The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 154

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 154

After returning from my long vacation, there were many patients waiting for me.

A patient who informed me of their improved progress after receiving treatment from Hwang Sanghun.

A patient who grumbled that they couldn’t receive treatment because they were waiting for me all this time.

Even a patient who asked if I had a good trip and gave me a gift instead.

As I exchanged greetings with them and organized their treatment progress, quitting time approached in an instant.

It was the long-awaited video conference time.

“Everyone~ Guess what I brought from Rome~!”

I was so excited to tell this story that my heart was pounding even while I was in Paris.

The news that a doctor would come from Italy, and it seemed like we’d be opening a Rome branch.

Just imagining it is exciting, isn’t it?

– Oh, if I were still an active professor, I would have taken him as my student!

“Unfortunately, please be satisfied with unofficial tutoring.”

As expected, Kim Chunsik, a former professor, was very interested.

– How about sending him to Professor Lee Minseok? Even if he comes for graduate school, wouldn’t attending the supervising professor’s classes or observing treatments be allowed under the pretext of assistance?

“Oh?”

That was quite a good idea.

As it happened, that Italian doctor had emailed me asking for opinions about several research labs.

I had replied that I would return to Korea first, ask my seniors for their opinions, and let him know.

If that doctor had been mainly interested in theories about yin-yang and five elements like Chairman Rich, I would have recommended the Traditional Korean Medicine Physiology or Classical Studies departments.

But since he said he wanted to open a clinic and practice clinically.

– There aren’t many people as good as Professor Lee Minseok.

As Kim Chunsik said, there aren’t many professors like him.

A clinical professor’s role has three main aspects.

Seeing patients at the university hospital, conducting research and publishing papers, and lastly, guiding students.

And usually the last one gets pushed down in priority.

Since they don’t get paid more for teaching well, there are plenty of professors who just mechanically read through PowerPoint slides.

Professors like Lee Minseok who have the passion to teach students so they can do their part after graduation are very… very rare.

“That’s right. Since he’s a professor in the Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, he could do related research while observing. Professor Lee Minseok would help well, right?”

– Of course! I know that guy well!

Come to think of it, the two of them were quite close, weren’t they?

Professor Lee Minseok was also the one who introduced Kim Chunsik to me.

– Since he’ll be in Seoul, we can often call him to our clinic to conduct studies. We can’t let him see patients, but I’ll have him do some practice with me. My back has been aching anyway, so this works out well.

“Would it be okay to ask you for that favor?”

– Haha, what favor? It would be good to teach him in the traditional apprentice style like before, right? I’m getting excited.

That’s how we made a newbie development plan that neither the person himself nor even Professor Lee Minseok knew about.

Kim Chunsik was very motivated at the thought of raising his last direct disciple.

Hmm, he wouldn’t run away after coming all the way to Korea, would he?

When he comes down to Busan, I should show him our decoction room too.

– Wow, that’s amazing. How do you create such opportunities even when you go on vacation, Clinic Director?

“It just happened by chance.”

– Even a Rome branch is opening, making it global! I’m honored to have opened as the second branch!

Chu Miyoung smiled brightly.

Come to think of it, didn’t I start the network thanks to Chu Miyoung?

– That’s right. It’s fortunate that I got in early.

– Me too, me too!

Yu Gyeonghun and Lee Ahreum each added their comments.

Hwang Sanghun also quietly nodded his head.

“Come to think of it, thanks to Director Yu and Director Jeon, we were already global. Do many Chinese and Japanese patients still come?”

Yu Gyeonghun looked into space with slightly enlightened eyes.

– Yes. I’m learning Chinese, and Min Ji is learning Japanese. It seems like they’ll keep coming.

– A Japanese travel agency even contacted us asking to make an agreement, right? They asked if we could provide support since they’d bring patients coming on package tours.

“Don’t tell me you accepted?”

– No. We declined on our end.

Moreover, they told me absurd news.

A package tour course, how did they think of such a thing?

No wait. Are there cases where famous herbal medicine stores are included in Chinese travel courses?

Anyway, it was good that they declined.

– Just the patients who find us on their own are starting to become overwhelming. Word spread that we treat sciatica well, so many patients come for herbal acupuncture too.

Unlike when talking about foreign tourists, Yu Gyeonghun had a slightly excited expression.

– I’m thinking of building up cases to publish a paper. So we’re planning to focus our advertising mainly on those conditions for the time being, would that be okay?

Ah, that… the condition explanations done while wearing costumes.

For someone who seemed to find tourists burdensome, he never missed a single week.

“Of course.”

Of course, there was nothing wrong with focusing on specific conditions.

If he wanted to treat many sciatica patients and even publish papers about it, why would I stop him?

– Thank you. I’ll also ask around to see if there are any patients I can directly refer to you.

– I’ll cheer you on! I’m curious myself about how effective the long-needle pharmacopuncture will be!

Kim Chunsik’s eyes also lit up as soon as the word “paper” came up.

– Even a case study paper would be interesting. If you really get a lot of patients, could we conduct an RCT from a network perspective? If that happens, I’d like to participate too.

RCT (Randomized Controlled Trial)…

Is that possible at places other than university hospitals?

Unlike simple case reports, writing something like that would be difficult starting from preparing experimental and control groups.

– Starting from this paper? I think it would be good to proceed together!

– Should I try making a sciatica poster?

– If Director Chu could do that, I’d be grateful!

