Golden Time

Chapter 56

The presentation session was just around the corner.

Tomorrow they are supposed to present the presentations in front of the professors.

It’s 10pm. The students, confined to the PK room, were busy with putting finis.h.i.+ng touches on their presentation preparation. Some of them were mumbling while standing, and checked and rechecked if they had any mistakes in their presentations.

The central figure among them was Suhyuk.

If they did not know or understand anything, they turned to Suhyuk for help.

Suhyuk replied to their questions without hesitating even for a second.

On all such occasions they were stunned, but kept a calm expression because that was not the first time.

“Done.”

Suhyuk smiled lightly, looking at the monitor.

He finished all the preparations for the presentation. Originally it was not even half a day’s job, but he was a little slow because he had to help with his friends’ work.

It was also because he was a bit complacent about his work.

When he tried to turn off the PC, Suhyuk put his hand on his cellphone.

It was a call from resident Park Ganghyun.

He would never contact the students after practice sessions.

‘What is it?’

“Yes, sir,” answered Suhyuk.

“Have you not gone home yet?”

“I’m going home now.”

“Come to the emergency room right now along with your friends. No, just you alone.”

“What’s going on?”

Park hung up the phone when he said that.

Suhyuk stared at his cellphone quietly. Apparently his voice seemed urgent.

Then a voice popped out from the side.

“What’s the matter?” It was Choi Suryon.

“Resident Park is calling for me.”

“Why?”

Suhyuk shook his head. He did not know why either.

“Would you like me to go with you?”

“No, he asked me to come alone.”

Choi looked back at him walking away, and murmured, “How busy he is… He thinks he has already become a doctor?”

The emergency room was crowded with patients.

More patients than usual rushed into the emergency room, making the nurses and doctors hectically busy.

“What happened?”

Suhyuk asked a busy nurse pa.s.sing by.

“The bus that high school students were riding on had an accident.”

Suhyuk looked around again. Most of the patients were students, who ranged from those with blood on their faces to those with bleeding limbs.

Luckily, he was not able to see an emergency patient.

“Huuhh…”

He closed his eyes for a moment and calmed down his pounding heart.

Then he found Park Ganghyun. Suhyuk was able to find him quickly.

“You called for me, sir,” said Suhyuk.

Park did not reply. Instead, he opened the pupil of the wounded patient to confirm its reflex. There was no reflex.

“Nurse Lee, I think you should take a scan of the patient. Hurry up, please.”

“Okay.”

When the nurse disappeared with the patient, Park opened his mouth to Suhyuk,

“You see resident Oh Byungchul over there? As you can see, he is short handed at the moment because many patients came here at the same time, so go and ask him if he needs anything.”

Nurses, doctors, and interns all took care of the patients, but it was not enough.

In addition, new patients kept coming in.

“I’m afraid you have to help as an a.s.sistant.”

Though he mentioned a.s.sistant role, it was more like an errand boy.

It was not possible to put a student without a medical license into actual treatment practice.

In addition to Lee Suhyuk, Park tried to call all of the apprentices. But he changed his mind because the guys, who were confused about even the simple names of the medical apparatus, would disturb him when they were called for.

Lee Suhyuk alone was enough.

So Park moved to the imaging room with the patient.

Looking at his back, Suhyuk scratched his head.

‘How can I a.s.sist?’ He thought to himself.

Then he went to Oh Byungchul who was watching over a patient.

He was instructing the nurse, checking the torn eyes of the patient.

“Tell them our our emergency room is full, and to return the ambulance to another hospital.”

“Yes!”

The nurse disappeared and Oh Byungchul looked at Suhyuk.

“Did resident Park call for you?”

“Yes, he asked me to help you…”

Oh Byungchul smiled lightly, and he gestured with his eyes, glancing at the medical appliances.

“Give me a needle holder.”

Suhyuk moved his hands without hesitation.

He exactly picked up the right tweezers among dozens of tools.

“When you are doing your interns.h.i.+p, you will be st.i.tching countless times until you’re bored. So, take a close look now. Otherwise you might get confused later.”

Oh, who withdrew his gaze from Suhyuk, told the patient in a comforting manner,

“It will sting a bit.”

The needle touched the patient’s skin.

At the same time, he skillfully sewed with thread to the skin. It was dermal burial suture.

It was a technique to suture the skin by touching only the dermis without suturing the underlying skin.

It was a cosmetic procedure as the st.i.tch was done for a facial area.

“Synthetic (for inner skin suture)?”

“Oh yeah.”

Oh Byungchul laughed dumbfoundedly at Suhyuk watching the st.i.tching job.

It was difficult to visually confirm that the suture he was doing now was touching the skin or touching the dermis. Nonetheless, he could figure it out correctly. What a guy…

Without Oh’s instuction, Suhyuk gave out the necessary things according to each step correctly.

On such occasions, he looked at Suhyuk sometimes.

He was as good as an intern who studied quite well.

He gave out the st.i.tching instruments as if he were suturing himself.

The suturing time was not short, but the suture ended now.

Oh finally opened his mouth after disinfecting it.

“You can leave now,” said Oh.

“Pardon?”

“Go and do your work. I don’t think there is anything left you can do.”

Suhyuk looked around. Most of the patients had light bruises and abrasions.

