Weewoo wee woo―
Stretchers were pushed into the emergency center of Myeong Sae Hospital.
"I have an electric shock patient!"
The appearance of a patient with a burn attracted bewildered attention from visitors standing at the reception desk.
Medical staff urgently approached the stretcher. The paramedics revealed information about the patient to the approaching doctor.
"35, male! He was working with an underground cable at a telecommunication company and had a high-voltage current exposure accident!"
"To the critical treatment room!"
Chief Ji Hwi-gwan, who was looking at an ankle fracture patient in the general area, talked to the nurse as soon as he saw an emergency patient loaded on the stretcher.
"His Achilles tendon is fine, so call any resident and give him a splint."
"Yes, chief."
An electric shock patient who settled in the severe treatment room was transferred to a hospital bed.
Chief Ji ran over hurriedly, placed a stethoscope on the patient's chest, and asked.
"How long has he been in this state?"
"He was in ventricular fibrillation from the time we mobilized, and the general public continued CPR for about five minutes under medical guidance from the center while we were on our way. It took 2 minutes and 30 seconds to confirm the first recovery after attaching the defibrillator. The patient was under a total cardiac arrest for a duration of 7 minutes and 30 seconds."
[TN: Ventricular Fibrillation-Ventricular fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm in which the ventricles of the heart quiver instead of pumping normally.]
Even in a chaotic situation, the voice which answered was very stable. Chief Ji's eyes were fixed on the face of the paramedic under the firefighter's hat.
It was Han Min-gyu, a veteran emergency team leader at the nearby Seodaemun Fire Station.
"7 minutes and 30 seconds. That was close. Thank you for your hard work, team leader. We'll take care of it from here."
"Please take care of the rescuee, chief."
Team leader Han also recognized Chief Ji, greeted him lightly, and pushed his empty stretcher to leave.
Chief Ji immediately issued an order.
"He’s lost a lot of body fluids. Nurse Yoon, add as much saline as possible, and mix 50ml of sodium bicarbonate with one saline bag. And 25g of Mannitol. Seongjun, take care of the urine tube. Chang Soo! Where’s the time to do a blood test here! Get ready for myofascial resection first!"
[TN:myofascial resection-removal of tissues relating to the fascia surrounding and separating muscle tissue.]
As the task was delegated quickly, the medical staff's movements became faster.
The patient's clothes were cut off with scissors and his chest was clearly revealed.
The reddish area where the thermal burn was. The hand of Ji Hwi-gwan in sterile gloves was placed on top of it.
Beep beep!
All the figures on the vital monitor were displaying a graph just before death.
Han Min-gyu turned his head after delivering the patient's belongings to the nurse.
"Let's go, Jiseok."
"Team leader, do you think that patient will live?”
Rookie paramedic Lee Ji-seok, who had been sweating a lot as he transferred patients, was unable to take his eyes off the bed where treatment began.
"I don't know. It's the realm of doctors from here on out."
Han Min-gyu put his hand on the shoulders of his junior, who could not turn his eyes.
"I'm sorry. It's not our responsibility after the patient is transferred."
"But…"
Since it had been only a month since he joined the emergency team, it seemed that he had never encountered a patient so close to death before.
Han Min-gyu, who briefly looked at the treatment room, quietly waited for Lee Ji-seok, who was feeling regretful about the treatment situation.
Chief Ji's scalpel split the wound. After blood leaked from the swollen affected area inside the skin, the vital monitor's warning signal stopped.
-Euuuggh.
And the patient woke up.
-Mr. Yoon! Oh, man. I told you I was going to do it.
The person who arrived in the ambulance along with the patient welcomed the patient’s return to life with a crying voice.
After emergency treatment, a doctor began to explain the patient's condition to his companion. With a very calm look.
Han Min-gyu also calmly continued to talk.
"Paramedic Lee Jiseok."
"Yes, team leader."
"Focus on those doctors. Can you see someone acting like you?”
"…No."
