Chapter 23 - A Suspicious Patient and an Even More Suspicious Guardian (1)
“How it happened was...”
Before he knew it, Sihyeon was standing at the center of the station, beginning his story.
Once points were on the line, the small talk he previously considered meaningless became the most important thing in the world.
“So? So? Did you snatch the glass, Dr. Cheon? What do you think was in it?”
Nurse Lee Seon-ji asked, sounding like she was pressing for the next episode of a daily soap opera.
“I don’t know for sure. The most likely candidate is ‘Mul-ppong’ (GHB).”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a drug that acts as a sedative. They say if you drink it, you lose consciousness and develop anterograde amnesia.”
“Gasp. Really?”
Nurse Lee Seon-ji asked back with a look of distress upon hearing Sihyeon’s explanation.
“Hyeon-hwa ssam, what do we do? Back when we went to Hongdae after our evening shift... do you think we were targeted too? I don't remember a thing.”
“Back then? From what I saw, you seemed fine until the second round ended,” the ward assistant replied.
“What do you mean, ‘lost consciousness’... you were having a total blast that day.”
“M-Me?”
“I should have a video of it around here somewhere, let’s see...”
Ba-bam-bam-bam, ba-bam-bam-bam, ba-ba—
Strong EDM beats. It was a club. In the center of the phone screen, Nurse Lee Seon-ji, with her hair down, was performing a dance that looked as if she were possessed.
“I’m telling you, I recorded it because it was too good to watch alone. You really don't remember?”
Lee Seon-ji quickly reached out and covered Sim Hyeon-hwa’s phone.
“Wow... you’re a really good dancer.”
“I think you just drank a lot and blacked out.”
“Wahahaha!”
‘I guess the workers often hung out together after the evening shift (3:00 PM – 11:00 PM).’
It was a fact he hadn't known in the past. Even though they saw each other’s faces every day, they actually didn't know much about one another.
[System: You have earned a total of 2,000P.]
Two nurses, a ward assistant, and even a middle-aged woman with depression standing by the station with her chin in her hands had listened to Sihyeon’s story.
The points gained from telling his heroic tale were as substantial as saving a patient’s life.
Clack.
“Oh? Sihyeon, you were already here.”
Hwang Jin-ho opened the rear door for Ward 9 staff and entered the station.
“There’s nothing special to hand over for the ward. You just need to get the guardian’s signature when the patient in Room 903 goes on a stay-out pass later.”
“Right, good job. Go ahead and get some rest. It looked like there were a lot of ER patients last night.”
Hwang Jin-ho seemed to have checked the list of patients who visited the ER during the night.
“Yeah. Call me if anything happens. I’ll be near the dormitory.”
Sihyeon handed over a cup of coffee he had saved for Hwang Jin-ho and left the ward.
……
Sunday, 9:00 AM
The official duty had now switched from Sihyeon to Hwang Jin-ho.
‘Surprisingly, I’m not tired.’
The actual time he spent sleeping was barely two hours because he had to see ER patients intermittently. However, thanks to using both the ‘Deep Sleep Potion’ and the ‘Recovery Potion,’ his condition wasn't bad.
‘Now, what should I do?’
The weather was the kind that made him want to go outside the hospital and get some fresh air. Outside the window, people dressed in light spring clothes were out on the streets.
However, this was still the so-called ‘100-day duty’ period.
In the past, it was said that when a first-year resident started, they were expected to live and eat at the hospital for a full one hundred days.
While conditions have improved significantly these days, making it not quite a hundred days, March and April were still implicitly understood as a period where one had to remain near the hospital.
‘To think a first-year has nothing to do.’
While perhaps not as extreme as surgical residents, a first-year psychiatry resident was just as busy.
Under normal circumstances, he would have spent a hectic weekend catching up on work he couldn't finish during the week or preparing for case presentations, but now he had a fair amount of leisure.
The boredom he had never experienced in the past felt nothing but awkward.
[SORA : I recommend performing the ‘Daily Quest.’]
As if reading Sihyeon’s thoughts, SORA popped up a notification.
‘The Daily Quest reward is 500P. If I use the Deep Sleep Potion and the Recovery Potion every day, that’s 1,000P.’
