Chapter 29: A New Place (1)

"Patient's blood pressure, how is it?"

"It's continuously dropping!"

"Intravenous fluids... How much has been administered?"

"It's already full!"

"Vasopressor... Let's use the vasopressor."

At Professor Jo Tae-jin's command, a nurse hurriedly connected the prepared vasopressor to the patient's line.

However, the patient's ECG showed no significant change.

It seemed to have reached its limit; the cardiac output rose slightly and then fell again.

"Damn! There's no pulse! Interns, what are you doing! Start chest compressions quickly!"

Finally, the heart stopped completely, and the ECG graph showed a flat line.

Professor Jo Tae-jin, who had been fiddling with the defibrillator just in case, threw the device aside and climbed onto the patient.

He then pressed the patient's chest until the interns gathered around.

He pressed so hard that some of the patient's ribs were breaking.

At that moment, while Suhyuk was taking an arterial blood sample from the patient's wrist, the thought of lung damage caused by broken ribs flashed through his mind, but it was no longer important.

Now, the only thing that mattered was getting the patient's heart to beat again.

"Intern, take this and run the analysis!"

So, Suhyuk handed the arterial blood he had drawn to an intern and said,

"Professor, I'll take over now!"

He climbed onto the patient's body, replacing Professor Jo Tae-jin, who was panting heavily.

Although his left leg was somewhat inconvenient, making him a bit slower, it was not impossible since the patient's bed was lowered.

"One, two, three, four."

Suhyuk pressed the patient's chest firmly, placing his palm between the two nipples and straightening his arms to apply his full weight, just as he had been taught and his body remembered.

To an outsider, it might look like torture.

However, no matter how hard he pressed, it was still insufficient to replicate the actual beating of the heart.

[The patient is already in a severe state of multiple organ failure. Further treatment is meaningless.]

While Suhyuk was sweating profusely and pressing the patient's chest, Baruda made a rather disheartening comment.

'Shut up! Don't say such unlucky things!'

In fact, Suhyuk agreed with Baruda's words, but it was also true that curses were involuntarily spilling out.

'The patient is too young!'

The patient under Suhyuk was only 18 years old.

Suhyuk was not in charge of this patient.

It was a blood cancer patient under another second-year resident.

The reason Jo Tae-jin, Suhyuk, and Kim In-soo were the first to arrive and create such a commotion was simple.

They just happened to see the patient collapse while making their rounds.

It was Suhyuk, not Baruda, who noticed.

[The patient in the corner, the heart rate is abnormal.]

At first, Suhyuk thought it was just a routine diagnosis.

Baruda usually tried to match diseases with new patients or patients he saw for the first time to improve his reasoning skills.

[The heart rate is increasing as the blood pressure drops.]

But by the time he heard the second statement, he could no longer ignore it.

Baruda was not just stating a diagnosis but describing a situation that was unfolding.

So, when he turned his head, he saw a young patient lying there.

A patient in the hematology-oncology department, but an incredibly young child.

'Save him!'

After that, the patient's heart rate, which had soared to preserve blood pressure, plummeted just as quickly, leading to the current CPR situation.

[It's too late.]

'Don't just say the same thing! Find a way!'

[Look at the data, Suhyuk. I've read the patient's medical records.]

'Huh?'

At Baruda's words, Suhyuk, while doing his best to perform chest compressions, recalled the records Baruda had mentioned earlier.

'CML, multiple metastases (brain, liver, lung).'

This was the patient's diagnosis.

Chronic myeloid leukemia with metastasis to the brain, liver, and lungs.

'Waiting for BM transplantation.'

This was the patient's future plan.

Waiting for a bone marrow transplant.

There was no other hope or treatment.

In other words, if a donor was not found, he was just waiting to die.

'Damn it!'

[Stop, Suhyuk.]

'Shut up!'

[Stop... and look around.]

'Huh? Oh...'

Only then did Suhyuk realize that all the medical staff, except for him, had stopped their efforts.

He also realized that it had been 30 minutes since the patient went into cardiac arrest.

And despite the continuous chest compressions and medication, the heart had not resumed beating.

"Hey, Suhyuk, get down."

"Ah, yes, Professor."

As soon as Suhyuk stopped, Professor Jo Tae-jin, with a dark expression, nodded at Kim In-soo.

Kim In-soo immediately rushed over, climbed onto the patient, and pulled the half-exhausted Suhyuk down.

"Ah, oh..."

At that moment, the middle-aged woman who had been by the child's side burst into tears.

She could finally see her son's face clearly, which had been obscured by Suhyuk.

She realized that there was no longer any life in that face.

"Let's step back. The attending professor... and the primary doctor are here."

Kim In-soo gently pulled Suhyuk, who was alternating his gaze between the mother and her now-deceased son.

Suhyuk, with a dazed look on his face, followed Kim In-soo out of the room.

Tap.

Tap.

He did not forget to use his cane, a sign that he had become accustomed to it.

"Suhyuk, are you okay?"

Professor Jo Tae-jin, who had been waiting in the hallway, asked Suhyuk.

