Professor Seo Jin-ah of emergency medicine evaluated Choi Moo-gyeol like this.
“He’s too good at his work.”
Professor Kim Tae-sik of orthopedics let out a small laugh.
“He’s good but strange—what do you mean by that?”
“Usually, when patients come into the emergency room, beginner interns can’t pull themselves together.”
“And?”
“But that friend Choi Moo-gyeol doesn’t panic at all even when emergency patients come in, and he classifies them exactly in order of risk and handles them well in sequence.”
“Isn’t that just the level of doing as trained?”
“How many interns can calmly carry that out after receiving only the initial training?”
“Not many.”
Kim Tae-sik also could not bring himself to rebut and backed down.
“It’s like he doesn’t have the sense of panic itself.”
Who could imagine that the calmness in the emergency room was due to frontal lobe damage?
The conversation at the lunch table shifted in earnest to talk about the interns.
Because which outstanding new recruit would enter one’s own department was one of the professors’ small interests every year.
Especially, the less popular departments’ professors had a stronger tendency than the popular departments’ professors.
For vital department professors, having to sharpen their radar on their disciples’ movements even more was an unavoidable reality.
‘Our department’s very existence is at stake!’
Still, Hankook University Hospital is a top domestic hospital, so the situation is much better than at other hospitals.
The professors were earnest.
That even one more outstanding and passionate disciple would enter.
Unpopular departments are always short on manpower. And for such departments, at least one smarter guy must come in order to cover the work broadly.
Anyway, among the interns, the name Choi Moo-gyeol was by far the most frequently mentioned.
“But he seems to have a somewhat peculiar personality. He doesn’t seem to have many friends among his classmates either.”
“I don’t know about his interpersonal relationships, but his skill is excellent. They say he passed the medical licensing exam at the top. In both the practical and written exams.”
“There’s no way the results could be otherwise, because that guy has a good memory. When I occasionally throw surprise questions during rounds, he’s the only one who always answers accurately.”
“His hand skills seem good too. When dressing wounds or drawing blood, patients’ reviews are good. They say he hurts the least.”
“The head nurse said so too. Departments that have Choi Moo-gyeol have easier work.”
“Is he an all-rounder-type talent we haven’t seen in a long time?”
“Yeah, so what if his personality is peculiar? He hasn’t particularly caused any problems.”
“Right. His friendliness is a bit lacking, but instead he has good eyes, good hands, and good memory.”
“A doctor just needs to take good care of patients.”
The faculty were somehow rationalizing Choi Moo-gyeol’s unique personality on their own.
Professor Shin Myung-jin of cardiothoracic surgery said with a serious expression.
“I really can’t let this go. I should try to seduce him a bit more actively to come to our department.”
Professor Lee Kyung-min of internal medicine said.
“Do you think he’ll go to cardiothoracic surgery just because you seduce him?”
“Why? Among medical students, there’s no one who hasn’t had at least once the romance of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon, right? Everyone was like that.”
Professor Seo Jin-ah of emergency medicine said.
“Romance and reality are strictly different things.”
Lee Kyung-min muttered.
“Rather, wouldn’t he be a guy suited to internal medicine? Someone who can calmly conduct data-based research……”
Then Shin Myung-jin snorted.
“Ha! Internal medicine, what! Rather than internal medicine, go to cardiothoracic surgery! That guy Choi Moo-gyeol is not someone who will sit comfortably at a desk and stare at a monitor all day! A heart-pounding surgical site! A blood-splattering emergency situation! What Choi Moo-gyeol wants is exactly that kind of scene.”
Seo Jin-ah said with a laugh.
“You talk as if you know the inside of Choi Moo-gyeol’s heart so well.”
“I got a clear feeling from the PK days.”
“Our emergency medicine department also needs a junior like that.”
“I’ve already claimed him, so don’t covet him. While I’m saying it nicely, yield to your senior.”
While these words were being exchanged.
Professor Yoo Seong-ho of neurosurgery was quietly staying out of the conversation.
‘The person who will give the rice cake isn’t even thinking about it, and everyone is drinking kimchi soup first.’
Yoo Seong-ho thought that while sipping water. He did not want to unnecessarily show his hand in the competition to win this disciple.
When fishing, how do you raise the success rate?
You must stay as quiet as possible.
Until the float shakes.
‘I wish the kid would come to neurosurgery.’
Still, Choi Moo-gyeol’s appearance was certainly covetable.
How earnestly had Professor Yoo Seong-ho wanted it?
Neurosurgery, always treated as an afterthought compared to ‘PIASM (dermatology, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, anesthesiology)’ or ‘JRY (psychiatry, rehabilitation medicine, radiology).’
Neurosurgery, which everyone dislikes, saying it’s hard, saying the surgery time is long.
For the best and most outstanding disciple from Hankook University to enter that neurosurgery? Just imagining it made him happy!
Yoo Seong-ho recalled the impression he had received from Choi Moo-gyeol in the past.
That zeal when observing neurosurgery during PK practice.