Although he had earned a lot of points over the past few days, the cost of the potions he used daily was quite significant. It felt as if his "survival costs" were being deducted.
He had to earn as much as he could while he had the chance.
[System: Beginning physical training. (0.1/3km)]
First, a morning workout.
‘The weather is so nice.’
He considered going a bit further out, but for now, he had to be satisfied with running around the hospital perimeter.
[System: Beginning Paper Reading (0/3).]
Immediately after finishing his run, he began looking at the papers he had printed out in advance.
「A Domestic Multi-center Study on the Clinical Characteristics of Psychiatric Consultations and the Use of Antidepressants in Cancer Patients」
That was the first paper of the day. The paper contained the results of a joint study by nine university hospitals in Korea, surveying hundreds of cancer patients.
‘Man... they must have struggled to organize all this data.’
Sihyeon also had experience participating in clinical research and submitting papers as a lead author before his regression.
Thanks to that, he could now grasp the overall flow, including setting research plans, gathering data, and analysis, as well as the content of the paper itself.
‘The follow-up paper should compare the tolerability of different antidepressants. For the statistical methodology, survival analysis would be good.’
He even had a vision for the papers that would follow. His eye for reviewing research had grown to a level incomparable to his past first-year self.
[System: Completed Daily Quest: Paper Reading (3/3).]
It didn't take very long to read through three papers thoroughly.
Ding-dong!
[System: Daily Quest Reward +500P]
‘Now what do I actually do?’
Just as he was becoming bewildered by the leisure he couldn't get used to, his phone began to ring.
Bzzzzzt.
—Sihyeon, we have an emergency. Patient Jeong Gi-cheol in Room 903 suddenly has dyspnea and his blood pressure is dropping. Was he okay yesterday?
An urgent voice. It was Hwang Jin-ho.
“Huh? He didn't have any symptoms until yesterday. Even up until this morning...”
‘Bring up the chart for patient Jeong Gi-cheol in Room 903.’
[SORA : Outputting inpatient chart.]
While taking Jin-ho’s call, Sihyeon checked the patient’s records through the system window floating in the air.
—I think I need to request consults from Internal Medicine and Thoracic Surgery, but could you possibly see one patient in the ER for me? A noti just came in, but I simply can't...
“Sure. Go take care of Mr. Jeong Gi-cheol first. Don't worry about the ER.”
Sihyeon reassured Hwang Jin-ho.
‘Variables keep popping up.’
A patient with unstable vitals in the psychiatric ward. It was certainly a situation he had never experienced in the past.
This patient was also a new admission filling the empty bed created after Sihyeon’s previous patient was discharged early.
Bzzzzzt.
As soon as the call with Hwang Jin-ho ended, the phone rang again. This time, it was the Emergency Room.
—Doctor, this is ER intern Seol Hyeon-su. May I give you a noti?
“Yes, go ahead. Keep it as brief as possible.”
—A 47-year-old female patient. She presented with a chief complaint of delusional jealousy. The patient is...
Delusional jealousy. It refers to the delusion of suspecting a spouse’s fidelity, often called Othello syndrome.
“I’ll be right there. Check if the interview room is available and move the patient there.”
Since becoming a first-year again, Sihyeon rarely had to ask the interns follow-up questions. This noti from Seol Hyeon-su also ended quickly.
‘But why does this history feel like I’m hearing it for the first time?’
Perhaps it was a patient Hwang Jin-ho had seen in the past. Sihyeon headed straight for the ER.
……
The Sunday ER, as always, was nothing short of a battlefield.
The most critical patients were lying in the A-line. The area around the beds was cluttered, looking as if a CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) session had just finished. Looking at the monitors, it seemed the heart rhythm had returned to normal for now.
“Did you get called down too, Sihyeon?”
Nam Jeong-uk, an Otolaryngology (ENT) first-year and Sihyeon’s colleague who had arrived earlier, acknowledged him.
“Yeah. It looks busy here.”
“The intern is clueless... absolutely no mercy.”
As he spoke, Nam Jeong-uk called over intern Seol Hyeon-su, who was writing a chart nearby.
“Hey, intern. Did you actually perform the Dix-Hallpike properly?”
“The patient had severe neck pain, so I couldn't complete the full range of motion. I’m sorry.”
