The emergency medicine intern found Choi Moo-gyeol.
“Dr. Choi, the location of the hemorrhage was confirmed on the mobile CT for the patient from earlier. It’s a traumatic subdural hemorrhage.”
Choi Moo-gyeol checked the images and hurried.
In the case of acute intracerebral hemorrhage like this, the sooner the surgery, the better.
“Understood. Let’s go to the operating room right away.”
At that moment, an elderly couple with urgent expressions entered the emergency room.
It was clear how hurriedly they had come; the man’s shirt had a button misaligned by one.
Even the woman was wearing mismatched socks.
A combination of a white sock and a black sock, resembling Go stones.
It seemed that as soon as they heard the news of their family member’s accident, they were so flustered that they dropped everything and rushed to the hospital.
“Where is our daughter Park Sang-mi injured?”
“Is she here right now?”
The nurse who checked the list said.
“Guardians, please come this way. Your daughter is currently receiving treatment.”
“Is she badly hurt? Did she lose a lot of blood? What about her consciousness?”
“She hit her head and is currently unconscious. She needs to go into surgery immediately.”
“If it’s surgery, is it brain surgery?”
“Yes, it’s brain surgery.”
“No…….”
The word ‘brain surgery’ is terrifying just to hear. The guardians felt as if their world was collapsing.
They were the parents of the young female patient whom Choi Moo-gyeol was just about to move to the operating room.
The emergency room beds were partitioned by curtains.
The guardians, guided by the nurse, headed to the bed where their daughter was lying.
Park Sang-mi on the emergency room bed was covered in blood and disinfectant, wearing a ventilator.
Her chest was rising and falling with the movement of the ventilator.
“What kind of state is this? She was fine when we talked on the phone this morning…….”
“Oh my, our daughter, what do we do about our daughter!”
The two, who had fallen into panic for a moment, gradually regained their senses after some time passed.
Park Sang-mi’s father held his wife and said.
“Darling, let’s not worry too much. This is Hankook University Hospital. Since it’s Korea’s best hospital, they’ll fix her well.”
“That’s right……? Please, a good doctor should be in charge of the surgery.”
Swish—.
At that moment, Choi Moo-gyeol entered, pulling back the curtain.
A cold gaze that seemed to pierce through a person’s heart, and a handsome face with sharp features.
And above his forehead…….
“Hm?”
He was in the state of an injured person with a white bandage wrapped tightly around his head.
“Are you the guardians?”
“Yes, that’s right…… Are you the doctor?”
“?
Choi Moo-gyeol gave his doctor’s gown a single flutter with an expression that said, ‘Why ask the obvious?’
“Yes. I will be in charge of your daughter’s neurosurgery.”
“It looks like you’ve injured your head……?”
Park Sang-mi’s mother looked at Choi Moo-gyeol with an anxious expression.
“Ah. So this was what worried you.”
Choi Moo-gyeol only then pointed to his own bandage and spoke.
“I also had an accident on my way to work, so there was some bleeding, but there is no problem with surgery.”
“…….”
“Right now, it’s your daughter’s condition that is the problem, not mine. Due to the traffic accident, a traumatic subdural hemorrhage has formed in her head.”
“Traumatic subdural hemorrhage?”
“To put it simply, something inside her head has burst, and the blood that has pooled has nowhere to go, so it is pressing on the brain.”
“Hmph—.”
The patient’s mother gasped at the stark description of her daughter’s injury.
Nurse Joo Min-ji, at the familiar sight, held her forehead and whispered to Choi Moo-gyeol.
“Doc, you don’t have to put it that way.”
“Why? I told them accurately and simply.”
“Oh dear.”
Park Sang-mi’s father spoke.
“You mean a hemorrhage formed inside her head due to the collision. Can she get better if she has surgery?”
“The mortality rate for acute subdural hemorrhage is over sixty percent even with surgery.”
“Ugh, Doctor, please…….”
At Choi Moo-gyeol’s frank remark, Joo Min-ji finally squeezed her eyes shut.
“S-Sixty percent…… Oh my. What do we do.”
The father caught the patient’s mother, who nearly staggered backward. Then he asked.
“Is the surgical success rate that low?”
“Yes, but there are two variables.”
“Variables?”
“One, the fact that it has not yet been more than four hours since the accident. Therefore, the success rate rises above forty percent.”
Choi Moo-gyeol said, unfolding his fingers one by one.
“Two, the fact that the doctor in charge of your daughter’s surgery is me.”
“?
“To put it modestly, the success rate will be over ninety percent. In reality, it will be even higher.”
Park Sang-mi’s guardians made bewildered expressions, not knowing how to take this peculiar doctor’s way of speaking and his confidence.
It was enough to make one think, ‘With that bandage on his head, isn’t he a doctor who needs treatment himself?’
While the guardians were dazed, the emergency room resident said.
“Guardians, the patient needs to be taken up to the operating room immediately.”
“We will follow to the front of the operating room as well.”
“The surgery will take at least several hours; are you going to wait in front?”
“Yes. We should wait.”
A parent’s heart.
They knew that whether they waited in front of the operating room or elsewhere, the outcome of the surgery would not change.
Still, they wanted to wait somewhere as close to their daughter as possible.
“Let’s go.”
Choi Moo-gyeol, the resident, the nurse, and the hospital’s patient transport staff moved Park Sang-mi to the operating room, and the patient’s guardians followed behind.
