Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 65

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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 65.
After her conversation with Beom-Jun, Gu Hee-Jung carried an odd hollowness inside her for days—a sense of emptiness that clung to her thoughts.
‘What have I even been doing all this time?’
She found herself confused by the weight of her past and the tangle of her present emotions.
She despised the Hospital Director with a ferocity that frightened her. Looking at his face made her feel as though one of them—either him or herself—would have to die.
Even as Korea National University Hospital drifted further toward dependence on government subsidies rather than medical revenue, even as the hospital crumbled day by day, the directors remained indifferent to it all.
When anyone said—”Well, doesn’t it come down to treating patients well?”—her blood would boil backwards in her veins.
‘That’s right. Call them illiterate. Just think of them as people who can’t read.’
It was only because the Chief of Medical Staff had stepped in, taking on responsibilities she could never have shouldered alone, that she’d made it this far. Through his leadership, she’d grown fond of Korea National University Hospital itself.
When she first arrived, she’d struggled hard to adapt to the Korean medical system, so different from what she knew in the United States.
It wasn’t just the unfamiliar environment—it was the moment of realizing she wasn’t a physician, that she had to step back and let others lead. Those moments came often.
‘It’s a shame. If the Vice Director were a doctor, there’d be so much more he could accomplish.’
‘This meeting is for medical staff only.’
‘The Medical Council is composed entirely of physicians, so the Vice Director unfortunately can’t attend.’
Each time the Chief expressed his regret, Hee-Jung would smile for him—so careful not to trouble him that she’d forgotten to care for her own wounded feelings.
‘No, Chief. It can’t be helped. There are other things I’m able to do. Please don’t worry about it.’
Behind that smile, she alone swallowed the bitterness.
The truth was, she’d run hospitals better than anyone in the United States. She’d returned to her homeland brimming with confidence that she could nurture the nation’s finest institution—and that confidence was grounded in something real.
In just five years, she’d transformed the hospital where she’d worked into Michigan’s premier medical facility.
An ordinary general hospital, unremarkable by American standards, had been reborn under her stewardship as a specialized ophthalmology center.
Hee-Jung had recognized the business potential in ophthalmological surgery. It was common knowledge that modern eyes deteriorated rapidly, and since diabetes—a chronic disease—led to ophthalmological complications, the patient base could only expand.
Once she’d identified the talent of their ophthalmology professor, she committed to bold investment. Patients from across America began seeking out that hospital.
She acknowledged, too, the magnitude of the physician’s contribution.
Without that particular surgeon, they could never have performed the complex procedures they did. Without him, they could never have trained other doctors to perform the same surgeries.
So Hee-Jung compensated him generously—promoting him to Chief of Clinical Operations and providing substantial performance incentives.
“Do the people at my hospital know what I’m doing right now?”
She muttered to herself, swirling the straw in her coffee—an americano long since gone lukewarm as the ice melted away.
She didn’t notice that she’d called the American hospital “my hospital.”
“It really felt like a dream back then.”
She’d been making waves across America with hospital consulting when, barely a week after the media picked up her story, Korea came calling. Korea National University Hospital wanted her consultation on operations.
– Dear. HeeJung Gu / From. KNUH
Korea National University Hospital. Her heart had raced at those four words alone.
Korea National University Hospital, no less. The flagship institution leading the nation’s medical culture.
‘That they would seek me out at all was thrilling—but to ask my opinion?’
But that wasn’t the end of it.
One email led to meetings, meetings led to lectures, lectures led to an offer of the Vice Director position. The understanding was that after she learned the Korean system, she’d be promoted to Director.
She couldn’t describe how proud she’d felt. They’d thrown parties for a whole week.
‘I’ll return to Korea and share everything I’ve learned. When I see the entire nation’s medical system advance through my work, how moved will I be?’
But it had all been fantasy—worse than fantasy, actually. She’d rearranged her entire life, returned to Korea, and heard something that shattered her like glass.
‘Good heavens, I assumed since he was Hospital Director that he’d obviously be a doctor. In Korea, you can’t be a hospital director unless you’re a physician. Surely you didn’t know that?’
At first, she’d blamed herself for not studying Korean medical law thoroughly enough.
But the resentment that had grown quietly inside her eventually turned toward her superiors—directors who’d gained their positions despite lacking the competence to hold them.
“Excuse me, could you pass the ball?”
While Hee-Jung was lost in the past, lost in her bitterness, someone spoke to her from outside the hospital grounds. She’d wandered out on a walk.
As she’d walked, she’d found herself at the Physician’s Dormitory, where a dilapidated basketball court with a torn net sat waiting.
When Hee-Jung merely stared blankly at the ball that had rolled to her feet, the young man spoke again, more politely this time.
“Ah, could you… could you please give me the ball?”
Having spent almost her entire life in America, Hee-Jung couldn’t judge the young man’s age. East Asians looked so young.
‘Surely not a teenager?’
He probably wasn’t an intern or resident. Basketball—what was that? Korean junior doctors were supposed to barely have time to sleep.
She picked up the ball and kicked it hard with her foot.
