The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 277

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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 277

“Ah, well. Director Choi Eunhee is.”

At the mention of Choi Eunhee’s name, Hwang Sanghun became very flustered.

He moved his lips, not knowing how to explain to Lee Ahreum.

“It’s fine. I’ll go and come back.”

But what was there to avoid anyway?

Since we even ate together, I could see her once more.

“I don’t know about now, but she used to handle a lot of intractable diseases in the past, so she’ll have tons of cases. You chose well, Director Lee. I think it’ll be helpful for studying.”

“Is that so…?”

So that Lee Ahreum wouldn’t feel left out over something trivial, I briefly explained to her what had happened at Haneul Clinic.

“Aha, what a satisfying incident that was! Both you, Director, and Director Chu Miyoung are so refreshingly straightforward!”

Indeed, even after hearing the story, Lee Ahreum didn’t mind going to attend Choi Eunhee’s lecture at all.

Leaving behind Hwang Sanghun who was getting anxious for no reason, I proceeded with the online course registration.

* * *

The bustling conference room.

Had Korean medicine doctors from Busan who hadn’t attended continuing education all year flocked here?

Or was the conference itself popular?

I searched for the registration desk among the considerably large crowd.

“Please tell me your name and show me your pre-registration QR code~”

“Ah, yes. It’s Hanyewon.”

Beep.

“Huh? Director Hanyewon?”

The person who had been casually scanning the QR code suddenly looked up.

What’s this, is there some problem with the registration process… but to think that way, there had been several occasions recently where people who didn’t know me recognized me.

I smiled and greeted them as if I had become a celebrity.

“Haha, nice to meet you for the first time.”

“Wow, you came to our conference! Director, could you wait just a moment? Our academic director said they really wanted to ask you something if they got to meet you!”

“Of course.”

Was it a Korean medicine university student member helping with registration? Looking at their face properly, they looked particularly young.

They jumped up from their seat and brought over a Korean medicine doctor who seemed to be a conference executive.

No, they brought Korean medicine doctors.

“Doctor Han!”

“Ah, we finally get to meet you like this, Director. I’ve always wanted to meet you sometime. I couldn’t contact you since we had no prior acquaintance, but I didn’t know you’d come to our education program!”

“Doctor Han, it’s been a while. Have you been well?”

Three people came out, and among them was Jin Gyeongsik, whom I had coincidentally met a few months ago when I went to see Seol Yuhui’s performance.

This person was also serving as an academic director in the conference.

I shook hands with all three and asked the most enthusiastic person.

“You said you had something you were curious about regarding me?”

“Ah, yes. Yes! Director, you treated that, who was it. Al… Saud? The prince, right?”

Al Saud is the name all royalty share, but I understood they were roughly referring to Faisal and nodded.

“I heard there are many phlegm-dampness headaches in the Middle East, so I was curious if there’s really a distinct racial tendency. If it’s not rude to ask, I was also personally curious about what medicine you used.”

“Not all are phlegm-dampness syndrome, but there is quite a tendency. In the prince’s case, it was qi stagnation, stress-induced headache, but many other patients I met at the embassy or in Saudi Arabia had phlegm-dampness involvement. I don’t remember the medicine, but I’ll check the prescription at the clinic and let you know. But the prince got better right after acupuncture, even before taking medicine.”

I wondered if they might ask something strange, but it was a very scholarly question…

“Wow, you’d even go out of your way to look it up for us. Thank you. And this is just a side question, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to… why did you upload that Mancheonhwau video on your staff’s YouTube… was there some MZ-targeted marketing intention that a middle-aged person like me doesn’t understand…?”

…As if there would be.

I knew that would come up.

“We filmed it while drunk during a company dinner, but the editing turned out better than expected. The staff member was working hard on YouTube at the time, so I let them upload it to help with revenue generation. I didn’t know it would become this famous either.”

I answered with the facts as they were.

“Hahaha, you’re an interesting person!”