In front of the operating room.
Park Seok-hun, having received a call for another patient, was coming down to the operating room when he ran into Choi Moo-gyeol and his group.
And soon his eyes went wide.
“Dr. Moo-gyeol, what is that bandage on your head?”
“My commute route was the accident scene. Everyone keeps asking, and it’s annoying as hell to answer each one.”
Park Seok-hun, who had seen Choi Moo-gyeol’s way of speaking within the same neurosurgery department not just for a day or two, asked without minding it.
“Okay, is your condition fine? Can you operate?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t overdo it and make a mistake.”
“Have you ever seen me make a mistake? And, four-eyes, take care of your own patients.”
“Call me by my name when you’re with patients.”
Actually, Park Seok-hun was Choi Moo-gyeol’s classmate from medical school.
He didn’t know what kind of bad karma from a past life there was, but both were working in the same hospital and the same neurosurgery department.
“That doctor looks so trustworthy…… but our doctor looks like some kind of pretty-boy gigolo…….”
The patient’s mother, looking back and forth between four-eyes Park Seok-hun and the pretty-boy gigolo Choi Moo-gyeol, muttered quietly like that, then let out a deep sigh.
Park Seok-hun’s appearance is a style that contrasts with Choi Moo-gyeol from the start.
A typical model student type with a gentle expression and high-prescription glasses.
In short, he was the type who gave trust to guardians.
On the other hand, Choi Moo-gyeol’s appearance was excessively handsome for a doctor, and he even had a cold feel.
Moreover, he had an overly dry way of speaking and a unique atmosphere.
In short, he was a style that made it difficult to give trust at first glance to patients or guardians.
In the meantime, they had already reached the controlled area door in front of the operating room.
On the sliding door, the sign [No Entry Except Authorized Personnel] written in large letters was glowing red. As if it were a warning light.
The patient’s father, who, like the patient’s mother, had let out a sigh of regret while looking at Park Seok-hun with a somehow wistful gaze, held out his hand toward Choi Moo-gyeol.
“Please take good care of our daughter. I will trust only you, Doctor.”
It was a handshake request from a guardian filled with sincerity.
“…….”
But Choi Moo-gyeol did not extend his hand.
A handshake refusal that was clearly firm to anyone’s eyes.
A slight displeasure brushed across the guardian’s face.
“What, you won’t accept a handshake? Is there something on my hand?”
“Yes, there is.”
“Pardon? What……?”
The patient’s guardian looked at his bare hand for a moment with an absurd expression, then said.
“……There’s nothing on it.”
“There are invisible things on it.”
“Invisible things?”
“What do you think is the place on the human body that transmits the most bacteria and viruses?”
“No way.”
Park Sang-mi’s father realized immediately. Why this pretty-boy gigolo doctor would not accept a handshake.
“Hand……?”
“Ding dong dang.”
“Are you saying that what’s on my hand is bacteria and viruses?”
“That’s right. If I shake hands with you, the bacteria and viruses living on my hand and the bacteria and viruses that were on your hand are exchanged with each other. People cover coughs with their hands, and pick their noses. All of that is bacteria and viruses, and they are transmitted through handshakes.”
“Uh…….”
“Now, you understand that a doctor about to perform surgery has no reason to deliberately exchange bacteria and viruses with someone, right? There’s no need to feel bad about not accepting a handshake.”
“……Mm.”
The patient’s guardians looked at Choi Moo-gyeol with bewildered faces.
Certainly, he was a type of doctor they had never seen before.
“Then, I’ll see you after the surgery.”
Park Seok-hun, with a pitiful expression, looked at the guardians and comforted them.
“Don’t worry too much. Even if Dr. Choi’s way of speaking and behavior is a little…… no, very strange, his surgical skill alone is the best in the hospital.”
“Ah, yes…….”
Whirr—. Thud.
As the stretcher carrying the patient and the medical staff disappeared behind the sliding door marked with the No Entry sign, Park Sang-mi’s guardians opened their mouths amid their worry.
“Our daughter…… will the surgery be okay?”
“Let’s trust the doctor with glasses. That part about the lunatic-like doctor having the best surgical skill.”
“They said the survival rate is only forty percent…….”
“The lunatic said if he does it, it’s over ninety percent…….”
“He doesn’t seem like a person who would say things that aren’t true…….”
In the minds of Park Sang-mi’s parents, there was no longer any space for the conversation with the absurd doctor named Choi Moo-gyeol to remain.
Only a prayer wishing solely for their daughter’s safety filled them.
* * *
Operating room scrub zone.
The medical staff scrubbed their hands clean as they always did.
Park Seok-hun, standing side by side next to Choi Moo-gyeol and scrubbing, said as if dumbfounded.
“Anyway, once you scrub, all the bacteria will be gone, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So earlier, you just didn’t want to shake hands?”
“You know me too well.”
“Honestly. You’re going to wash anyway, so just do it once. Does your hand wear out from a handshake?”
“Why deliberately smear bacteria you’re going to wash off anyway? It’s a meaningless action.”
“Then why don’t you just live alone in a sterile room?”
“I’m thinking of doing that someday.”
“Honestly. Let’s stop the useless talk. Do the surgery well.”
“You too.”
The eyes of Choi Moo-gyeol and Park Seok-hun, with the surgery right before them, were shining.