But she’d mis-kicked it. The ball rolled toward the young man’s bag beside her—
As she chased the rolling ball, she caught sight of a patient gown sticking out through a half-open zipper.
* * *
“Do you live here?”
Hee-Jung addressed him directly.
She’d spent so much energy trying to look good to the Chief, impressive to the Director, and commanding before the staff below her.
Speaking to this boy, whom she didn’t know at all and who looked far too young, was extraordinarily easy.
“No. Is someone supposed to live here?”
At her question, the young man glanced at the building behind him.
On the surface, it looked ordinary, but within Korea National University Hospital’s grounds sat dormitories for medical staff—for medical students and nursing students alike.
Other staff members, however, lived a short distance away from the hospital grounds. The workspace was arranged the same way.
The administrative departments—human resources, public relations—were scattered in separate buildings outside the hospital perimeter.
Because there was no urgent reason for them to rush into the hospital at a moment’s notice. The hospital existed only for medical personnel and patients.
“Besides, no one’s around anyway. I’m just going to play for a minute and then leave. This is, well… I borrowed it! Once the owner comes back, I’ll return it.”
She hadn’t meant to chase him away, but he spoke as though he’d been caught red-handed. It turned out the basketball wasn’t even his—he’d just found it here.
‘If I’d gotten married, would I have a son about his age by now?’
Hee-Jung had married her work instead. She’d devoted her entire life to the hospital; there’d been no time to build a family. She’d never really wanted one anyway.
– Thump, thump, thump.
After receiving the ball from her, the young man played basketball alone.
With nowhere else to go, Hee-Jung sat on the bench across from him. It was impulsive—unlike her. But work wasn’t holding her attention today. The thought that he was a patient made her reluctant to leave him alone.
‘In America, I used to spend time with patients like this fairly often.’
Patients with healthy limbs but compromised vision had grown bored, so she’d equipped recreational facilities. The games got so heated that she’d had to institute a rule against betting money.
The patients got along wonderfully with each other, and Hee-Jung had participated in those moments, listening to their stories.
In Korea, by contrast, it had been a very long time since she’d spent time observing patients like this.
‘Or was it the first time?’
The young man played half-heartedly, then gave it up. He paused several times to catch his breath—his conditioning didn’t seem good.
A patient wristband encircled his wrist, and above it, something like a patch was affixed.
After a few more failed shots, he came over to the bench and sat down.
“You didn’t leave?”
“You didn’t either. Why are you here alone? Where’s your guardian?”
“Just came out for air. Nothing better to do.”
He reached for the end of his bag to close the zipper, but a pack of cigarettes accidentally tumbled out.
“T-This! I’m just… keeping it, I swear! Just in case, you know? I’m not smoking now, seriously!”
The moment he saw the cigarettes, Kang-Woo spoke with barely controlled panic.
‘He knows he did wrong. That patch on his wrist is probably a Nicotine Patch.’
She’d seen it when he was playing basketball—something like a patch attached to his skin. Though she wasn’t medical staff, her long experience in hospitals meant she recognized it immediately.
“Why are you telling me? I’m not your doctor.”
“You work here though.”
At his words, Hee-Jung checked her clothes.
‘How did he know? I left my jacket… oh, right. I forgot about this.’
A blue-corded ID Badge hung around her neck. Fortunately, the young man didn’t seem to have looked at it closely.
“Everyone was worried. Not just about me, but about the patient, you know?”
“Is that what it seemed like?”
This was what hospital staff looked like to a patient. Hee-Jung listened carefully to his words.
“Yeah, I mean, they could’ve just done the bare minimum, right? I don’t get why they go to all this trouble.”
The young man was open with this stranger, willing to share his thoughts. An open mind, as they said.
Never mind that he’d snuck a patient gown into a physician’s dormitory and was hiding cigarettes in his bag.
Hee-Jung guessed he was a teenager. There was something about that age—a particular kind of freedom in the way he carried himself.
“When you work in a hospital, you start to think about the patients. You can’t do this work unless you truly care about them.”
Whatever work you take on, you eventually shape yourself to fit the role.
And in hospital work, the starting point is always setting your mind to prioritize patients above all else.
“Why?”
“Why what? That’s just how it is.”
Kang-Woo asked with curiosity rather than defiance, but Hee-Jung didn’t explain. Couldn’t, really. How could you tell a kid something like that?
“I want to know. For later, you know? I might work here someday.”
But he pressed on, insistent on hearing the answer.
“Here? At Korea National University Hospital?”
“I might become a doctor here someday, right?”
He spoke his dream uncertainly—not that he wanted to become president, but still he doubted himself. Watching him, Hee-Jung couldn’t help but scoff a little.
“Who’s stopping you?”
“Really, I mean it! I actually know the Hospital Director here!”
At her dismissive tone, Kang-Woo bristled. But what caught Hee-Jung’s attention was something else entirely.
“Wait. What did you just say?”
“The Hospital Director. Beom-Jun—Director Beom-Jun. I know him well.”
No wonder conversation with her had felt natural to him—he wasn’t new to talking with hospital staff.
But what made Hee-Jung’s breath catch was the name that had left his mouth.

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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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