Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 17

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

Chapter 17.
A chill ran down Beom Jun’s spine, and he glanced over his shoulder.
There was nothing to see. Maybe a ghost.
“Is something the matter, Director?”
Jae Gyeong was faithfully stationed at his side.
“No, nothing in particular.”
Beom Jun was accessing the Hospital Information System.
He was viewing the Progress Note for patient Seo Jin Ha. Unlike other documents, the Progress Note—one of the medical records physicians must complete—is written daily.
Most of it is written in medical terminology, primarily in English, but the overall structure is always the same.
S—the subjective symptoms the patient describes in their own words; O—the objective facts the doctor observes or confirms through examination; A—the doctor’s assessment based on these findings; and P—the plan going forward.
The Progress Note, written using the SOAP Method, reads like a diary, documenting what happened each day.
– S) chest pain, palpitation
Today, too, the patient had complained of chest pain and reported feeling her heart palpitate. It meant the arrhythmia was continuing.
Per Min Ho’s orders, an echocardiography and electrocardiography were performed, along with cardiac blood tests such as CK-MB.
‘For now, these tests don’t amount to much.’
Beom Jun thought as he skimmed the notes. Min Ho was following protocol in treating the patient, but for Jin Ha, who needed a heart transplant, these interventions weren’t truly meaningful.
Still, since he was optimizing her cardiac function with medication, she would endure day by day.
– P) Heart Transplant Compatibility Assessment in progress.
While Min Ho bought time, Sung Hyuk was running himself ragged to prepare for the heart transplant. It would be grueling, but they had to hold out like this for a week no matter what.
Beom Jun picked up his phone and found the number for the director of the National Organ Donation Organization. Given the circumstances, he wanted to follow up—or rather, to press the matter once more.
– Ring, ring.
As the line connected, Beom Jun absently clicked the mouse to check yesterday’s Progress Note.
“Ah… this isn’t good at all.”
Yesterday’s entry contained something rather shocking. Beom Jun set down his phone and examined the contents carefully.
– S) “I want to be discharged.” Patient requesting discharge.
While it might be a cry of desperation from Jin Ha’s perspective, it suggested a lack of commitment to treatment. She hadn’t fled the hospital on impulse, so it wasn’t that extreme.
All organ transplant surgeries require a psychiatric evaluation beforehand. It assesses whether the patient has the psychological readiness.
The consultation comes last, and if an unfavorable assessment results from it, everything ends.
As Beom Jun read the Progress Note, his brow furrowed into deep creases, as if the monitor itself had committed some grave offense.
‘Why did she mention discharge? In Doctor X, Seo Jin Ha told Im Sung Hyuk she wanted to live.’
Under normal circumstances, Sung Hyuk, with his fiery temperament, should have lashed out when he saw the apathetic Jin Ha.
‘Don’t you see me running day and night to save you? Do you think we’re doing this because we’re all idiots? You have to live. You absolutely have to survive.’
Then Jin Ha, pushed back, would cry out that she truly did want to live.
‘I’m afraid. The more I hope, the more terrified I become. What should I do?’
After that outburst of emotion, Jin Ha would shift to an actively engaged approach to her treatment. Sung Hyuk’s passion was like a wildfire igniting the wet logs of her fear.
‘But she’s asking to be discharged?’
Could it be because he’d stationed Min Ho in the Emergency Room beforehand? If Min Ho had handled the emergency well, there wouldn’t have been a situation to provoke Sung Hyuk’s anger.
Beom Jun tilted his head, checking Sung Hyuk’s location.
[Searching for location of Im Sung Hyuk.]
[Location of Im Sung Hyuk confirmed: Professor’s Office.]
“What is he doing alone in the Professor’s Office? He should be with patient Seo Jin Ha every second, counting minutes!”
To boost patient Seo Jin Ha’s motivation, Beom Jun would need to step in directly. Since he was already involved in the organ transplant process, he had excuse enough.
Beom Jun clicked his tongue and drew a breath.
On the other hand, he was troubled by the fact that the events of Doctor X were diverging. He calmed his unease, reminding himself that it was natural—the hospital director who was supposed to die now living.
Most importantly, Doctor X hadn’t yet begun its second part. If Beom Jun didn’t die, what came after would be his to write.
Leaning back in his spacious leather chair, Beom Jun closed his eyes. His sharp nose formed an elegant line down to his slightly raised chin and the slope of his neck below.
“I can do this.”
He murmured to himself.
Just then, an overhead announcement sounded in the Director’s Office.
– Code Blue. Code Blue. Surgical ICU 2, Room 14. Surgical ICU 2. Room 14.
The announcement, echoing through Korea University Hospital and repeated twice, declared that a cardiac arrest patient had arrived.
Beom Jun checked Seo Jin Ha’s basic information displayed on the monitor. Her name and age appeared first, followed by location data.
– Seo Jin Ha / 28 years old / SICU2 – 14.
The patient in cardiac arrest was her.
* * *
Near Jin Ha’s bed, medical staff who’d rushed upon hearing the Code Blue had gathered. By rough estimate, easily more than ten.
But there were few among them who could actually perform the necessary interventions.
Doctors who happened to be nearby and came on impulse, nurses who worked adjacent areas and had no real cardiac expertise—they were all tangled together.
Since the announcement had gone out, standing idle risked rebuke, so they were figuring out how to at least run errands from a distance.
