Chapter 126: This Fracture is Strange (Part 3)

“Yes, yes?” Kang Dongho had been excitedly looking forward to resting after leaving the operating room, so this news came as quite a shock. The fourth-year chief resident accompanying him was equally taken aback.

What kind of screwup did that lunatic make now?

They couldn’t even begin to guess what might have happened. Despite being a fourth-year resident, he wasn’t from neurosurgery, and his workload rivaled or exceeded that of a first-year intern’s due to constant demands on his time.

“You moron! That patient… Do you ever think before acting? Why do you think I took a case with back pain?!”

While the fourth-year chief resident and Kang Dongho agonized over their predicament, Choi Nokphil’s yelling intensified. Some people get angrier when they vent, and Choi Nokphil fell squarely into that category.

It was already two o’clock in the morning, and they were in the hospital corridor, so his outburst disturbed everyone nearby, but he didn’t care.

“Oh…”

“Ah… He’s driving me crazy.”

Choi Nokphil continued to curse for some time until a senior nurse rushed over and managed to get him to lower his voice slightly. However, his expression remained unchanged. Typically, even if surgeons had terrible tempers inside the operating room, they would calm down once outside of it, but Choi Nokphil wasn’t like that.

As such, Dongho’s face grew darker by the minute.

Oh no… Once he starts ranting, there’s no end.

Not only was Choi Nokphil incredibly foul-mouthed, but he also held grudges relentlessly. The fourth-year resident could tell this incident would haunt them for at least a month.

Determined to investigate further, Dongho decided to start with the basics.

‘There should be some indication if she’s a VIP.’

If she was causing this much chaos, there must have been some notation about her status. However, there were no records on patient Kim Da-hyun’s outpatient chart. It only stated that she had been admitted to the hospital. Still, considering how quickly her admission process was handled, he suspected something more might be at play.

‘Damn it. This is why neither the nurse, primary physician nor I knew anything.’

He would’ve confronted someone immediately if not for the professor involved. And it wasn’t just any professor but Manager Choi Nokphil himself, who could easily influence his career trajectory for the next four years or so.

‘Who took charge of her case?’

As he pondered, trying to exercise patience, he noticed that Lee Suhyuk was listed as the primary physician. In truth, since they belonged to different departments and had varying levels of experience, knowing each other’s names wasn’t necessary.

He immediately recognized the name.

It’s the director’s son.

Suhyuk wondered if Lee Suhyuk had taken her somewhere knowing something about her condition. If so, she must be a truly high-profile patient. Suhyuk felt even more embarrassed to face Manager Choi Nokphil now.

On the other hand, Choi was curious as to what caught this newbie’s attention.

“What’re you looking at? Are you out of your mind? You’ve been here four years and still don’t know how things work around here?”

In truth, Manager Choi knew his words made no sense, since he himself didn’t fully understand the inner workings despite being the manager. So it was just an empty threat, but such threats worked only in hospitals.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“What were you staring at? Move aside.”

“Oh, uh… Yes.”

“The patient Kim Da-hyun’s chart? Hmm. Good job finding this. I was wondering where… Internal Medicine? Did she go to Internal Medicine?” Choi Nokphil stared at the chart with confusion written all over his face.

And no wonder. The patient had been admitted due to a fracture, so why would they send her to Internal Medicine? He wondered if it might be related to diabetes, which could require interdisciplinary cooperation.

That son of a bitch Seo Hyoseok…

Seo Hyoseok was notorious for disliking patients more than anyone else in the hospital, yet he’d taken charge of one. This meant he knew exactly who the patient was. Choi Nokphil couldn’t help but feel irked by him.

He gripped his phone tightly but hesitated before dialing. Although Seo Hyoseok held a lower rank than Choi Nokphil, his expertise placed him far above most others.

Sigh… As soon as tomorrow comes, I need to confront Shin Hyun-tae about this.

Choi Nokphil wasn’t someone who let things go easily, so he often swallowed his anger toward those with whom he had a good relationship.

