Professor Yoo Seong-ho’s words: you take responsibility for the failed surgery.
Even in this situation, Choi Moo-gyeol was merely sitting calmly across the desk.
Once he had become shameless, Yoo Seong-ho resolved to be shameless to the end.
He clasped his hands, interlaced his fingers, and placed them on the desk.
“During the surgery, massive hemorrhage occurred near the basilar artery.”
“It is because you damaged the base of the aneurysm with the scissors, Professor.”
Yoo Seong-ho’s lips stiffened.
“That is your judgment.”
“It should remain in the surgical microscope footage.”
“The footage is obscured by blood and not clearly visible.”
Professor Yoo Seong-ho, a neurosurgeon respected by people, rolled his eyes.
‘He is lying.’
When someone lies, their heart rate quickens and breathing becomes shallow. Yoo Seong-ho’s voice trembled minutely more than usual.
Choi Moo-gyeol had never expected Yoo Seong-ho to have this side.
Shifting his own mistake onto his disciple.
This was clearly not the image of a responsible renowned doctor.
Yoo Seong-ho pushed the documents on the desk.
They were copies of the surgical record.
Choi Moo-gyeol turned the first page.
—During surgery, hemorrhage occurred in the area adjacent to the basilar artery.
—First assistant Choi Moo-gyeol applied an aneurysm clip without the surgeon’s clear instruction.
—Immediately after clip application, neurological parameters declined sharply.
—The surgeon removed the clip after vessel suturing, but afterward the patient did not fully recover.
—Suspected intraoperative hypoxic-ischemic brainstem injury.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s gaze stopped on one sentence.
In reality, the neurological parameters had declined before the clip was applied.
It was from the moment the blood vessel tore and the blood pressure collapsed.
After he applied the clip, rather, the bleeding stopped and the blood pressure recovered.
“The record has been changed. It differs from the draft written immediately after surgery.”
“It wasn’t changed; it was organized.”
Yoo Seong-ho furrowed his brow.
“……You know that the surgeon gives final confirmation of the surgical record, don’t you?”
“Did you confirm that it differs from the facts?”
“Choi Moo-gyeol. It is a clear fact that you acted arbitrarily in the operating room.”
“Arbitrarily?”
“You arrogantly ligated the clip without my instruction or permission! A first assistant is an assistant in surgery, not the person leading the surgery!”
“I merely performed the procedure that could probabilistically maximize the patient’s survival rate.”
“But there was no instruction from the surgeon.”
“If the bleeding had not been stopped, the patient would have died on the operating table.”
“I was grasping the situation. Even without you, it was bleeding I could have controlled well enough.”
“You were unable to respond.”
“You did not wait for my judgment.”
“In a situation where a second is critical, you tell me to wait?”
“Who makes that judgment? The surgeon does!”
Yoo Seong-ho slammed the desk with his palm.
But there was no change in Choi Moo-gyeol’s expression.
“You are a fellow. If you applied a clip to a major blood vessel without the surgeon’s instruction, you must bear responsibility for the result.”
Yoo Seong-ho leaned back against the chair.
Choi Moo-gyeol opened his mouth.
“Do I bear responsibility for saving the patient?”
“You always think you are right.”
“In that surgery, I was right.”
“People like you are the most dangerous.”
“What kind of person do you mean?”
“A person who thinks their own judgment is above the hospital’s system.”
“For a vital-care doctor, there is no system above the patient’s life.”
Yoo Seong-ho smiled bitterly.
“Say such things to your heart’s content outside.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hospital has decided to hold you responsible for this incident.”
“The disciplinary committee has not even been convened yet.”
“The conclusion will not change.”
“Does that mean it has already been decided?”
Yoo Seong-ho did not answer that question.
Outside the window, the glass wall of Hankook University Hospital’s huge main building was gleaming in the sunlight.
A hospital where the largest number of patients in Korea gather, where the most outstanding doctors assemble, and where the most difficult surgeries are performed.
A single fellow could not resist that massive and solid power.
Yoo Seong-ho said.
“A response committee will be held within a week. The result will come out then.”
* * *
A week later, the response committee was held.
The neurosurgery medical staff who participated in the surgery at the time, hospital legal team staff, the hospital director and administrative director, as well as other relevant personnel, had gathered.
The head of the legal team, who had a thick file open in front of him, asked Choi Moo-gyeol.
“Do you admit the fact that you used a clip during surgery without the surgeon’s verbal instruction?”
“……Yes.”
The air in the conference room wavered minutely.
“Are you admitting to a procedural violation?”
“No.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“At the time, it was an emergency situation in which the patient could die from massive hemorrhage. The surgeon had failed to secure the bleeding point, and I, as first assistant, performed the medically necessary procedure to save the patient.”
Yoo Seong-ho opened his mouth.
“I was in the middle of confirming the site of vascular damage at the time. I was trying to find the bleeding point.”
“That is not true.”
“Why do you arbitrarily assert that?”
“Professor Yoo Seong-ho was then holding the scissors and panicking, saying, ‘I can’t see the vessel site.’”
The gazes of several people in the conference room turned toward Yoo Seong-ho.
