Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 58

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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 58.
While Beom-jun spoke with the Vice Director, Im Sung-hyuk was in consultation with Kim Kang-woo.
“What’s the benefit of doing the surgery? What happens if we don’t?”
At just fourteen, a second-year middle school student, Kim Kang-woo wasn’t accustomed to meeting with a doctor.
The core of Jason therapy was Alcohol Septal Ablation.
Threading a fine catheter into the heart and injecting a precise amount of alcohol to necrotize the hypertrophied myocardium.
Depending on the location, access sometimes proved impossible—but even before that obstacle, the real problem was finding a surgeon skilled enough to perform it.
Yet how many doctors would admit they couldn’t do it?
Most would present some second-best alternative they could manage, so as not to lose the patient. Or worse, they simply wouldn’t know what they didn’t know.
‘I know everything in my field,’
‘I’m ignorant of nothing’—such arrogance strangled learning and left only stagnation and rot.
And gradually, patients became mere sources of income.
Beom-jun understood that physicians condemned to lifelong study rarely remembered the sanctity of life.
He saw such doctors mainly in the pages of *Doctor X*.
But Kim Kang-woo, fortunate enough to meet Im Sung-hyuk by chance, didn’t yet grasp his luck.
His mother reached out to restrain him, and Kang-woo only grew more irritated.
“Ugh, why? I need to understand this too!”
“Ahem, well.”
Sung-hyuk cleared his throat to draw attention, then spoke in a flat, measured tone.
“It’s rare, but without surgery there’s a possibility of sudden cardiac death. You’ve collapsed twice recently, haven’t you? Next time, you might not wake up.”
At the doctor’s ominous words, Kang-woo bit his inner lip.
‘Right—the Director said to listen to what patients have to say.’
Sung-hyuk caught himself. He’d effectively silenced the boy instead of letting him speak. He corrected course somewhat awkwardly.
“What I mean is, we should eliminate the cause of your collapse. That’s the point.”
“Yes, that sounds like a good idea.”
Kang-woo’s mother nodded in agreement instead of him. Since her outburst in the Emergency Room, she’d grown considerably calmer—especially after confiding in Sung-hyuk.
But Kang-woo slumped in his chair, bouncing one leg. With one foot hooked over his knee like that, he’d have looked perfectly natural holding a cigarette.
Now that he thought about it, Sung-hyuk caught the faint reek of tobacco on the boy.
The thought barely crossed Sung-hyuk’s mind before he pulled up Kang-woo’s blood work and chest X-ray.
The X-ray showed nothing obviously abnormal—early stages rarely did. The patient was also very young. But his RBC and hemoglobin levels ran slightly elevated.
‘That’s odd.’
Sung-hyuk simply asked outright.
“Your son isn’t smoking, is he?”
“…!!?”
In that instant, Kang-woo’s pupils dilated. He lounged with false nonchalance, but he lacked the nerve to lie to a doctor.
“You—surely not! Are you insane?”
His mother, catching the telltale shift in his expression, smacked his back. Kang-woo immediately confessed.
“Yeah, but it’s only been a little while! Like a month or two.”
Smoking thickens the blood.
Carbon monoxide from cigarettes interferes with oxygen transport; the brain senses oxygen shortage and compensates by increasing RBC and hemoglobin levels.
Same volume, but denser contents—blood becomes viscous and doesn’t flow as freely.
‘Smoking was likely the trigger. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy itself was probably genetic.’
His recent sudden collapses were almost certainly due to the smoking.
“Obviously, he needs to quit. You’ll make sure of that.”
“Wait, why are you changing the subject!! What is this alcohol thing you’re talking about?”
Caught red-handed, Kang-woo spoke with a flushed face. Sung-hyuk worked to suppress his irritation.
He could tolerate an elderly patient’s indignation. But this was an underdeveloped human being.
Discipline was clearly warranted, yet he couldn’t administer it. In moments like this, he wondered if he’d chosen the wrong profession.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Doctor. You—wait outside for a moment!”
“Why would I! I don’t want to! What’s the point!!”
Hyun-ji, who’d been listening to the exchange from her seat diagonal to Sung-hyuk’s, stood and opened the consultation room door. His mother ushered Kang-woo outside.
“So the surgery will keep Kang-woo from collapsing again, yes?”
Now the atmosphere calmer, the conversation between mother and Sung-hyuk resumed.
“Yes, though we’ll need to monitor his progress regardless. That applies to any treatment path we choose. Whether complications arise is something we’ll observe over time.
In Kang-woo’s case right now, the wall between the left and right ventricles is thickened, which means the procedure is feasible. If the damage were elsewhere, we couldn’t even attempt it. It’s an exceptionally favorable opportunity, which is why I’m recommending it.”
Most patients wouldn’t qualify for Alcohol Septal Ablation even if they wanted it.
Kang-woo happened to meet the indication criteria, and Sung-hyuk excelled at vascular intervention—a rarer combination than gold.
“Yes, Doctor. Thank you so much. But, um—I saw online that blood pressure medication can help, so do we really need the procedure?”
Modern information was so easily accessible that rumors abounded. Even when true, such fragments captured only part of the picture, distorting the whole truth.
Sung-hyuk felt a wave of exasperation at the mother’s words.
He’d always hoped patients would simply say ‘I understand’ and leave it at that. He’d handle it properly anyway.
