Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 435

436. Distinct White Crescent

“Hey! Ms. Oh Sim-bo. The patient will die at this rate.”

Tae-kyung, unable to bear it any longer, cut her off with a stern expression.

More than the reception, checking the CT scan was the priority.

“When did I say I wouldn’t do the reception? I’ll do it! I will!”

Tae-kyung stared straight at Oh Sim-bo, sparks flying in his eyes, and continued.

“But since the person is about to die, we’re just asking to see the CT results first. Is that so wrong? You’re working as a nurse, so you know how serious the patient’s condition must be for us doctors to be making such a fuss to see it quickly.”

“Why are you suddenly getting angry? Just a moment! But are you really a doctor?”

As the tense exchange went back and forth, Oh Sim-bo suddenly asked Tae-kyung and his friends if they were really doctors.

It was truly an absurd question.

“What did you say?”

“Now that we’re on the topic, you’ve been saying you’re doctors since earlier, but are you really doctors? Frankly speaking, the world is so dangerous these days, and there are so many scammers. How would I know if you three are doctors or not?”

“Excuse me, Nurse. We are all doctors. Haven’t you seen this person’s face before?”

Park Joon-seok, who had been quiet, pointed at Tae-kyung and continued.

“You know, he was on a quiz show and there was that uproar about the child abuse case, right? He did interviews and was on the news a lot back then. Don’t you know?”

“I don’t watch TV much, so I don’t know. Do you have a doctor’s ID?”

“Seriously, who carries around a doctor’s ID? Then do you carry around a nurse’s ID?”

“Yes! Can’t you see my name tag here?”

When Park Joon-seok retorted with a dumbfounded expression, Oh Sim-bo pointed at her hospital name tag on her uniform as if to show off.

“Now that we’re on the topic, there are people who pretend to be doctors even though they’re not. I see those people every year.”

The way she suddenly brought up a doctor’s ID seemed like she was trying to find fault, but Oh Sim-bo had her reasons.

Even a relatively quiet island hospital has its busy times. It was during the vacation season.

The medical staff is limited, and as more people visit the hospital, the waiting time increases. But the problem is that some people who can’t stand the wait claim to be doctors.

They rush, saying they are doctors from a big hospital on the mainland and that they know the doctors here well, asking to be treated quickly.

But most of the time, those people weren’t really doctors.

Perhaps because it’s a small island village, some people tend to look down on it. That’s why Oh Sim-bo asked Tae-kyung’s group if they were really doctors.

“This is driving me crazy. Who carries around a doctor’s ID.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m the type of person who only believes what I see with my own eyes, so without an ID…”

Just as Lee Jae-hyun was holding his forehead, dumbfounded, and Oh Sim-bo was still talking about the ID, Tae-kyung, who had been quietly looking at his phone next to them, held up his phone screen.

“Here! Can you see it?”

The phone screen showed a specialist certificate with the seal of the Minister of Health and Welfare.

“Is this enough of a doctor’s ID?”

And soon after, the screen switched to our hospital name tag with his face on it.

“Is that okay?”

At those words, Oh Sim-bo adjusted the end of her glasses and focused on the screen.

The face on the name tag was clearly Tae-kyung’s face.

“I don’t know who those people were who impersonated doctors, but as a doctor, I don’t lie in front of a critically ill patient. Is it confirmed now?”

“Yes, you’re a doctor.”

“So, let’s stop talking about reception and procedures and look at the results first. Will you take responsibility if this patient dies?”

Tae-kyung drove a wedge into Oh Sim-bo, who was making an embarrassed expression after confirming the doctor’s license.

“Oh my, oh my! Why would I take responsibility if that patient dies? And when did I say I wouldn’t look at it?”

“Then let’s see it quickly.”

“I was going to look at it anyway.”

Oh Sim-bo, who was indignant at the word responsibility, eventually went to the monitor in the station and clicked on the results while muttering to herself.

“Why would I take responsibility? How absurd. Here? Check the results.”

Oh Sim-bo was still pouting and grumbling, but Tae-kyung and his friends didn’t care at all.

While Lee Jae-hyun went with Oh Sim-bo to do the reception, Tae-kyung checked the results with Park Joon-seok.

The eyes that moved busily across the monitor looked ominous.