“You son of a bitch! You—you straighten up! And you too, man. Now that you’re chief…”

However, when it came to venting his frustration on the designated target, he held nothing back. After spewing curses for another ten minutes or so, he reminded them to take care of today’s surgery patients before leaving.

Ugh.

Despite the most terrifying person being gone, Kang Dongho couldn’t bring himself to look up due to the fourth-year resident’s menacing glare directed at him. They usually shared a friendly senior-junior dynamic from their days as medical students, but there was no wiggle room under these circumstances.

“Do you have a mouth, asshole?” As if on cue, kicks rained down on him.

Kang Dongho didn’t even think about clutching his throbbing shin and instead bowed lower.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t I tell you to ask if you don’t know something? Before causing any trouble?”

“B-but…”

“For fuck’s sake.” The fourth-year resident stared at where Choi Nokphil had disappeared before continuing. “What kind of patient is this? Why was he admitted?”

The punch seemed to have somewhat appeased the fourth-year resident, allowing him to finally pose proper questions. There wasn’t much information available from the outpatient records or neurosurgery notes.

“He…he complained of lower back pain.”

“That’s just a symptom. What’s the diagnosis? A herniated disc?”

“Oh…no, not that.”

“Then what?”

“A fracture? That’s what it sounded like.”

“A fracture? But why did Internal Medicine take over? Who requested the transfer? Surely, you didn’t ask them first?”

The fourth-year resident considered giving another blow if it was true.

Kang Dongho hastily shook his head.

“N-No, Dr. Shin…Lee Suhyuk said he would take charge first. He mentioned that the fracture had internal causes.”

“Lee Suhyuk? Hah… This bastard doesn’t care even though he is the director’s son.” Of course, as a fourth-year resident, he wouldn’t dare say this to Lee Suhyuk directly.

Kang Dongho understood these words were only spoken because Suhyuk wasn’t present, but he played along.

“It seems you’re right. I’m not sure what exactly happened…”

“What else could it be? They took away a VIP patient. Even Seo Hyoseok, who usually avoids work like the plague… Isn’t this ridiculous?”

“W-What should we do now?”

“What can we do? Just focus on your tasks.”

“W-What will you do, Dr. Belzer?”

“I’ll call the chief of Internal Medicine and give him hell.”

The fourth-year resident left with a scowl on his face.

Only after he disappeared completely from view could Kang Dongho let out a deep sigh.

“Ugh… What’s Lee Suhyuk’s problem?” He continued to vent his frustrations about Suhyuk.

Exactly three and a half hours later, Suhyuk opened his eyes.

“Why are you scratching your ears so much?”

‘I don’t know. It just feels itchy?’

“You might get otitis externa if you continue like that. Be careful.”

‘Yeah, yeah. Anyway, have the test results come back yet?’

“I did call the lab, but I’m not sure. Firstly, they need to receive the sample.”

Drawing blood was straightforward enough, but this person needed to examine the urine for the test results.

Suhyuk hoped the patient had urinated properly as he got up from the bed.

“Maybe it’s because I slept early last night. My body feels fine.”

[Why do you say that out loud?]

“I’m alone here.”

[Is this why you’re always alone?]

Lee Suhyuk easily shrugged off Baruda’s taunt and headed towards the hospital ward. As discussed yesterday, Hayoon was waiting for him near the station. She looked exhausted, probably due to waking up earlier than usual to complete her routine.

Still, she seems better compared to when I first returned.

He recalled how he had streamlined all the prescriptions yesterday. In medicine, there is a saying that more treatment is always better than less. However, repeatedly conducting unnecessary tests seemed pointless. An inexperienced intern like An Dae-hoon might order various tests out of anxiety, but Suhyuk believed there was no need for such caution.

Suhyuk thought there was no need for this excessive testing.

“Ah, Dr. Belzer. You seem to have finished early today. Is your work done?”

Of course, Hayoon had no idea about Suhyuk’s thoughts. She merely assumed that there were fewer patients today than usual.