The patient rapport that Beom-jun had urged him toward wasn’t Sung-hyuk’s strong suit.
‘Where even do I start explaining?’
Just then, a message arrived on Sung-hyuk’s phone. The sender was Professor Kang Se-ra from Cardiology.
After Professor Han Seung-woo had been forced to resign, Kang Se-ra had become the new professor in Cardiology.
– I heard you admitted a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patient. Doing ASA, I take it?
With their frequent clinical overlap, she’d reached out to him first.
– If you’d like a consult, I’ll take a look. I owe you from before, after all.
– Yes, that would be good.
Sung-hyuk normally had little time to check messages, but he typed a swift reply and spoke to the mother.
“If you’re still concerned, you could get a second opinion from Cardiology.”
At the mention of another department, the mother’s face brightened.
“Oh, that would be wonderful. Which professor should we see in Cardiology?”
Right—trusting a single unfamiliar doctor with such a decision was difficult. Her eager questions made the conversation flow more easily for Sung-hyuk.
“I’ll submit an official consult to Cardiology. You can hear the results at your next appointment here.”
“Yes, Doctor. We’ll do that. Thank you so much.”
After some back-and-forth, the mother left the consultation room, leaving Sung-hyuk and Hyun-ji alone.
“Get me the earliest available outpatient slot. The consult response shouldn’t take long.”
“Then next Monday morning? That’s right after your surgery, but is that all right?”
Hyun-ji, who kept his schedule memorized, spoke knowingly. She’d deliberately arranged for lighter patient loads after surgery to safeguard his condition.
He gave her a thumbs-up.
* * *
‘Right. The patient was a bit of a handful, wasn’t he?’
In *Doctor X*, the cardiomyopathy patient was also in eighth grade. It was one of Sung-hyuk’s finest episodes, complete with exemplary youth counseling.
But since he’d guided through action more than words, it took considerable time. Rapport only formed by the time of discharge.
Would this one work out? Beom-jun pulled up Kim Kang-woo’s file in the Hospital Information System.
– Kim Kang-woo / Age 14 / Awaiting Thoracic Surgery Department outpatient consultation
– Diagnosis: Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
– Chief Complaint: Syncope (Fainting)
– Primary Guardian: Cha Hyun-hee
– Relationship to Patient: Mother
– Contact: 010-1234-1234
The primary guardian was indeed listed as the mother.
Thoracic Surgery outpatient would naturally mean Sung-hyuk’s clinic, and Kang-woo would be waiting ahead of it.
Beom-jun, tapping his index finger on the Director’s Office desk, rose from his chair. He wanted at least to see what the patient looked like.
To access the side entrance, Beom-jun took a wide loop around the Annex Building.
If he exchanged greetings with staff, he’d never make progress. Better to move quietly. The white coat was unavoidable, though.
But as he rounded the corner of the Hospital Grounds, cigarette smoke drifted across his path. Beom-jun had a sinking feeling. That acrid smell didn’t belong here.
Following the stale reek, he spotted a boy who looked barely adolescent. Either he had an exceptionally youthful face, or he wasn’t quite an adult.
Either way, judging by how he leaned against the wall with his weight on one leg, affectation ran deep.
Normally Beom-jun would’ve passed by without comment, but the words ‘Hospital Director’ stitched across his chest wouldn’t let him.
‘This is annoying.’
Beom-jun approached the boy and spoke in a low voice.
“The entire hospital is a non-smoking zone. Obviously, you can’t smoke here either.”
‘That should be clear enough.’
Beom-jun expected an apology, something like ‘I didn’t know, I’m sorry.’ Then he’d move on.
But the words from the boy’s mouth fell far short of that.
“What are you saying? Boomer.”
The boy flicked his cigarette to the ground while still leaning on one leg, then spat directly onto it—a practiced motion if ever there was one.
‘Damn it, I was trying to be nice about this.’
“In a hospital, you little—”
But before Beom-jun could finish, someone rushed over and delivered a back-smack to the boy.
“Kim Kang-woo!! You’re smoking here now? So you’ve decided to do it openly?”
‘Oh? So it was him?’
Hearing the name, Beom-jun realized this was his next case.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, Doctor. We were just leaving.”
“Ugh, please! I keep telling you not to do this! Do you understand?”
The guardian bowed deeply to Beom-jun while Kang-woo, beside her, protested—though he offered no real resistance, surrendering to the smack just as meekly as before.
‘The kid’s like a delinquent, but the mother seems genuinely distressed by him.’
Beom-jun pointed at the cigarette butt the boy had dropped.
“Fine then. So there’s no need for you to apologize, just take that with you.”
“Ugh, I swear, …”
Kang-woo muttered something while complaining. It was too quiet to hear clearly, but it was almost certainly profanity.
But he did eventually bend down and pick up the cigarette butt with his fingers—along with the phlegm he’d spat on it, dangling wetly.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. We’ll dispose of it properly.”
“No! That’s fine now. Why keep apologizing!!”
Behind his bowing guardian, Kang-woo raised his voice indignantly. Well, that should settle it.
“No, your son’s right. Let’s leave it at that then.”
At Beom-jun’s words, Kang-woo threw him a brief glance before dragging his guardian away.
He held his arm as far as possible to keep the cigarette from touching him, yet never strayed from his mother’s side.
Beom-jun watched their receding figures in silence.
Hmm, a formidable one had appeared. And as a patient, no less.

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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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