“Are you going to do a physical exam like this? Based on your report alone, it’s hard to differentiate between NR (Neurology) and ENT! What if the patient has a cerebral infarction? Can you take responsibility if we miss the golden time?”
The way he was chewing out the intern was truly chilling. It had only been a few weeks since he became a first-year, yet he had already forgotten what it was like to be an intern himself.
“I’m sorry. I will give you the noti again.”
Sihyeon felt a pang of sympathy for the dejected Seol Hyeon-su. As he crossed the station toward the interview room, he heard the nurses whispering.
“Do you know how long it takes for an intern to perform all those exams? If it’s their department’s case, can’t they just see the patient?”
“Nam Jeong-uk has changed. Why is he being so difficult about the noti?”
He hadn't changed; he was originally that kind of person.
During his internship, he had just hidden his true colors to ensure he could stay at the hospital.
Resident Nam Jeong-uk was notorious for dominating his juniors. His colleagues used to say, as a habit, that they were lucky they weren't born as Jeong-uk’s juniors.
‘Does Jeong-uk know? That he’ll be the undisputed leader in the intern vote for “Worst Resident of the Year.”’
Sihyeon shook his head lightly.
……
ER Interview Room
A middle-aged woman with a hollow expression was looking around anxiously. As expected, she was a patient he had never met in the past.
“Doctor, please listen to my story. I think my husband is having an affair lately. ...I think he even hired someone to follow me.”
Ding-dong!
[SORA: Displaying patient information.]
[Patient: Lee In-im (F/46) | Intern: Seol Hyeon-su / R1: Cheon Si-hyeon]
[Treatment Progress: 0/0 | Time remaining until discharge: 30 minutes]
‘What is this?’
The treatment progress, which usually appeared as a percentile, was displayed as 0/0. Sihyeon immediately looked around at the patients from other departments.
[Treatment Progress 37/100]
[Treatment Progress 55/100]
…
…
[Treatment Progress 18/100]
All of them were appearing normally, just as they always did.
‘Does this mean she can't be treated?’
Delusional jealousy was a difficult illness to manage, but this was strange. With a bewildered heart, Sihyeon began the interview with the patient.
Following her, the husband and the eldest daughter, who had come as guardians, entered the interview room.
“I have never met another woman in my entire life of marriage! Please, fix my wife! Why else would I have come all the way to the Emergency Room on a holiday?”
First, the husband appealed his sense of being wronged.
“That’s right, our dad isn’t that kind of person. I think Mom is just sick.”
The eldest daughter’s opinion was similar.
Knock, knock.
Sihyeon was about to ask the guardians a few more questions when someone knocked on the interview room door.
“Why did you bring Mom here?”
It was the second daughter.
“Dad has been different from usual lately, hasn't he? He stays out late frequently. If you were in her shoes, Doctor, wouldn't you be suspicious?”
“……”
A doctor is not a legal professional. It is more important to handle the anger or anxiety the patient feels rather than the actual fact of whether an affair took place.
While the principle is to neither affirm nor deny a delusion, for this one time, he grew curious about the truth.
‘Did the husband really have an affair?’
He was curious. Truly. It was an emotion he was feeling for the first time since returning as a first-year.
‘Is there no such thing as a lie detector potion?’
Right then, a high-priced item he had seen on the first page of the "highest price" sort flashed through Sihyeon’s mind.
[Kaitman’s Glasses (S) — Kaitman’s lifelong research comes to fruition. Analyzes emotions and identifies lies.]
It was "Kaitman’s Glasses," one of the three core item sets. Since it could identify lies, it would certainly be helpful in this situation. The problem was the price.
‘But wasn't this incredibly expensive?’
[Kaitman’s Glasses — 999,999+ P]
‘Even if I do the daily quests for four years straight, I won't be able to buy this.’
Sihyeon furrowed his brow. However, in the next moment, a line of text at the very bottom of the item description caught his eye.
[Subscription service available for 5,000P / 1 day.]
[Owned Resources — 7,500P]
He wanted to ask SORA if price negotiation was possible, but his pride wouldn't allow it.
‘Should I try using it once?’
Sihyeon closed his eyes tight and reached out toward the system window.