“Hyung, this…”

On Lee Joon-hyuk’s brain CT, there was a distinct white crescent that anyone could see.

White on a CT scan indicates fluid, and there should be no fluid between the brain and the skull. But the fact that such a large crescent-shaped fluid was present indicated one thing.

Hemorrhage! It was a hemorrhage.

“Hyung, isn’t this SDH [subdural hematoma]?”

Tae-kyung, who always used honorifics to Park Joon-seok, started using informal speech because he was so surprised.

“Hyung? It’s SDH, right?”

“Uh… right.”

SDH, subdural hematoma.

The human brain is protected along with the spinal cord by three meninges, starting with the pia mater on the innermost side, the arachnoid mater in the middle, and the dura mater on the outermost side.

Unlike the thin pia mater and arachnoid mater, the dura mater is a thick tissue made of periosteal and meningeal layers.

A subdural hematoma means that blood vessels in this dura mater have ruptured and blood has pooled.

It usually occurs after a traffic accident, a fall, or a direct impact to the head.

Depending on the impact or situation of the accident, it may appear immediately or after several days.

The blood pooled in the dura mater compresses the brain, so if prompt treatment is not given, it can lead to death.

The fourth stage, the fifth vital sign, that Tae-kyung felt from Lee Joon-hyuk, who had lost consciousness and collapsed, was SDH, subdural hematoma.

The reason why he couldn’t be relieved even if there were no broken bones or major injuries on the outside was because it was that urgent and dangerous.

So, while suspecting SDH, Tae-kyung hoped it wasn’t until he took the CT scan and confirmed it.

“Nurse!”

Tae-kyung, having confirmed the CT results, urgently called Oh Sim-bo.

“Call the on-call neurosurgeon right now and find out if surgery is possible first.”

“Surgery…? Excuse me, Doctor. Just a moment.”

Oh Sim-bo, seeing Tae-kyung asking about the availability of the operating room right away, adjusted her glasses and gave him a dissatisfied look.

“Surgery? Even if you are doctors, I don’t have an obligation to follow your orders.”

“What are you talking about…”

“Ugh-haam!”

Just as Tae-kyung, who had become even more agitated, was about to speak, someone called Oh Sim-bo with a loud yawn.

“I’m tired. Ms. Oh.”

The person who called Oh Sim-bo was a man, younger than Tae-kyung’s group, and he was coming down the stairs towards them, who were having a heated argument.

The sight of him wearing a gown clearly said, “I’m a doctor.”

The name Go Dong-chae was embroidered on the man’s gown.

Tae-kyung and his friends immediately knew that this was the on-call internal medicine doctor that the radiologist had mentioned earlier.

“Are you feeling a little better?”

“I took strong medicine to catch a cold in its early stages, so I keep falling asleep even after sleeping. But did you come to see a doctor?”

Go Dong-chae, scratching his disheveled hair and finally fully opening his half-closed eyes, asked Tae-kyung’s group nonchalantly.

“Yes, are you the on-call doctor?”

“Ah, yes. I am the on-call doctor.”

“That’s good. You see the person lying there? That patient needs surgery right away.”

Tae-kyung quickly and accurately explained to Go Dong-chae why surgery was necessary.

“If it’s SDH, it’s an urgent situation. It is urgent…”

Go Dong-chae, having heard the explanation, also knew the situation Lee Joon-hyuk was in. But somehow, his reaction was quite lukewarm, contrary to acknowledging the urgent situation.

“But I don’t know if our operating room is available right now.”

Go Dong-chae didn’t show it outwardly, but he seemed quite reluctant to get involved in this kind of situation, as if he was grinding his teeth.

He was working at a regional university hospital about 2 hours away from Heorak Island.

He had experienced this kind of situation quite a bit as a specialist and fellow. But that’s why it wasn’t easy to step forward and help.

It wasn’t just once or twice that he had been harassed by patients and guardians after stepping in to help in such situations.

Every time, he felt a sense of disillusionment as a doctor and wondered if he had studied so hard to become a doctor just to see this kind of thing.

Eventually, after finishing his fellowship, Go Dong-chae volunteered for the public medical center on Heorak Island, wanting to live comfortably.

In other words, he came here with the intention of taking a year off.

But he hated seeing this kind of thing and came to the island, but he happened to face this kind of situation again, so he was at a loss.