“But Doctor Han, have you ever thought about giving lectures? How about a special lecture at our conference?”

“Oh my, with such distinguished academic directors present, what could I possibly offer?”

I chatted briefly with the conference executives and built rapport.

“Director, did Jin Doyul enlist? And is your wife doing well?”

“He went during summer vacation. My wife was crying and making a fuss… but I actually think it’s good for both Doyul and my wife. Ah, there haven’t been any more fainting incidents. I was grateful back then.”

I also heard news from Jin Gyeongsik.

For some reason, he kept glancing at my sleeves throughout our conversation.

“Oh my, we’re starting now.”

“I’ll contact you again next time!”

Only just before the education was about to start did I escape from the conference executives.

The conference room was already packed full of people.

Fortunately, there was a seat that Lee Ahreum had reserved in advance.

“You came at just the right time?”

“I happened to meet someone I knew and got caught up.”

The morning lecture started right away.

The instructor said they had a lot to talk about today, finished their self-introduction in one minute, and skipped the introduction.

“You should have a basic understanding of skin immunity. As you all know, the skin is an immune organ that functions through a complex interaction of innate and adaptive immunity…”

The PPT was filled with protein names like β-Defensin and Cathelicidin (LL-37), which made me tense up.

This seemed like it would be difficult content.

But when I focused and listened properly, there wasn’t much completely new information.

When we moved on to pathology, we covered diseases I often see like atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, eczema, and urticaria.

She explained the pathology leading to chronic inflammation and immunosuppressive and targeted treatments in an easy-to-understand way.

‘So this is why they do continuing education.’

Though I had learned this in school, it was an area easy to forget without deliberate study, so I took detailed notes.

“Hello, I’m Choi Eunhee.”

Then Choi Eunhee appeared for the afternoon lecture.

With more people than I expected, I thought she might not recognize me and pass by.

But as soon as she entered the conference room, she made eye contact with me.

Choi Eunhee looked slightly flustered, then sent me a nod of greeting.

“That’s her, right?”

“Yes.”

I just shrugged my shoulders and gave a light greeting back, then listened to the class.

“Director Jang explained the pathology of each disease in detail this morning, right? Western medicine treatment requires precisely identifying the causative cytokines and controlling their overexpression, so distinction is very important. But when prescribing herbal medicine, you need to be able to distinguish between cold, heat, dryness, and dampness within the same skin lesion. You need to assess how the balance has been disrupted and correct it accordingly.”

Choi Eunhee showed various skin lesions and had us practice pattern differentiation.

Using her own cases as examples, she explained in detail what judgment led to which medications, how to approach treatment, what the cure rates were, and how to conduct consultations.

“This is surprisingly comprehensive.”

“Yes, it was good that we came.”

Since Choi Eunhee’s class covered material that could be directly applied in clinical practice, even the clinic directors who had been half-distracted during the morning session sat up straight and focused on the education.

“…I’ll conclude here. Any questions?”

About ten people raised their hands.

Choi Eunhee answered the various Korean medicine doctors’ questions without hesitation.

“In the second psoriasis case, you immediately stopped the steroids and proceeded with treatment. Does that approach give better results?”

“In my experience, yes, but I don’t unconditionally recommend it. This patient was using a low dose and had strong willpower, so we decided to try that approach. But if you suddenly stop high doses, steroid withdrawal syndrome can be quite severe. It can even lead to shock from adrenal insufficiency, so whether to stop all at once or taper properly should be recommended based on the patient’s condition.”

“You treated it with just herbal medicine and phototherapy, right? How significant do you think the role of phototherapy was?”

Among them, one person was particularly enthusiastic, continuously raising their hand to ask questions.

Perhaps a director with special interest in psoriasis.

“UVB treatment is very significant. If you actually try it, you’ll see noticeable changes.”

“People usually recommend getting sunlight a lot – is there a big difference from machines?”

“Getting UV rays from sunlight is also good. But what takes 1 minute with a machine would require about an hour and a half of sunlight… It’s too bothersome. When you tell patients to expose the affected areas and get an hour of sunlight daily, not many actually follow through.”

