Kwon Soo-hyun had clearly told him to send the patient away on his own, so where he sent her was up to him.

No matter how he thought about it, he had a bad feeling, so he decided to send the patient to Tae-kyung, who could definitely treat her and who he could trust.

‘That patient must be sent to that teacher.’

* * *

-Next is the news.

I am now in front of the JQ Department Store in Seoul.

This department store, which has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest department store and has been featured in foreign media, has experienced an unbelievable accident this afternoon.

This department store has a famous decoration on the ceiling.

As you can see in the archive footage, there was only a simple safety line under the decoration for some reason, and a child entered this area to pick up a ball. Then, one of the decorations falls on top of the child.

The child’s mother, who was approaching the child, embraced the child with her whole body and took the hit from the decoration instead.

It has been reported that the child’s mother was seriously injured in this accident and is currently awaiting surgery in the hospital.

It is said that this tragedy in one family stemmed from the department store’s safety management of the decorations. Currently…….

Ignoring the news on the TV in the corner of the restaurant, Tae-kyung was eating in a secluded spot.

He and Eui-jin were having a meal together, recommended by Eui-jin, who knew the best restaurants near the hospital.

“This place is good?”

Tae-kyung, who took a spoonful of the bubbling and delicious-looking stew, said with wide eyes.

“It’s good, right? I told you this place is good.”

“That’s right. Why didn’t I know there was a restaurant like this near the hospital all this time?”

“That’s because you’re too focused on the hospital, sunbae [a respected senior colleague],”

“Is that so? I should come here often from now on? I should bring Doctor Lee and Doctor Choi next time too.”

“That would be great. Oh! Sunbae, did you hear about the department store accident that was on the news earlier? Take a look at this.”

Eui-jin showed Tae-kyung a photo of the accident scene that someone had posted on the internet, which he had been looking at on his phone.

“I saw the news at the hospital earlier. How could something like this happen… There’s a lot of blood. I wonder if the victim is okay?”

“I know, right? How can a company like that do things so carelessly?”

“Accidents happen in an instant, even if you’re careful.”

“That’s right.”

“So, you always have to be careful, but if it’s due to poor construction, it seems like it will be a big controversy.”

“I saw on the internet that they keep taking down articles about poor construction… Oh, Doctor Lee. Why?”

Eui-jin, who was talking about the accident with Tae-kyung, stopped talking and answered Lee Chan-hee’s phone call.

“Really? Okay. Just a moment. He said he called me because you weren’t answering your phone. Take it.”

“Really? My phone was on vibrate. Oh, what’s wrong?”

Tae-kyung, who checked his phone in his pocket, took Eui-jin’s phone.

-Doctor, today a patient who had a large intestine resection is still complaining of abdominal discomfort, so I took an abdominal X-ray, and it shows signs of ileus (paralysis of the small intestine due to physical or physiological reasons).

“How bad is it?”

-The diameter of the small intestine was about 5cm.

“First, put in an L-tube [a nasogastric tube used to drain fluids and gas from the stomach and intestines] for the patient, and then I’ll go in after I eat and look at the X-ray and do a physical exam together.”

-Yes, I understand.

“Is it about a patient?”

“Oh, our large intestine… Just a moment.”

Rrrrrrrr

Just as Tae-kyung was about to talk about the patient, the phone he had taken out on the table vibrated violently.

“Hello.”

-Excuse me, is this Doctor Kim Tae-kyung’s phone?

“This is Kim Tae-kyung, who is this?”

-Hello, Doctor.

The person who greeted him carefully in a cheerful voice was the resident who was in charge of Gam Ji-yeon.