The enthusiastic directors steadily proceeded with preparing the case study paper.

As for RCT… I’ll have to look into that separately later.

I had absolutely no interest in research, but thanks to this, I’m learning about all sorts of things.

* * *

“Director, I missed you!”

Kim Hye-yeong entered the examination room with both arms spread wide.

She didn’t hug me, but even that was enough to startle me.

Although she had been diligently receiving trapezius treatment right up until I left for Europe, had our inner intimacy really grown this deep?

“Were you receiving treatment well from Dr. Hwang?”

“Yes! It’s so good! It decreased by 2mm!”

I wondered why she was in such a good mood, and it seemed there had been remarkable progress in her trapezius treatment.

Though I’m not sure if 2mm could be considered noticeable.

“Did you measure it with a ruler?”

“Yes, I’ve been measuring from the center of my collarbone and recording it daily!”

“I see… I’m glad it’s improved so much.”

Kim Hye-yeong nodded with a smile spreading across her face.

“But I think I might feel a bit sad when it’s completely gone.”

“What? Wasn’t it causing you tremendous stress?”

“It still bothers me, but something good happened because of this trapezius muscle.”

Something good? There wouldn’t be anything particularly bad, but what good could there be?

I tilted my head in puzzlement.

“There’s this incredibly annoying civil petitioner lately. He could just prepare everything at once and get all the documents, but one time he forgot his seal, next time he forgot his ID, and after I issued the seal certificate, this time he got angry asking why I didn’t tell him he needed a health insurance qualification confirmation for his interim loan application! I mean, how would I know that?”

“That’s right… He sounds like a really strange person.”

“So when I got so angry that my shoulders tensed up, I thought ‘this won’t do’ and took off my cardigan.”

Kim Hye-yeong paused for a moment and boldly took off her cardigan.

I nodded with interest as I laid her down on the chuna bed. Since the story seemed like it would be quite long, it would be better to listen while performing chuna treatment.

“You know how intimidating it looks when you see the trapezius muscle?”

“Ah?”

Was that all? It wasn’t that her expression was scary?

Anyway, Kim Hye-yeong seemed very satisfied, so I nodded without objecting.

“Whew, while reducing my trapezius and building back muscles, I should also build some biceps.”

Her conclusion was also quite excellent.

Balanced physical development is beneficial everywhere.

“You thought well. If you get strong and think of all the troublesome petitioners as easy targets, you’ll feel less stressed.”

“Ahaha! That’s right, isn’t it?”

It’s actually true.

Troublemakers were always everywhere, but the difference in inner strength determined mental stress.

Even I used to get headaches whenever difficult patients entered the clinic before I learned martial arts, but now it doesn’t bother me at all, right?

“In that sense, I wish my boyfriend would also build up his body.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Oh my, his turtle neck is so severe.”

My hands happened to be relaxing Kim Hye-yeong’s cervical vertebrae.

“Is it worse than yours, Hye-yeong?”

“Oh my, compared to my boyfriend, I don’t even have turtle neck!”

It’s not as noticeable as the prominent trapezius muscle, but you can clearly feel it when touching with hands.

For someone young, it’s quite severe.

“But… my boyfriend is terribly afraid of acupuncture. Could it possibly be corrected with just chuna?”

Come to think of it, Kim Hye-yeong was also somewhat afraid of acupuncture.

Are similar people dating each other?

“You thought I was afraid too!”

What, mind reading technique?

“I’m not really scared at all! My boyfriend—I mean, my boyfriend goes crazy and makes a huge fuss even when I just touch him.”

“That bad?”

Kim Hye-yeong frowned and nodded as my hands worked on her sternocleidomastoid muscle.

“Hmm, with just manual therapy without acupuncture… it’s not impossible.”

But it’s inefficient.

“His forward head posture is that noticeable? Head jutting forward, and probably severe rounded shoulders too.”

“Yes, yes, completely! I only get that posture when I’m working, but my boyfriend is like that 365 days a year!”

“If that posture feels most comfortable to him, it means the muscles in his neck—the sternocleidomastoid here, and the pectoralis minor in his chest—are all shortened.”

I pointed to the corresponding muscles on Kim Hye-yeong as I spoke.

Since she also had forward head posture and rounded shoulders, she let out a silent scream.

“Manual therapy takes a long time, but if you repeat it many times, it does loosen up. Still, acupuncture is much faster.”

A quick needle insertion with qi flow would release it immediately, but I’d have to keep massaging like this forever. It would take ages.

“He could receive manual therapy while continuing stretching and exercise… but honestly, if he were the type to do that, he wouldn’t have forward head posture in the first place.”

“Exactly. He really, really, really doesn’t exercise.”

I figured as much.

Even with poor working posture, if the muscles support well, it doesn’t lead to structural deformation.

If you have core strength to begin with, your posture doesn’t collapse.

“For now, try bringing him in once. However you manage to get him here, I’ll persuade him and try acupuncture treatment.”

Depending on his condition, I might need to sign him up for a gym membership too.

I spoke with reasonable confidence.

“Wow, really? Thank you! I go crazy wanting to straighten his hunched shoulders every time I see them!”

Patients who were afraid of acupuncture had been common throughout history.

Coaxing them into treatment was one of my specialties.

Still, he’s an adult, so it should be better than children who just cry and refuse outright.

I was being complacent.

I had dared not imagine just how extreme an adult male’s whining could be.

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