"It's not because they don't have emotions. Emergency room doctors are similar to us. If the doctor is too emotional about their patient being revived, the impact on the latter doubles. We have to encounter numerous rescuees in the future, but we can't put our hearts into it every time. So let's leave joy or sadness for the patient's family."
Lee Ji-seok nodded at the advice of a senior with a long experience.
"You mean composure, right? Okay, team leader. But it's good to see that he’s safe."
Lee Ji-seok, who smiled awkwardly, and Han Min-gyu, who smiled blandly, pushed the empty bed and headed out of the emergency room.
A man in a suit walked into the door where paramedics passed by. Probably because it was an emergency visit, he was leisurely looking around inside as he asked a nurse passing by.
"Excuse me. Where is the chief?"
"Who are you?"
"I came from the City Hall."
The man in a suit took out a name tag with the status of a public official. The nurse looked around and pointed to the severe treatment room.
"He's over there."
"Thank you."
As he approached the treatment room with the tapping of his shoes, he paused and could not easily approach the electric shock patient inside.
"Who are you? You can't come in here recklessly."
At the scolding of the doctor whose sleeves were all blood-stained, the man in a suit immediately bowed at the waist.
"Hello. I am Yoo Gwon-Ryul from the City Hall Policy Planning Office. You're Chief Ji Hwi-gwan, right?”
Chief Ji looked suspicious.
"City Hall? Why is the City Hall….”
"Huh? Didn't you hear the news? I came about the cooperation visit regarding participation in next week's fire prevention event."
The man in a suit replied with a strange look. Chief Ji asked back as he became lost in thought.
"If it's a disaster prevention event, did the head apply for it?"
"I applied for it."
A refreshing voice intervened between the two.
Lim So Yool, a woman wearing a neat coat, approached with a secretary behind her.
Lim So Yool politely bowed to Chief Ji. Then she looked back at Yoo Gwon-Ryul.
"I'm Lim So Yool, the director's representative."
"Oh, the person who called me. But the chief doesn't know about this event.”
"I didn't know you'd text me after you arrived an hour early. Thanks to you, I don't have time to persuade him anymore."
Her voice, which did not show any ups and downs of emotion. The glint in her eyes was also not that different from that of Yoo Gwon-Ryul’s superiors, so he shrank back automatically.
"I'm in the process of expediting my work. On Friday night, you should go home on time. Haha."
When Lim So Yool as well as Chief Ji remained expressionless after Yoo Gwon-Ryul tried to cover up the awkwardness with laughter, asked quietly, "Should I come back in an hour?"
Chief Ji looked at Lim So Yool.
"I don't know why, but I hate being involved with fire stations."
"You'll have something to think about when you hear the conditions. Let's go somewhere quiet. With Mr. Yoo.”
Inside the staff room of the Emergency Center.
Chief Ji read the document handed over by Lim So Yool and put it down on the table.
"If we participate in this event, can our hospital be designated as a trauma center in the western region?"
"I can't give you a definite answer. But I think it's very likely."
"The designation of regional trauma centers is an issue that all famous hospitals in the western region are aiming for. Neither the attitudes of the people in charge nor the words from the city hall are favorable to our hospital."
Chief Ji moved his eyes toward Yoo Gwon-Ryul. He answered with a dry cough while reading the air.
"The influence of the Ministry of Health and Welfare is all about public medical projects. We're only dealing with the situation according to the manual."
Lim So Yool continued to say.
"What you said was right. This is a state-funded project and the decision is never made with an emotional choice. The selection of candidate sites for regional trauma centers only follows the internal evaluation score of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Myeong Sae Hospital is just below the current candidate selection cutoff. It’s 1.3 points short."
Yoo Gwon-Ryul floundered.
"The evaluation criteria is confidential. The officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare haven’t even told us the scores."
"The selection criteria are confidential, but the list of hospitals designated as candidates is already disclosed. If you look at the operating indicators of candidate hospitals, it's just a matter of equations to guess in reverse."
Lim So Yool's eyes sparked as she began to talk about the concept of numbers.