“BP 78/54, HR 145. Pupils dilated at 5mm. EKG printout is here.”
In the chaos, Jin Ha’s primary nurse reported the immediate status.
She wasn’t asking unnecessarily—by reporting the current state and implicitly asking what came next, the gathered medical staff scrambled and pulled out the defibrillator.
Min Ho rushed to the head of the patient to attempt intubation. The goal was to place a tube in the airway to deliver oxygen.
‘Is this the right spot? Or what if it’s not?’
As the esophagus compressed and the airway became difficult to see, his hands began to tremble slightly.
He’d practiced it hundreds of times in simulations, but had rarely done it in reality. Even at Korea University Hospital, cardiac arrests didn’t occur frequently, so this was natural.
Min Ho, tense but focused, seized the laryngoscope—sickle-shaped—and found the airway with the aid of its small light.
‘Got it!!’
And as he succeeded with the intubation, every physician’s gaze turned to him. They waited for the leader’s orders to guide this situation.
With dozens of eyes on him, Min Ho swallowed hard. But as the senior resident present, he couldn’t avoid this responsibility.
“First, oxygen full, then start the ambu bag
*
right away!”
*A medical device used to perform artificial respiration
He issued orders to the other doctors, but his trembling hands wouldn’t still.
Making medical judgments moment by moment was hard enough; speaking loudly while so many watched was harder still.
Despite his knowledge, Min Ho lacked experience and confidence in himself. He stared at the patient.
‘Chest compression
*
while administering shocks, and give epinephrine at intervals. That should work.’
*Chest compression
Though the next steps were clear in his mind, his mouth wouldn’t move.
“Stop standing there like that—everybody back!!”
When Sung Hyuk’s voice rang out from the distance, Min Ho was so relieved his knees nearly buckled.
“Ah, thank goodness the Professor is here….”
Sung Hyuk pushed through the doctors and assessed the situation at a glance, assigning roles to those around him one by one.
“You two alternate compressions, and you check for a pulse in between.”
At his words, the doctors moved in coordinated unison, beginning emergency procedures with crisp efficiency.
“Hold the epinephrine, start amiodarone immediately, and did you run the labs?”
At Sung Hyuk’s order, the nurse secured a vein at the blood draw site, and the intern sprinted to run the blood work.
Then, quietly, Sung Hyuk beckoned Min Ho with a glance and positioned him behind himself. Still keeping his eyes fixed on patient Seo Jin Ha, he spoke to Min Ho.
“Watch carefully. Next time, I might not be here. Do you understand what I mean?”
Behind Sung Hyuk’s shoulder, Min Ho nodded quietly to himself. Though still tense, his eyes were bright.
“200 joules ready!!”
“Everyone back!!”
At the nurse’s call, Sung Hyuk stretched both arms wide and shouted.
The medical staff surrounding patient Seo Jin Ha hastily withdrew, careful not to touch her even with a fingertip.
“Shock!”
At Sung Hyuk’s command, the nurse depressed the defibrillator button. Patient Seo Jin Ha’s body jolted up from the bed.
* * *
After two electrical shocks, Jin Ha’s heart began beating again.
Her already pale skin had turned ashen and wan; consciousness hadn’t returned yet, but it would soon.
After all, Im Sung Hyuk had leapt into the River of Death and pulled her back out.
As the emergency resolved and lingering confusion still hung in the air, Beom Jun arrived at the ICU.
“Look over there.”
“Wow, isn’t that the Director?”
The medical staff, upon seeing the hospital director, split into two groups like the parting of the Red Sea, white-coated physicians and blue-uniformed nurses interweaving to form a sky-blue path.
At the end of that path stood Sung Hyuk, his face stern. At the head of Jin Ha’s bed, he watched the monitors with unbroken seriousness.
Scrutinizing the graphs proving her alive and the vital sign numbers.
Beom Jun, having acquired knowledge of cardiac surgery matching Sung Hyuk’s own, had become equally adept at reading the electrocardiographic rhythm.
Jin Ha’s heart beat again, tracing sharply angular lines, and beneath it, a parabolic curve from each breath undulated up and down.
It was evidence of ROSC—Return of Spontaneous Circulation. Startled by the Code Blue, Im Sung Hyuk had saved Jin Ha once more.
Beom Jun walked forward, accepting the gazes directed at him. And as he drew closer to Sung Hyuk, murmuring voices rose from behind.
“What in the world happened here?”
“You know how the Director and Professor Im don’t get along. He probably went ahead with that surgery the Director told him not to do.”
“Right, he must have. So he did it after all. Even the Director can’t stop him.”
“Hey, did you hear? Hui Seong quit. Now it’s just TS Professor Im and the residents.”
“Seriously? So they’ve all fallen apart.”
Even casually listening, these weren’t pleasant remarks.
Among the doctors, rumor had spread that Sung Hyuk had had a showdown in the Director’s Office. Unexpectedly, the criticism was directed at him.
It made sense. Since the reckless director was beyond help anyway, maybe they hoped the professor would just comply meekly so the hospital wouldn’t be chaotic.
Beom Jun scrutinized Sung Hyuk first, wondering if he could hear them. Fortunately, he seemed focused on patient Seo Jin Ha.
Beom Jun was irritated that the doctors were speaking ill of Sung Hyuk.
‘These bastards. Im Sung Hyuk isn’t someone to be judged by you lot like this.’
Annoyed, Beom Jun deliberately placed a hand on Sung Hyuk’s shoulder for all to see.
“You’ve done well. As expected, there’s no one quite like Professor Im in the field, is there?”
He spoke to Sung Hyuk with utter confidence, and the medical staff watching were taken aback.

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