“Do you have any machine recommendations? Actually, my daughter developed psoriasis. If I’m going to purchase one anyway, I’d like to buy a medical-grade one and introduce it to my clinic too.”

Oh, their child was the patient.

Choi Eunhee searched medical device websites online and recommended a specific product.

“All clinics in our Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Network use this model. I participated in its development and have published papers on its effectiveness.”

A phototherapy device… How fascinating.

This is modern technology.

When I was in the martial arts world, naturally, I had to have patients get sunlight.

There weren’t many psoriasis patients, but occasionally wealthy young scholars who stayed cooped up indoors during winter would come.

Of course, psoriasis isn’t necessarily caused by lack of sunlight.

As an autoimmune disease, it has various influences including genetics.

But anyway, knowing that UV rays, especially UVB, induce apoptosis in overactive immune cells, I always had patients get sunlight for one hour every other day along with medication.

“Should we buy one too?”

“Doctor, us too.”

Lee Ahreum and I looked at each other and spoke simultaneously.

‘Just a few seconds of flashing and it’s done! It can filter out UVA and UVC and irradiate only UVB?!’

Truly modern technology.

From what I heard, by controlling energy levels and irradiation range, it could be used not only for psoriasis but also for atopic dermatitis and vitiligo patients.

Once we buy it, we’ll find ways to use it, won’t we?

As soon as the continuing education ended, I sent the link to Chu Miyoung.

If all Haneul Clinic branches used it, had Chu Miyoung tried it too? Or was it introduced later?

“Doctor, did you ever use a phototherapy device when you were at Haneul Clinic? How is this one, is it good?”

– Photooootherapy deviiiiice?

But I got an unexpectedly intense reaction, different from what I anticipated.

– Ugh, isn’t that the one Choi Eunhee co-developed? The one she advertises with her face on it?!

That’s right.

If you went to the medical device company’s homepage, you could immediately see an introduction about the co-development.

It even mentioned that you could find it at all Haneul Clinic branches.

“Is it not that good when you actually use it?”

– Well, I’d have to actually use it properly to know! They insisted I buy it when opening the clinic~ But they only do cosmetic skin and diet marketing, so don’t all the difficult patients go to other networks? I’ve only seen psoriasis patients 4 times! Still, three out of four bought the 30-session phototherapy package, so I made exactly 450,000 won!

15,000 won per session based on the package price? Not too expensive.

Chu Miyoung seemed to have a lot of pent-up frustration, continuing with irritation.

– I found out later that there are small home-care versions for less than 100,000 won? There were plenty of medical devices for 2-3 million won, but they forced us to buy the 5 million won one. Ugh, I hate forced sales!

…so they made each branch director purchase one when opening, keeping them stocked at all locations.

I empathized with her anger.

“If you still have the machine, would you sell it to me? I’d like to try using it.”

– Ah! Doctor Han would probably use it well if you had one! But I disposed of the one I had when I closed Haneul Clinic. That’s unfortunate. If I still had it, I’d just give it to you!

Chu Miyoung sighed, saying she had already sold it for cheap.

– Still, try looking for used ones. They pushed so many sales that there might be others like me?

She said she hadn’t used it much and couldn’t compare it to other products since she hadn’t tried any.

But Chu Miyoung added that all the patients she treated with that product had good outcomes.

She thought it might be worth buying if the used price was similar to other company models.

“Oh, there are some.”

Following Chu Miyoung’s recommendation, I searched the used goods trading board of the Oriental Medicine Practitioner Community, and sure enough, I found a couple of items.

Someone was selling a machine worth 5 million won for 1.8 million won.

“There’s someone selling in Ulsan. It would be perfect if I went and picked it up myself.”

How lucky!

I immediately sent a message to the seller.

– If it’s Ulsan, I’ll come with you! I’ll check if it’s in good condition for you. And it’ll be nice to see you again after so long!

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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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