Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 124

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 124.
Saint Hospital had appeared in an episode of Doctor X where medical volunteers were dispatched.
The funding came from Korea University Hospital, and Saint Hospital provided the doctors—it was a volunteer operation run by both. The Hospital Director sent Im Sung-hyuk there, starting with a gentle nudge: just go check on the volunteer site and that’s it.
‘It was a hospital that emphasized dedication. I thought it was nonsense while reading it. But it’ll be real here, won’t it.’
Beom-jun recalled the part where Sung-hyuk had visited Saint Hospital.
Dedication to life, healing through service.
The motto, displayed across the main entrance of Saint Hospital like a massive signboard, appeared throughout the hospital’s interior.
Saint Hospital defined love for patients as the dedication of medical staff. As if to say: you must sacrifice, give up what’s yours, that’s what being a doctor means.
After hearing Hui-jeong’s account, Beom-jun felt two conflicting impulses.
‘If they demand sacrifice, they might be keeping wages artificially low.’
‘These bastards. If you’re going to make people work, you damn well pay them properly.’
Both Beom-jun’s reason and emotion fired at once. He swallowed his anger and let reason win, asking Hui-jeong:
“How low are we talking about for personnel costs?”
“Using Korea University Hospital as the baseline, it’d be around 70 percent. If we compare it to the average of the top four hospitals, it’s 80 percent.”
Beom-jun quickly calculated the figures from Hui-jeong’s words.
What Korea University Hospital would pay five million won for, Saint Hospital paid only 3.5 million. The difference went straight into the hospital’s pocket.
Saint Hospital was an Advanced General Hospital—over three thousand employees.
‘They’re pocketing the difference. God knows where that money’s actually going.’
Beom-jun’s brow furrowed, creasing vertically with visible displeasure.
That Saint Hospital was the headquarters of Uigwonhoe was genuinely disappointing. If they were going to advocate for doctors’ rights, shouldn’t they at least offer competitive salaries?
Saint Hospital’s words and actions didn’t align.
Beom-jun recalled a scene from Doctor X.
It was when Im Sung-hyuk had gone for an on-site inspection at Saint Hospital. He’d been tasked with checking what supplies the medical volunteers needed and requesting any additional items.
‘Are you sterilizing these properly? I can’t tell the used ones from the new ones.’
‘The Professor isn’t familiar with local conditions. It’s a low-resource setting. This is actually my fifth medical volunteer trip.’
A Saint Hospital staff member had bantered in response to Sung-hyuk’s concern. Using experience as a shield, he was trying to gloss over it.
‘Regardless, you can’t operate with these. Use disposables where possible, and make sure anything used is properly sterilized.’
‘Professor, really. You just need to check on equipment supplies, that’s all.’
Even as Sung-hyuk pressed the point, the staff member seemed not to listen.
‘This medication’s past its expiration date.’
‘Oh, that’s not an injection—it’s a topical spray, so it’s fine.’
The staff member’s casual attitude had gotten under Sung-hyuk’s skin.
‘Regardless of how it’s used, expiration dates exist for a reason. They need to be observed!’
‘Yes, yes. We’ll do that. You’re all set here, Professor. Time to go.’
He’d grabbed Sung-hyuk’s arm and dragged him; even as Sung-hyuk shook him off irritably, the man had pushed him from behind.
‘I was leaving anyway.’
Of course, rules that might be relaxed outside the hospital must be upheld completely inside it. Otherwise, patients coming for treatment might suffer infection—a catastrophe no hospital could afford.
The more sick people visiting, the more bacteria circulating. A hospital becomes a gathering place for microbes.
‘Still, for the patients who used those instruments, I’d recommend running bacterial cultures. If there’s VRE, it could be serious.’
Even as he left, Sung-hyuk had warned the Saint Hospital medical staff about hospital-acquired resistant bacteria—the strong pathogens that had survived the hospital’s antibiotics.
From Sung-hyuk’s perspective, it would have seemed like urgent advice the volunteers needed. Though, afterward, he was cut from the volunteer program.
Beom-jun turned over Sung-hyuk’s words from Doctor X in his mind. When reading the novel, he’d seen it as a moment showing Sung-hyuk’s character—someone who upheld proper standards.
Even separated and alone outside Korea University Hospital, Sung-hyuk was a man who didn’t abandon his principles.
‘But maybe that’s not all there is to it.’
Now, however, Beom-jun’s attention fixed on Saint Hospital’s response.
Saint Hospital had let small rules decay. Even when Sung-hyuk pointed them out, they weren’t fixed—they were treated as trivial.
Beom-jun’s furrowed brow relaxed slightly. He asked Hui-jeong:
“Deputy Director, what are Saint Hospital’s medical incident reports like?”