The only thing left is to look at the bones and organs of the students using medical equipment. The patients who were rushed into the emergency room like a rising tide gradually got discharged.

“Take care,” said Suhyuk, and left the room.

It was less than two hours that he stayed there.

He just felt futile at the moment and thought like this: ‘I hope that time pa.s.ses quickly, so the day would come as soon as possible when I can touch and take care of the sick people and the patients suffering from pain. Then I won’t calm down my throbbing heart, nor will I hesitate to help.’

—–

Students in clean suits and white robes gathered in the conference room.

And they waited for the professors anxiously.

“I hope I do well without trembling during the presentation.”

“I hope the professors don’t ask questions.”

Looking at them, Suhyuk laughed gently.

They were so nervous even though they were so well prepared.

Then Park Ganghyun came into the meeting room, followed by Professor Lee Mansuk and Professor Kim Jinwook.

The two professors’ eyes turned to Suhyuk, with a look that seemed to ask, ‘It was too easy for you, wasn’t it’ ‘Just be my disciple as I give you a full score without looking at your presentation.’ It was the kind of look that Suhyuk could not understand at all.

So the two professors sat down and Park opened his mouth, “Professors do not have much time, so let’s start right away. Kwon Jaeik, you’re first?”

“Yeah!”

“Start your presentation!”

The screen came down and the beam projector shot the video.

Kwon opened his mouth with a trembling voice.

“My patient is a 55-year-old man who has been diagnosed with ossification[1] of the posterior longitudinal ligament, and I will begin the presentation. Three years ago, the patient had pain on the neck and shoulder, so he had been treated at another hospital. The patient was taken to this emergency room after he fell while climbing. He had neck pain, weakness in the limbs … ”

Kwon’s presentation, despite him being the most nervous among the students, was delivered surprisingly well. Professor Lee opened his mouth when the presentation was over,

“Well, good job. What is the cause of postmenopausal syndrome?”

His presentation described the medical treatment in detail, but touched on the disease-induced explanation evasively.

“Well…”

“Don’t you know the answer?” Professor Lee was stunned at Kwon, who became dumb as an oyster.

“A prescription is offered by a doctor, but the doctor doesn’t know the cause of the disease. Do you think this makes any sense?”

Then he called Suhyuk’s name sitting beside him.

“Lee Suhyuk,”  His head turned to Lee.

“Do you know the answer?”

His expression turned embarra.s.sed.

If he answered the question, it seemed Kwon’s practice score would be deducted somehow. For the answer that the presenter did not know would come from the wrong person.

The professor frowned a bit when Suhyuk seemed hesitant.

He felt a bit disappointed because the answer did not even come out from the student he had in mind. Of course, his eagerness to have him as his disciple did not wane a bit just for that.

He’s just a student now. What he had shown so far was great.

‘What he does not know, I can teach.’ Prof. Lee thought to himself.

When Professor Lee’s gaze moved back to the presenter, he heard something,

“It was abnormal ossification that occurs along the posterior cervical vertebrae.”

The professor’s head turned to Suhyuk again. He was laughing gently, which reconfirmed his trust in him. Suhyuk did not stop there,

“Stenosis of the spinal ca.n.a.l causes radiculopathy and myelopathy.”

When Suhyuk stopped, Prof. Lee asked, “What are the symptoms that have a tendency to accompany?”

“Common ligaments, yellow ligaments, and ossicles of the spinal ligaments may be common.”

Lee nodded his head, as if he were satisfied. He could reconfirm his trust in him.

Suhyuk opened his mouth again,

“This is what I seemed to have heard from the presenter Kwon Jaeik yesterday. Maybe he must have forgotten because he was so nervous.”

Lee asked Kwon, “Really?”

Meeting his eyes, Kwon opened his eyes wide and looked at Suhyuk.

Suhyuk was nodding his head with a smile.

“Yes, sir!”

“I see.”

Profs. Lee and Kim took a pen on the paper they were holding. They wanted to deduct the score but did not. Suhyuk’s behavior was praiseworthy.

He said he heard it all from the presenter? The two professors did not believe him.

The presentations continued.

The students who were sweating at the questions of the professors barely responded by using their knowledge as much as they could. Among them, Choi Suryon, who made a smooth presentation and a clean Q & A session, was praised by the professors.

Finally, Suhyuk’s turn came up.

A break time was given prior to his presentation.

“I will give you 10 minutes break. So, go to the toilet quickly if you want.”

“In that case I will return quickly.”

At Park’s words, the students moved quickly.

Suhyuk moved to a PC to connect his USB with the presentation contents.

Then Choi Suryon approached and supported Suhyuk.

“Lee Suhyuk, Go get ’em!”

Suhyuk nodded with a slight smile. There was nothing difficult. All he had to do was show the images and pictures of the data, and explain about the blood cancer that such patients were suffering, and

the process of treatment and future prescriptions. It was a simple presentation.

If the other students had known this idea of Suhyuk’s, they would have been stunned.

Simple? No way!

Soon Suhyuk came before the PC, connecting the USB to look for the files.

Then.

“Uh?” The file did not exist. No matter how he searched for it, he could not find it.

He vividly remembered that he finished work yesterday and saved the PPT on the USB.

The students who had visited the toilet took their seats while Suhyuk was wearing an embarra.s.sed expression.

And Park Ganghyun informed the professors.

“The last presenter is Lee Suhyuk.”