‘Ha! This sucks.’

He cursed inwardly.

He knew the patient’s situation well, but he didn’t know what would happen later if he stepped in.

‘What if something happens after I 괜히 [unnecessarily] get involved…’

Moreover, he heard it was an SDH patient, and it would be terrible if the patient died, just thinking about it made him shudder.

He had only been here for 3 months, so he was even more cautious.

After briefly thinking about this and that in his head, he eventually decided to pass this on to Oh Sim-bo.

She was a prickly and sensitive person, but he thought she would handle it well on her own because she was also extremely reluctant to get caught up in difficult situations.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think our operating room will be available. Right? Ms. Oh?”

At Go Dong-chae’s words, Oh Sim-bo nodded her head vigorously as if it were obvious. And Go Dong-chae suddenly picked up his phone and said urgently.

“I’m sorry. I have a patient who is hospitalized in the ward, and I’m getting a call. Talk to Ms. Oh here. Then.”

Waving his phone, which wasn’t even ringing, Go Dong-chae hurriedly went up the stairs.

“You heard what the on-call doctor said, right? And as I said before, I have no obligation to follow your opinions.”

“This isn’t the time to argue about obligations! You can see it in the picture, too. This patient will die if he doesn’t have surgery now.”

“You keep saying he’s going to die, he’s going to die, and it’s unfortunate that he’s dying, but I don’t want to take responsibility for doing something outside of my authority.”

Responsibility was the problem for Oh Sim-bo as well as Go Dong-chae.

She didn’t want to get caught up in something bad because of a problem. And above all, she couldn’t perform surgery now.

“You’re talking about the operating room, but there’s no neurosurgeon in the hospital right now. Just call 119 [emergency services number in Korea] on the mainland and ask for help. This is an island, and there’s no one who can perform surgery, so what can we do?”

“Damn it.”

A curse word came out of Tae-kyung’s mouth without him realizing it.

He was so far from cursing, but Tae-kyung was also human, and when he faced the frustrating situation the patient was in, he cursed without even realizing it.

“Hey! You can’t curse. I’m a nurse too. I feel sorry for the patient just like you do.”

Oh Sim-bo, thinking that Tae-kyung had cursed at her, continued excitedly.

“But that’s that, and I’m not a doctor, so I can’t just do things recklessly. The on-call doctor said it was difficult a little while ago, and frankly, the on-call doctor isn’t a neurosurgeon either. As I said before, contacting the mainland quickly is more helpful to the patient than staying here.”

Oh Sim-bo, who had been arguing that no was no with her eyes wide open, quickly turned her head.

It was because she heard the sound of the hospital door opening.

Clang-

“Oh my, what brings you here?”

Just as an island resident entered the hospital, Oh Sim-bo left Tae-kyung’s group, saying that she had said everything she needed to say, and headed towards the resident.

“I woke up in the middle of the night because my stomach was twisted, probably because I had indigestion from dinner. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I was going to get an IV.”

“Didn’t you eat a lot of greasy food again?”

“I ate chicken and beer for the first time in a while, so is that why?”

“I told you to be careful with greasy food. Come this way. I’ll go get the doctor for you quickly.”

“Okay.”

Tae-kyung made a futile expression as he watched Oh Sim-bo attend to the island resident.

“Ha!”

Tae-kyung pressed his temples with his hands, frowned, and let out a short sigh.

“Even though that nurse’s words are sharp, I don’t think she’s completely wrong. How about we quickly ask 119 [emergency services number in Korea] for help?”

“Yeah. Tae-kyung. Let’s do what Jae-hyun says. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Oh! Hey, I’m getting a call.”

In the midst of a serious and earnest conversation, Lee Jae-hyun held up Lee Joon-hyuk’s phone, which he was holding.

The screen showed the phrase ‘My beloved wife’.

They were so out of it that they hadn’t even thought that the family would be waiting for Lee Joon-hyuk.

“I’ll go take this call.”

Lee Jae-hyun moved to take the call, and Park Joon-seok began to persuade Tae-kyung again.

“Even if you’re a doctor, you can’t just talk about the operating room in someone else’s hospital. And right now, already…”

“Hyung!”

Tae-kyung, cutting off Park Joon-seok’s words, called him as if he had made a decision, piercing through the strong smell of formalin.