“You are exaggerating a mutter that can occur during a high-risk surgery. While I was going to respond, you did it without waiting! Out of impatience!”
To what extent can a person become shameless in the face of their own crisis?
Yoo Seong-ho was showing that well.
The head of the legal team pointed at the screen and said.
“Let’s look at the intraoperative neuromonitoring record.”
A waveform appeared on the screen.
It was data submitted by the neuromonitoring technician.
In the data, the motor evoked potentials had dropped sharply based on the time of clip application.
It meant that a problem occurred in the brain after the clip was applied.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s eyes narrowed.
“The timing does not match.”
“Do you mean the operation technician manipulated the data?”
“I don’t know about that. But the patient’s motor evoked potentials fluctuated just before clip application. The graph is pulled back by a few seconds.”
“Do you have evidence?”
“……My memory is the evidence, but.”
“You know that is not objective evidence, right?”
At that moment, the conference room door opened and Park Seok-hun entered.
“I’m sorry for being late.”
On his face, fatigue and anguish accumulated from not sleeping for days were piled up.
“You’ve come at a good time. Dr. Park Seok-hun, you were the second assistant at the time, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Please explain the situation at the time.”
Park Seok-hun looked at Choi Moo-gyeol for a moment. And then looked at Yoo Seong-ho.
‘Choose your words well. If you want to keep your position.’
Yoo Seong-ho’s expression was exactly that.
“While Professor Yoo Seong-ho was performing vascular dissection, a blood vessel adjacent to the basilar artery was damaged.”
Yoo Seong-ho’s eyes shot up at Park Seok-hun’s unexpected answer.
“Park Seok-hun!”
Park Seok-hun’s voice trembled, but he did not stop.
“Immediately after the bleeding, the professor was struggling because he could not secure his field of vision. Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol confirmed the bleeding point and temporarily applied a clip to stop the bleeding. Without that procedure, the patient would have died on the operating table.”
The head of the legal team asked.
“Did you clearly see Professor Yoo Seong-ho directly cutting the blood vessel? Is there not also a possibility that it ruptured naturally while dissecting the boundary between the vessel and the tumor?”
“I clearly saw it on the microscope screen.”
“Isn’t it that you inferred it from the microscope image rather than seeing it directly?”
“It is not an inference. I am speaking objectively as a neurosurgery specialist.”
Professor Yoo Seong-ho flared up.
“I am a whole 20-year veteran as a neurosurgery specialist! You are merely in your third year! And you say you saw it more accurately than me? From the second assistant position, your field of vision would not have been sufficiently secured!”
Yoo Seong-ho pointed at Choi Moo-gyeol.
“And you two are classmates, right? I heard you were the closest friends since medical school.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means the objectivity of your testimony cannot be confirmed!”
“Just a moment. Everyone, calm down.”
The head of the legal team intervened. Then, scanning down the documents, he opened his mouth.
“In the statement from the operating room nurse that we secured, it says, ‘Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol arbitrarily demanded the clip without listening to the surgeon’s instruction.’”
Choi Moo-gyeol looked at the attendees one by one.
The machine technician and the operating room nurse were both on Yoo Seong-ho’s side.
In fact, he had already realized it.
This meeting was not a place to reveal the truth, but a place to confirm whose responsibility it would be decided as.
Yoo Seong-ho was the head of neurosurgery and the president of the Korean Neurosurgical Society.
He was a renowned doctor with countless surgical records so far, and the face of Hankook University Hospital.
On the other hand, Choi Moo-gyeol was merely a fellow.
He was a doctor skilled at surgery with unrivaled ability, but he still had no status within the hospital.
Renowned doctor Yoo Seong-ho and new fellow Choi Moo-gyeol.
The name the hospital had to protect was by far Yoo Seong-ho.
Not a third-year fellow.
The head of the legal team summarized the content.
“Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol used a clip on a major cerebral blood vessel during a high-risk brainstem surgery without the surgeon’s clear instruction. Since the causal relationship between that procedure and the patient’s ischemic brainstem injury cannot be completely excluded, Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol bears responsibility for the surgical failure. Those who agree with this opinion, please raise your hands.”
……One, two.
People who had hesitated for a moment began to raise their hands.
“There is no evidence that the damage occurred because of the clip.”
Choi Moo-gyeol protested.
“Looking at the data, we cannot exclude the clip as the cause.”
“Are you saying Professor Yoo Seong-ho’s vascular dissection is excluded as a cause?”
The head of the legal team did not answer and continued with the conclusion.
“Also, after the incident, Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol repeatedly raised objections to his superior’s judgment and chain of command, and was uncooperative during the internal hospital investigation. Does everyone agree?”
Park Seok-hun kicked back his chair and stood up.
“Dr. Choi Moo-gyeol was not uncooperative; he simply did not agree with a lie!”
“Dr. Park Seok-hun. Sit down.”
“Are you saying you will shift responsibility onto the person who barely pulled the patient back from the edge of a cliff?”
“I said sit down.”
“Why are you not investigating Professor Yoo Seong-ho? Who is the one who tore the blood vessel!”
