Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 56

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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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Episode 56.
The next day, Beom-jun arrived at the Director’s Office and pulled up the quest again.
[A Main Quest has been generated.]
[Main Quest: Open a new door]
Introduce the Jason Therapy to University Hospital through proper legal procedure.
Reward: Survival rate +3%
Failure: Death
Not “appropriate,” not “adequate”—but “l-e-g-a-l.”
A hospital operates on the foundation of Medical Law. The Vice Director probably knows it inside and out. He’d hired An Jun-mo, a lawyer, the moment he took office, after all.
Beom-jun tapped his desk with his index finger.
With Kim Kang-woo admitted, it was time to apply Jason’s treatment method.
The Vice Director, who opposed everything Beom-jun said out of sheer reflex, would never let a new treatment method slide quietly by.
‘It’s guaranteed to come up at least once. If things get heated, it’ll turn into a controversy.’
In the medical field, new treatment methods generate as much discussion about safety as they do about efficacy.
That’s why medical development focused on “safety” and proceeded from a conservative standpoint—carried by the heavy responsibility that a patient’s life hung in the balance.
Having seen Doctor X, Beom-jun knew that Jason’s treatment method was safe, but he had no argument against the reality that a process of persuasion would be necessary.
‘Im Sung-hyuk will use the new treatment method. He’s not the type to back down out of concern for the Vice Director’s mood.’
If it would help the patient, he wouldn’t hesitate. The more he was opposed, the more his resolve would burn.
But asking the Vice Director for his goodwill and support? Fat chance.
Beom-jun slouched back in his chair with a sigh. Just thinking about the Vice Director’s constant obstruction ahead made him tired already.
But his tapping fingers had stopped moving.
‘I need to prove that the Jason Treatment Method is safe.’
Just then, a message came through the HIS.
– Director, a new patient has been admitted with indications identical to Professor Jason’s.
It was Im Sung-hyuk. A new patient had arrived, and he was saying this patient could be treated with Jason’s method.
– Wow, what a lucky coincidence. Perfect timing. Tell me more.
He’d engineered the coincidence himself, but Beom-jun answered with a straight face. The time had come.
Jason would be thrilled to showcase the treatment,
and Im Sung-hyuk would hope the patient recovered well.
The patient and everyone else would be anxious.
And now Beom-jun had to resolve that anxiety.
* * *
Several hours earlier. Kang-woo arrived at the Emergency Room in an ambulance.
His guardian, who’d been called, gripped his hand tightly—until it was slick with sweat.
“Kang-woo, does it hurt a lot? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I collapsed during basketball and can’t remember anything.”
It was pure chance the ambulance came to University Hospital. There just happened to be a bed available at the nearby hospital at that moment.
But Kang-woo, having arrived unexpectedly at a large hospital, felt uneasy. After regaining consciousness, he’d said he wanted to go home, but was refused.
“What did the doctor say?”
“They said they don’t know either. They’ll explain once the test results come in.”
Kang-woo had some kind of clip on his finger and an oxygen mask over his mouth.
Each time he spoke, moisture would fog the mask and then fade again.
When he asked why, they said his blood oxygen levels were low.
There were many patients in the Emergency Room, but few wore oxygen masks like Kang-woo.
People were scattered about standing or waiting for examination, but the moment Kang-woo arrived, he was guided to a bed in the back.
He was put through several tests in quick succession. Blood pressure, blood draw, test after test.
‘I feel fine right now, though? Do I have something serious?’
Kang-woo tilted his head as he recalled the moment of collapse.
Starting from the second set, his body had felt a little heavy. After he’d managed to sink a three-pointer, he’d felt a sudden, sharp pain near his heart. After that, everything went blank.
“Ugh, what am I supposed to do. What is this.”
Kang-woo pulled away from his mother. Then he asked what had been on his mind.
“…Dad? Does he know about this?”
His worried mother avoided his gaze, suddenly busying herself with something else. Uncomfortable, Kang-woo got irritated.
“No, I was just asking! Am I asking you to call him? I was just curious!”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Always later, later! Even here in the Emergency Room, his mother said later.
After asking why he was curious about his father, whom he’d divorced when Kang-woo was young, his mother just kept putting off the answer.
About an hour passed like that.
A doctor appeared in front of Kang-woo, tired from waiting.
Whoosh—
The doctor pulled open the curtain and introduced himself first.
“Hello, I’m with the Emergency Medicine Department. Sorry for the wait. I’ll explain your test results.”
“Yes, hello, Doctor! Is our Kang-woo all right?”
The doctor, who looked obviously rushed, rattled off the results the moment he finished his introduction.
“We’ll need to run a few more tests for details, but at this point, we’re suspecting Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. It’s a condition where the heart muscle thickens, preventing blood from circulating properly. For now, just understand it that way.”
“Hy-hypertrophic—what did you say?”
His mother stretched her neck forward at hearing a disease name she’d never encountered before.
“Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. It’s often genetic. Are the other family members doing all right?”
Caught off-guard by the unexpected question, his mother couldn’t answer properly.
“Um? They seem fine, I think… well…”
“It would be good for other family members to get checked as well.”