Yoo Gwon-Ryul asked just in case because the words were simple but the process was not easy.
"I… I keep getting calls from Yeouido Korean Hospital. How many points are they lacking there?"
"I have to look up the data there to find out. You can calculate it yourself."
For Yoo Gwon-Ryul who was tilting his head, Lim So Yool presented a page containing complex formulas.
"If you majored in statistics, simply…… No, you'll understand in about 10 minutes.”
Although Yoo Gwon-Ryul frequently compiled various statistical data for his job, it was inevitable that he was shocked by the formulas and application functions he had never seen before.
"Th-this in 10 minutes?"
"Why? As expected, right? I think 5 minutes is enough. Because of someone, I'm confused with the standard.”
Yoo Gwon-Ryul no longer continued asking questions.
Chief Ji looked at Lim So Yool with an intrigued look.
"So what the director means is that next week's disaster prevention event will raise those points. Is that it?”
"That's right. It's an event where you can add about 1.7 points if you check your external reputation and cooperation with related organizations by standard deviation.”
The dean's representative's visits and accounting adjustments were notorious among the chiefs. Regarding Lim So Yool, they commented that she had no blood or tears, but Chief Ji did not feel any sense of crisis.
The emergency room was a department that suffered losses in all hospitals, and it was not particularly different at Myeong Sae Hospital.
However, when he actually met her, she did not complain about the vicious cycle of losses of the emergency room. Rather, she said a plan to be more faithful to its original function and win the national treasury project.
"That's why you thought you could persuade me in an hour."
"Because it's a good number. Since the calculation was completed in the morning, I apologize for applying first and informing you later."
A smart personality. It was Chief Ji's favorite mindset.
"That persuasion, you may have succeeded in 5 minutes. I like this suggestion."
"Thank you."
"What exactly is the event?"
"Mr. Yoo will tell you that."
As the two people turned to him, Yoo Gwon-Ryul was nervous for a moment.
The emergency chief and the dean's representative, there was nowhere for him to comment in the conversation.
He was just explaining about the event, but Yoo Gwon-Ryul felt like he was presenting a policy PT in front of the city councilors as he spoke.
"This fire prevention event is an event where volunteer firefighters work 24 hours a day to give a break to all members of Seoul who are tired from working two shifts in teams of four. In particular, paramedics desperately need the participation of doctors with knowledge of emergency medicine…….”
That evening.
As Dowook entered the staff office to make a schedule for the week, he found a crowd of residents in front of the computer.
"What are you doing?"
"Senior. There's a big announcement. Sungtae, hurry up and bring the printed one."
Kim Sungtae, who quickly ran to the printer at Nam Hana's instructions, handed out the document to Dowook.
Dowook’s eyes widened as he read.
An application to receive an intention to work with paramedics at Seodaemun Fire Station next Saturday.
Dowook who thought it was a cruel notice asking people so busy they didn’t have a social life to go out and volunteer stopped his gaze at the end of the document.
[Participants do not have to respond to personal calls from the emergency center for the next 60 days. When on duty, the chief is in charge of the responsibility. Provided that the qualification for participation is limited to residents.]
Call immunity. For two months at that.
When doctors were on duty, if they were asked what was the most annoying and painful, the call from the emergency room would come out at the top.
It wasn’t like they couldn’t not respond. But when you went, 90% of the patients would have to be checked slowly.
This was like a declaration to drastically reduce the intensity of work for two months.
"Are you going to participate in this?"
"Of course. If you work hard for a day, two months will be comfortable."
Dowook laughed at the sight of his juniors talking excitedly. Then he remembered that he had no surgery scheduled for the first time in a long time next weekend.
It had been a really long time since he’d been off, so he had all kinds of rest plans, but the sweetness of the call immunity was an irresistible temptation.
"Sungtae, please pick one for me, too. I still have a month of residency left."
"What? You too? Do you need to take care of these things too?”
"Yes. Just because I understand you guys are having a hard time doesn't mean I'm not having a hard time."
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