He was so affectionate that other residents felt more bewildered than jealous.

But Kim In-soo, who knew what kind of first-year resident Suhyuk was, did not feel any particular emotion.

He only thought Suhyuk was impressive.

"Ah... Yes, I'm fine. Thank you."

Professor Jo smiled when Suhyuk said he was fine.

It might seem inappropriate to smile after witnessing someone's death, but it was necessary to survive in a university hospital's internal medicine department.

Especially in hematology-oncology, where death was almost a constant companion.

"Well, it's not your patient... You shouldn't get so worked up."

Professor Jo Tae-jin's words were not telling Suhyuk to be indifferent to death.

By the time one reached a certain age and had been a professor in a university hospital's internal medicine department for a while, one learned a few things beyond medicine.

'Human emotions have a limit.'

This was one of them.

No matter how strong a person was, if they kept giving everything, they would eventually collapse.

If they couldn't take care of their own patients, what would happen?

It would be wrong to say the patient was just unlucky.

That was neither a professional nor a doctor's attitude.

"I'm sorry, Professor."

Suhyuk, who understood the meaning of Professor Jo Tae-jin's words, bowed hurriedly.

Professor Jo Tae-jin looked at the back of Suhyuk's neck for a moment before moving on.

"Alright. There's nothing wrong with working hard on a patient. Let's go. The elderly patient is waiting."

"Ah, yes!"

At his words, Suhyuk, tapping his cane, hurriedly ran ahead of Jo Tae-jin and opened the door to the sterile room.

Through the glass, he saw the elderly patient sitting upright, still undergoing dialysis but looking almost healthy otherwise.

Thump.

The patient, who had apparently been waiting for Suhyuk all day, immediately got out of bed and put on his slippers.

Despite his immune system not being fully recovered, his movements were not ordinary.

"Hey! Stay still! What if you fall?"

Suhyuk scolded the elderly patient.

But the sad expression from earlier, when he had to let go of the unnamed patient, had already faded.

Seeing a patient who had been given up on and treated with hope come back to life was a powerful experience.

"The test results... The transplanted bone marrow is engrafting very well. You have a slight fever, but I think it's an inflammatory response as the cancer is being killed."

Professor Jo Tae-jin, who entered the room before Suhyuk, who was still putting on his gown, spoke.

He did not say it, but he was very happy to see a patient he had given up on come back to life.

"Inflammation...?"

So, the patient, not fully understanding, spoke excitedly.

Suhyuk, who entered the room later, had to provide additional explanations.

"Grandpa, your bone marrow now contains someone else's bone marrow. To that bone marrow, the cancer that originated from your bone marrow is seen as a foreign entity. So, it's fighting against it."

Of course, this explanation was not easy either.

One needed a basic understanding of immunology to fully grasp it.

But the elderly patient smiled broadly.

Whatever was happening, the fact that the doctors were so excited in front of him was a good sign.

"Oh, right. Yes."

After laughing for a while, Professor Jo Tae-jin spoke again, pointing at Suhyuk.

"Patient, starting today, Dr. Lee Suhyuk will be moving to the endocrinology department. Suhyuk, say thank you to the patient."

"Ah, yes. Patient, I'm moving to a different department. Please continue to receive your treatment and get well soon. Thank you."

Suhyuk bowed, looking at the phrase 'Please get well soon' he had carved on the sterile room window, now invisible.

"Oh, oh... I'll miss you so much..."

The elderly patient, truly feeling sad, teared up.

Seeing this, Professor Jo Tae-jin burst into a loud laugh.

"Hey! Patient, I'm your attending doctor, so I'm more important! I'll be sad if you're sad."

"Ah, ah. Is that so? I'm sorry."

"No, no. Anyway, from tomorrow, another doctor will take care of you. I'll introduce you. Get some rest."

With that laugh, he skillfully moved on and left the room.

"Oh, I'll miss you so much."

Next, he looked at Suhyuk with a face that seemed even sadder than when he had spoken to the patient.

Kim In-soo did not blame Professor Jo Tae-jin.

Suhyuk had really done a great job over the past month.

To the point where he wondered how he would manage with a different primary doctor.

"Um..."

It was natural for Suhyuk to be at a loss with the professor acting this way.

Professor Jo Tae-jin, looking at Suhyuk, burst into laughter.

If the previous laugh was to comfort the patient, this one was to comfort himself.

"It's okay, it's okay! You can become a hematology professor later!"

"I'll do it if you let me!"

"Hahaha. Well... We'll think about it slowly. Next is endocrinology, right?"

"Yes."

"Um..."

Jo Tae-jin thought of the professor who would be Suhyuk's attending doctor and the chief, Kim Jin-yong.

Neither of them were particularly nice people.

But it would be unprofessional for a professor to say such things.

So, he decided to just pat Suhyuk on the shoulder.

This guy would do well wherever he went.

"Don't be overwhelmed by the differences and do your best."

Of course, he added words of encouragement.

"Yes, Professor. Thank you."

Suhyuk, as usual, received the encouragement with a confident attitude.