The Emergency Medicine doctor tried to convey as much information as possible in the short time available, and in pursuit of maximum efficiency, kindness took a back seat.
“We can try medication first. For details, we’ll need to do a Cardiac MRI. Get the test done as soon as possible and visit the Outpatient Clinic, and we’ll take it from there.”
Kang-woo’s family, who’d never been to a large hospital before, didn’t hear the doctor’s explanation clearly.
“Outpatient Clinic? What’s an outpatient—”
Before Kang-woo’s mother could continue, the doctor quickly answered.
“Oh, it means a consultation. The nurse will set up your appointment for you. Just a moment, please—Nurse~”
He called over a nearby nurse, handed them off, and hurried away.
Kang-woo and his mother were quickly briefed on the next tests and given a date for their follow-up visit.
“Yes, that’s right. This date. I’ve circled it for you. Just come in at the right time~”
His mother couldn’t take her eyes off the circle, as if it would disappear any moment. In her head, she was retracing the flurry of explanations that had just unfolded.
The only thing she understood right then was the date, but she’d still written down the disease name separately next to the circle.
“So we can just go home, right?”
“…Y-yes? Apparently we just need to get tested next Wednesday and have a consultation the week after.”
Actually, Kang-woo felt reassured the moment he heard he could go home. The Emergency Room was full of sick people, and he seemed all right compared to them.
“Let’s go now, Mom. I’m fine.”
Kang-woo slung his mother’s bag over his shoulder as he spoke. In his absent father’s place, he saw himself as his mother’s guardian.
His still-anxious mother rummaged through the bag Kang-woo was carrying, checking that the nurse’s instructions were there.
“I’m not sure we should just leave like this.”
“The tests they did earlier were fine, and we have the appointment scheduled.”
Kang-woo left the Emergency Room, reassuring his mother’s worries.
They’d spent only three hours in the Emergency Room and paid a treatment bill that made them gasp, but still—mother and son returned home safely.
And the next day.
In just one day, Kang-woo was brought back to University Hospital with the same symptoms.
“He shouldn’t have been discharged! Right?! That’s how it is!! What if there was something sharp where he fell?! How close were we to disaster!”
His mother clutched Kang-woo’s hand as he lay in the Emergency Room, tears streaming down her face as she shouted.
“It’s not that same doctor from yesterday! Tell him to come out here!”
The emergency physician who’d been on duty yesterday was away, and his mother’s rage didn’t subside.
“Um, c-could you wait here for a moment? I’ll call another doctor for you.”
The hapless nurse tried to soothe Kang-woo’s mother.
She connected a machine to Kang-woo that hadn’t been there the day before, and with each beat of his heart, a sharp graph traced a line up and down.
Beep, beep, beep, beep—
And that EKG was discovered by Min-ho, who was moving through the Emergency Room.
‘Huh? Since when was there a patient like this?’
Min-ho first surveyed the patient’s outward appearance. Before taking a history, he analyzed what he could see at a glance.
First, Min-ho took in Kang-woo’s youthful features.
‘What’s this kid doing here?’
A heart made of muscle breaks down more easily the more it’s used, so patients tend to be on the older side. But a kid who looked barely in his teens in Zone 1 of the Emergency Room?
Zone 1 was where patients with cardiopulmonary problems were placed—at the front of the TRIAGE priority list.
*
A system that classifies patients into five levels and treats the most urgent first.
*
In the crowded Emergency Room, there were always waiting patients, but those shouting to have their wounds looked at, bleeding profusely, or even those with exposed bone didn’t take priority.
The most critical patients were those whose lives were in immediate danger. Those not fully conscious, gasping for breath with each passing second—they were priority one.
That’s why there were almost never complaints in Zone 1.
The patients were too weak to lodge a complaint,
and the guardians were too worried about their family’s life and death.
But Kang-woo looked quite well. The guardian just seemed angry.
Puzzled, Min-ho dug into Kang-woo’s medical records.
‘Wait?? Isn’t this that thing? Professor Jason’s thing!!’
Seeing Kang-woo’s cardiac ultrasound results, Min-ho let out an internal scream. It was exactly the case he’d seen at the Thoracic Surgery conference in Busan just days ago.
Fresh medical knowledge felt warm like freshly baked bread.
He’d privately thought it was so rare he’d never get to use it, but now a patient was right in front of him to treat!
He called Im Sung-hyuk with an excited voice.
“Professor!! Remember that research from Busan? Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy! That patient is here!”
Meanwhile, Im Sung-hyuk questioned his ears when he received Min-ho’s call.
He’d first looked at the paper because the Director had shown interest. It had unexpectedly high quality, so he’d become interested.
‘Wow, what is the Director…? Surely he didn’t know this patient would come.’
Harboring absurd suspicions, he sent a message to Beom-jun.
– Wow, quite the coincidence. Perfect timing.
But he took Beom-jun’s nonchalant words at face value.
‘Unless he’s a god, there’s no way he could foresee a patient who hasn’t come yet.’
It had to be luck. There was no other explanation.
But still, Im Sung-hyuk had the feeling there was more to it.

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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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