Initially, Suhyuk considered explaining his reasoning but decided against it after recalling Baruda’s advice - anything he said would likely be dismissed.

“It’s just past 6 PM, and you’re already done? How diligent.”

“This is what I must do to become a well-regarded intern.”

In reality, with her academic achievements, Hayoon could easily gain favor without going to such lengths. Honestly, in the current climate, it was quite rare for the top student from their class to apply for Internal Medicine. The professors would undoubtedly choose Hayoon unless she committed some egregious misconduct.

Officially, grades don’t matter, but isn’t it significant when the top student applies to our department?

With this thought, Suhyuk entered Kim Da-hyun’s charting room.

During his brief pause, Hayuni spoke up again, “Ah, right. Regarding patient Kim Da-hyun.”

“Yes, what about her?”

“Earlier…around 5:30 pm? Someone from neurosurgery contacted us. They asked if she was comfortable and whether Internal Medicine is providing proper diagnosis…they had various questions.”

“At 5:30 pm…from neurosurgery?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.” Suhyuk involuntarily furrowed his brow.

It truly was peculiar.

“Why would someone from neurosurgery check on a transferred patient when they’re likely busy with the intensive care unit? Did they get additional staff recently?”

‘That can’t be possible.’

[Hm.]

However, neither Suhyuk nor Baruda could think beyond medical issues. Hayuni also lacked experience to suggest anything else. Thanks to this, they dismissed it as strange and focused on examining the patient’s test results.

Fortunately, there were recent urine tests available, presumably from when the patient had used the restroom during the night. Based on these results, Baruda immediately performed some calculations.

[TRP (Tubular Reabsorption of Phosphate): 71%. It is significantly decreased. Otherwise, vitamin D levels and parathyroid hormone levels are normal.]

‘So, the problem lies with the kidneys.’

[If the issue is within the tubules… we must consider the possibility of cancer.]

The tubule is part of the kidney, but this did not indicate kidney cancer. Suhyuk needed to identify cancers that could damage the tubules.

At that moment, Hayoon opened her mouth.

“Ah, right.”

It seemed she had remembered something.

“What?” Suhyuk immediately stopped his conversation with Baruda and faced Hayoon. Although Baruda grumbled about how it wouldn’t work out between him and Hayoon, Suhyuk was now able to ignore Baruda’s comments.

“The patient mentioned feeling something at the back of their neck.”

“At the back of the neck? Could it be a lymphoma?”

“A tumor?”

Hayoon blinked, unable to understand the diagnostic flow. An Dae-hoon, who arrived late due to visiting the intensive care unit, shared the same confusion.

“Ah.”

Suhyuk remembered that Hayoon couldn’t understand Baruda’s words directly and continued his explanation.

“When I examined her, there was poor reabsorption of sodium in the kidneys. This indicates damage to the tubules. First, we need to consider tumors causing acute damage to the tubules. They usually grow rapidly… If she has a lump in her neck, it is likely lymphoma.”

“Ah… Should I request a biopsy from ENT?”

“Yes, please do so.”

As Suhyuk provided guidance similar to teaching, Shin Hyun-tae received a call from Manager Choi Nokfil. He sounded slightly annoyed as he hadn’t even arrived at work yet.

“What is it, Manager Choi? I’m not at the hospital yet.”

“I just wanted to mention something. Yesterday, Professor Seo Hyoseok had his resident take our patient?”

However, Manager Choi Nokphil seemed to have been waiting for this moment since dawn. His tone was excessively sharp.

Shin Hyun-tae naturally tended to be gentle, and he felt disadvantaged whenever dealing with matters involving Seo Hyoseok, so he quickly changed his attitude.

Moreover, the current resident under Seo Hyoseok was Suhyuk Shin. He needed to be cautious.

“Uh… did such an incident occur? Which patient?”

“The daughter of Taehwa Electronics’ Vice President. Currently, she is also a board member… I think you called me because you didn’t want it known publicly… but somehow, they took her away. Really, how could this happen?”