“About average. Similar to other top-four hospitals.”
Beom-jun tilted his head at her response.
“Not lower—but similar to the others?”
Saint Hospital, even among top-four hospitals, had notably milder patient acuity. Typically patients just came for routine care and left; they weren’t sick enough to be admitted.
“Saint Hospital probably has mostly mild cases. It’s strange their incident count would be similar.”
As Beom-jun finished speaking, he heard Hui-jeong typing across the line. She was probably pulling up Excel files.
“Oh wait. Most of them are falls. Excluding falls… let me see.”
The falls at Saint Hospital disappeared from Hui-jeong’s data. Then, after the clicking stopped, she called him back heavily.
“Director. Excluding falls, they report single-digit medical incidents per year. Over three years.”
At the absurd figure, Beom-jun clenched his teeth.
“That’s strange. Do you think Saint Hospital’s covering it up?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Beom-jun shook his head at Hui-jeong’s question.
The Kim Do-yoon case blew up so massively precisely because covering up incidents is an enormous liability for a hospital.
There’s no way they’d have done this for years. A single whistleblower would tank their hospital grade immediately—the risk wasn’t worth the benefit.
“Not a cover-up. They’re just not reporting at all.”
Saint Hospital was silent.
* * *
The reasons people feel satisfied or dissatisfied at work aren’t the same.
Rather, they’re distinct.
When people experience achievement, recognition, growth opportunities, and autonomy, they become motivated and work actively.
But when the work environment is poor, interpersonal relations are toxic, benefits are absent, and salary is inadequate, dissatisfaction builds.
The former doesn’t necessarily create dissatisfaction by its absence, and the latter doesn’t necessarily inspire passion by its presence.
So the former is valuable in abundance, but the latter must be secured as a baseline requirement.
“With pay like that, who’s going to step up to own and fix problems? There’s no incentive to take the risk.”
Low salary isn’t just a money issue. It means doctors stop seeing hospital problems as their own responsibility.
Smart people leave; only those without the passion to quit remain. They work exactly for their paycheck.
The more Beom-jun dug into Saint Hospital, the more fed up he became.
Cheonhui University Hospital had money; Eunseong Hospital had skill. But what advantage did Saint Hospital possibly have?
A sense of mission? Beom-jun shook his head.
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine a doctor like Im Sung-hyuk working at Saint Hospital.
If anything, they probably invoked mission to rationalize keeping wages low.
Right on cue, Hui-jeong delivered her analysis of Saint Hospital.
“Also, the word ‘mission’ appears frequently throughout their reports. My guess is that Saint Hospital doesn’t just ask for some sacrifice—sacrifice itself might be considered a virtue.”
She’d woven her own experience into what the documents showed.
“Every hospital has different organizational culture. There are places like this in America too. Results were mediocre, but the cohesion was incredible. I’m not saying Saint Hospital is definitely the same, but you should know it’s possible.”
She’d identified characteristics unique to Saint Hospital, and they didn’t differ much from the version Beom-jun had glimpsed through Doctor X.
“I think Saint Hospital is probably similar.”
Hearing Hui-jeong’s words, Beom-jun’s grip tightened on the phone.
Mission. Sacrifice.
The values Saint Hospital pursued felt deeply uncomfortable to him. Perhaps because he too was a doctor.
‘They’ll tell doctors to have a sense of mission.’
Actually, it was something Beom-jun had told junior colleagues many times in his past life. That doctors should have a sense of mission because medicine is a service profession.
It was youthful naïveté. He actually had been young then. Back then, people used to tease him about his name: True Doctor, Righteousness Jin.
But that was never about one-sided sacrifice.
It was about doing good work with good intentions.
Yet when Saint Hospital spoke of mission, Beom-jun felt his breath catch.
What looked clean on the surface felt dirty to the touch—like filth smearing his hand, a wave of revulsion washed over him.
“Thank you for the trouble. You’ve been an enormous help, Deputy Director.”
“Not at all. This much is nothing.”
With Beom-jun’s sigh, the call with Hui-jeong ended.
[Gu Hui-jeong’s FEVER TIME has ended.]
Right on schedule, her FEVER TIME concluded.
Thanks to Deputy Director Gu Hui-jeong’s efforts, the Main Quest completed faster than expected.
[Main Quest has been completed.]
[Main Quest: Discern the Enemy’s True Nature]
Know yourself and know your enemy; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.
Find the headquarters of Uigwonhoe and uncover their reality.
[You have gained 3% Survival Probability as a reward.]
[Current Survival Probability is 83%.]
Yet seeing the quest completion screen, Beom-jun felt no relief.
Now that he knew the truth about Saint Hospital, Beom-jun’s chest felt tight, his mood suffocated and oppressed.
Beom-jun slowly clenched his fist.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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