How could he forget the conversations exchanged then?
‘It is beautiful.’
The lunatic who said the brain exposed raw between the patient’s opened skull was ‘beautiful’ was none other than Choi Moo-gyeol.
Well, to become the best, in any field and any department, being that crazy is right.
Those transparent eyes that marveled while looking at the patient’s brain and cerebral blood vessels!
Though it slightly reminded one of a psychopathic serial killer and gave goosebumps.
But aren’t those eyes precisely filled with medical and scholarly passion?
‘Quietly, without anyone knowing, approach.’
Among the professors who had conversed about Choi Moo-gyeol at lunch that day, the person who moved fastest was, as expected.
Yoo Seong-ho.
A few days later, he summoned Choi Moo-gyeol. Before the other professors could do anything.
“Shall we have a meal together?”
“……You and me, Professor?”
* * *
An upscale Japanese restaurant near the hospital.
It was a place with divided rooms so one could work on…… no, recruit a disciple without being disturbed by other professors.
Around the time the food came out and the meal began.
“Eat comfortably.”
“Yes, I will eat well.”
Professor Yoo Seong-ho, who had said to eat comfortably, threw out a very uncomfortable and blunt question.
“When you apply for residency next year, which department are you thinking of applying to?”
But Choi Moo-gyeol spoke without a bit of discomfort or hesitation.
“Neurosurgery.”
“Yes, as expected, you’re also for plastic surgery…….”
Yoo Seong-ho, who had misheard the answer, darkened. Choi Moo-gyeol said again.
“No, I will apply for neurosurgery.”
Then, in that moment, Professor Yoo Seong-ho’s eyes went wide.
“……W-wait! Did you just say you’re applying for neurosurgery?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll come to neurosurgery? You?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Your licensing exam score is top and your intern evaluation is upper rank, and yet neurosurgery……?”
To Yoo Seong-ho, it was an utterly unbelievable thing. Because it was not the choice of ordinary top medical students.
“Would that be a problem?”
“No, no, that’s not it……! I’m just curious why someone like you, who could go to a more popular department, would choose our neurosurgery. You may not know this well yet, but neurosurgery is an extremely high-difficulty department.”
“I thought neurosurgery would be good if I want to properly understand humans.”
At Choi Moo-gyeol’s answer, Yoo Seong-ho’s eyes wavered.
If he were an ordinary medical student, he would have answered his question with something like, ‘I’m interested in treating vital cases like brain disease patients or spinal patients.’
But Choi Moo-gyeol, a being who was by no means ordinary, gave an unexpected answer.
‘As expected. This guy has something.’
“You want to properly understand humans. Can you tell me a bit more?”
“Actually, I had brain surgery when I was young. After that, people said I had changed.”
“Did you? That’s an interesting story. Keep going. What kind of surgery was it?”
Yoo Seong-ho pulled his body closer over the table.
“It was surgery to resect part of the frontal lobe. It was amazing that a person could change from just that much. It also made me think that perhaps the brain is the human itself.”
“Yes, I think so too. It’s something I always tell students! That within the brain is contained the microcosm that is a human!”
“Then perhaps the human being is nothing more than the signals the brain creates, and the signal transmission system of the spinal cord and nerves, isn’t that so? If I could fully understand that process while caring for neurosurgery patients, I thought perhaps I might be able to recover my original self that I lost after the brain surgery.”
“Wanting to find your lost self…… And through healing others at that? Hahaha.”
Yoo Seong-ho made a satisfied laugh and continued.
“As expected, you’re an interesting friend. Let me be frank. If you enter neurosurgery, there won’t be much of the comfort and ease of plastic surgeons handling big money, or dermatologists sending their days prescribing ointments with a flick of a finger. Even so, you won’t regret it?”
“It’s fine. Even just a doctor’s salary is not small, and I want to do surgery.”
“The more I hear, the more I like it! I guarantee you this one thing. Hankook University Hospital neurosurgery needs someone like you as a professor!”
Hankook University Medical School professor, a position said to be heaven-sent. No matter how outstanding one’s abilities, without a TO (training quota/position), it is an impossible position.
Whether it was something to be believed, or just something said to entice him.
Yoo Seong-ho, drunk pleasantly with alcohol as he went home that day, kept giggling with laughter at the thought that an unexpected pumpkin had rolled in whole with its vine.
“Kuhahaha. You other professor bastards! Choi Moo-gyeol is coming to neurosurgery, to neurosurgery!”
* * *
After the internship period ended, Choi Moo-gyeol began his neurosurgery residency at Hankook University Hospital, receiving abundant love from Professor Yoo Seong-ho and the neurosurgery medical staff.
As Professor Yoo Seong-ho had forewarned, the work of neurosurgery was not easy.
Neurosurgery residents were inevitably among the doctors in the hospital who were most sleep-deprived, most busy, and most sensitive.
In fact, not many people know that the profession of neurosurgeon is one of the ‘Top 10 Most Extreme Jobs in the World selected by the BBC.’
