Sense

“Damn it! Squeeze the pack!”

An Hosan, who’d been dozing due to the late night surgery and perfect harmony in the surgery, flinched in surprise and checked the patient’s vital signs.

Blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels, respiratory rate, and temperature were all within the normal range. An Hosan tilted his head in confusion.

“If we increase the blood volume too much right now, the surgery sight will burst.”

Prof. Choi suddenly turned his head.

“I said squeeze, you b*stard!”

The atmosphere in the operating room turned cold in a second.

Dowook also couldn’t understand the reasoning behind Prof. Choi’s instruction. Feeling the tap, tap of the patient’s pulse, he subconsciously bowed his head and his body froze in that position.

‘What am I doing right now?’

The blue light wrapped around his hand was something that sensibly and scientifically was not something he should be seeing. It didn’t make sense to call it a retinal disease since everything else was clear.

‘Ack’

The flashing light climbed up his right arm. Anywhere the light touched felt as if it had been electrocuted and stimulated.

In the instance his nervous system felt attacked, the light passed his shoulder and reached his head.

‘What’s happening!”

With a bang, it felt like something penetrated his brain.

The feeling from when he passed out in the emergency room.

‘What?’

Thankfully, he didn’t pass out.

However–

This time from his head to his fingertips, he could feel the existence of the tangled network of nerves due to the unknown feeling that wasn’t a tickle nor pain that traveled in it.

In a spiral of confusion, he felt the tap, tap, tapping of the patient’s pulse.

At the weirdly unnatural flow, Dowook mumbled without meaning to.

“The blood vessel is getting blocked.”

“What?”

Prof. Choi, who’d been glaring daggers at An Hosan, turned and looked at Dowook.

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“How did you know that?”

“It’s just the blood vessel felt….”

It was unbelievable. A newbie, who’d just taken part in his 3rd aneurysm surgery, stated he could sense the condition of the patient’s blood vessel and distinguish what it meant.

Beep beep beep!

At that moment, alarms rang from the machine checking on the patient’s condition. As the stable vitals of the patient suddenly took a turn for the worse, An Hosan became flustered.

“Phew-”

Breathing in while giving a silent warning, Prof. Choi looked at everyone in a gaze which was a degree colder than before.

“Everyone listen well from now on. Because you didn’t listen to my instructions just now, the patient’s treatment was delayed by 30s. Explaining took another 30s. If you’re not going to follow instructions right away, get the hell out of the room!”

Although Prof. Choi’s hysterical behavior had started, Dowook didn’t have the idleness to watch.

The thing that had reached his brain started to spread down his left arm. He didn’t know why but Dowook moved his left hand and placed it on the patient’s neck.

His hand stopped at a point where it felt the most blocked.

“I found the part with the carotid stenosis.”

“What?”

Prof. Choi turned to Dowook. Although he had broken the rule of touching the patient somewhere other than the operation site, Prof. Choi didn’t say anything about it and asked.

“Explain. Why is it the area of carotid stenosis?”

[TN: carotid stenosis- blockage of the Carotid arteries.]

“Ah…. there’s a 0.5s interval between the taps of the pulse. It should feel like a beat against the walls of the blood vessel, but like a blocked intersection, there’s a mix of different beats.”

It wasn’t an explanation a doctor should give, however, Prof. Choi nodded in understanding.

“You said your name is Park Dowook?”

“Yes.”

“You have better instincts than I expected.”

Dowook thought he’d misheard by mistake. After throwing praise out of the blue, Prof. Choi turned his gaze and spoke.

“Everyone heard, right? The carotid artery stenosis has become severe. If we don’t take care of it, this patient will die of cerebral apoplexy before we even close his head. We will now start the carotid endarterectomy.”

[TN: cerebral apoplexy- commonly known as stroke involving cerebral blood vessels.]

[TN: carotid endarterectomy- a surgical procedure to open or clean the carotid artery with the goal of stroke prevention.]

Due to problems that arose during the operation, another surgery began.

Prof. Choi flashed his eyes at Dowook who still stood beside the patient.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“You’re contaminated. Quickly change your gloves and change position!”

“Yes!”

Dowook quickly moved and changed into a new pair of gloves and watched the patient whose position had changed. It seemed he was holding on only due to forcefully increasing his blood pressure by squeezing in more blood.

Thinking about the illusion and his body moving by itself would all have to wait until after that patient had been saved.

The antiseptic cloth was stuck to the patient’s jaw after his head was drawn back.

Prof. Choi stretched out his hand to begin the surgery. The nurse, surprised by the sudden 2nd surgery, became flustered at the action.

“Scalpel…..”

Even before he had finished speaking, Dowook, holding the suction tube, subconsciously handed the no. 10 scalpel to Prof. Choi.

The nurse became embarrassed when she saw it.

When cutting open the skin, the preferred scalpel was different depending on the surgeon. It was no. 20 a while ago so it should be the same now.

She waited for the roar of rage, but Prof. Choi, who’d received the scalpel, bowed to look closer at the patient without a word.

“Oh my.”

The surprised nurse looked at Dowook, but he was also focused on the patient.

The scalpel moved, following the line of the neck muscles.

“Suction…..”

Schlop.

Dowook was once more a step faster.

“Retractor….”

Slap.

“Clamp……”

Slap.

After three consecutive quick actions, this time, Prof. Choi only stretched out his hand without saying anything.

Dowook grabbed the artery forceps used to clamp the blood vessels around the surgery area and placed it on Prof. Choi’s hand.

Holding the suction tube, he didn’t even look at the surgery tool tray or Prof. Choi.

After staring at the situation, Prof. Choi asked.

“Can you continue on like this?”

At the question, Dowook asked, “Huh? What do you mean, Professor?” and continued with the suction. At the same time, he had already finished preparing to hand another pair of artery forceps when asked.

Prof. Choi looked at Dowook’s action as an answer and turned back to the patient without another word.

Simultaneously, the surgery’s tempo increased.

Blocked the blood flow in the internal, common, and external carotid arteries.

Sliced the jugular vein.

Until the clump of adipose tissue disturbing the patient’s blood circulation was finely cut out.

[TN: adipose tissue- a loose connective tissue or simply body fat.]

No one said a word in the operating room.

Beep!

When a warning came to indicate the danger the patient was in, Prof. Choi took the tube passed over by Dowook and made a temporary blood flow bypass in a minute and fixed the problem. Without any conversation.

At first glance, it was frightening teamwork.

An hour since Dowook started placing instruments on Prof. Choi’s outstretched hand.

The sliced jugular vein was perfectly sutured and all the artery forceps were removed.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The strong pulse turned everything in a positive direction.

“It’s done.”

Prof. Choi’s words after a long silence allowed everyone in the room to relax.

Fortunately, no one died.

Everyone’s gaze turned to the assistant who managed to stop Prof. Choi’s hysterics when he usually wouldn’t stop until the end of the surgery.

An Hosan especially gave Dowook a look saying, ‘Did I really see what I just saw?’

“Closing at the same time would be best. Which would you prefer, Dr. Park?”

“It would be better time-wise to do so without having to move positions.”

“I agree. You can start.”

An Hosan became more surprised due to this conversation.

Placing a piece of skull that had been taken out back in was much more stressful and complicated compared to suturing simple flesh.

The peerless Choi Hoo had just now assigned that task to a resident in his 4th year, who hadn’t even started his fellowship.

After suturing the neck as quick as lightning, Prof. Choi stood from his seat. He checked on Dowook who was frantically finishing up and left the room without a word.

“Please hand me the suture thread.”

A nurse handed Dowook a thin needle and thread which he used to start sewing the scalp together. The intern, Jo Seok Gyu, came out from where he’d been hiding from Prof. Choi and went closer to Dowook.

“Dr. Park. you suture really well.”

“I know. I wonder why it’s so neat.”

To sense the needle piercing the dermal layer of the skin this well.

“You said it would take 5 hours, but it only took 3 hours. Two back-to-back surgeries at that. As expected of Last Choi.”

“If others didn’t make any mistakes, at least 10 minutes could be saved …..”

Mid-conversation, Dowook quickly turned his eyes away.