Dr. Taesoo Choi - C10

Taesoo’s question wasn’t one that required an answer, and it only served to deepen his confusion.
Vasopresso.
It’s a type of vasopressor, a medication that is rarely used in other departments of the hospital. When he had done his practical training in the SICU for two weeks, he had never heard of it.
He still couldn’t define its use clearly in his mind. But the strange thing was, just a moment ago, the name had come to him as if it were completely obvious.
Could he possibly be doing things like this in his current state?
It seemed impossible.
There were other unfamiliar names crowding his mind—terms he had never learned or looked up.
What could it be?
No matter how much he reflected on his past, it didn’t make sense.
Meanwhile, Kim Seokdong had returned.
“Choi, doctor.”
“Yes?”
Taesoo reflexively turned his head to look at him, and Kim Seokdong stuffed his hands into his gown pockets, pouting.
“Are you feeling bad?”
“No, not at all.”
“Then why does your face look like that?”
Kim Seokdong teased him lightly, but Taesoo smiled faintly.
“I’m fine.”
“Really?”
Kim Seokdong gave a somewhat bitter smile.
With a soft plop,
Kim Seokdong, who had been sitting next to Taesoo, spoke quietly.
“How about a cup of coffee?”
“I’m good.”
“Well, go out for a bit and come back. I’ll give you two hours.”
Two hours off in the SICU was a huge favor.
Although Kim Seokdong had a gruff appearance, it seemed like he was feeling a little guilty.
Taesoo had no reason to decline.
It wasn’t the kind of opportunity he could afford to miss, especially since he was still unsure about what was happening to him.
It was a good chance to clear his thoughts.
“Should I get you some coffee on the way back?”
“Of course.”
“Alright, I’ll be back soon.”
Taesoo gave a light bow and quickly left the SICU.

Taesoo left the SICU and headed to the hospital’s first-floor café.
He wasn’t planning to indulge in the sudden freedom.
For now, his priority was to resolve his confusion.
When he arrived at the café, he grabbed a sweet caramel macchiato and sat down in a corner.
Taking a sip of his coffee, the sweet taste seemed to clear his muddled mind a bit.
Once he calmed down, Taesoo reflected on himself again.
But still, nothing made sense.
Feeling frustrated, he kept sipping his coffee.
Drawing from his experience as an intern in the psychiatry department, he tried to approach it logically.
His head didn’t hurt. Nor did he experience any memory gaps.
The only clear thing was that, despite having no external stimuli, the details about thoracic surgery kept surfacing in his mind in an unusually vivid manner.
“Am I a genius?”
He asked himself, but immediately shook his head.
No matter how brilliant one might be, they wouldn’t know things that were never taught.
Taesoo clearly understood that he couldn’t definitively conclude anything about the situation. What was strange, though, was that he didn’t feel any discomfort or unease.
It almost felt natural to know these things.
From that perspective, the calmness was actually beginning to feel unsettling.
He didn’t like the complexity of the situation.
After two hours of freedom, he would have to return to the SICU. He didn’t want to waste energy before he knew what would unfold next.
While sipping his coffee, the men at the table next to him got up and left.
Their table was left cluttered with empty coffee cups and a newspaper.
A newspaper wasn’t a bad thing for clearing his head.
Living in a hospital, he was somewhat disconnected from the outside world. It was good to keep up with current events through the newspaper, helping him clear his mind.
He casually picked up the newspaper and began flipping through it.
Rustling.
As he turned the second page, he froze when he saw the photo printed there.
His eyes widened in shock.
His hand, holding the newspaper, started trembling violently.
The person in the photo was none other than the elderly man he had shared his last moments with on the mountain yesterday.
With trembling eyes, Taesoo quickly scanned the headline.

• World’s Leading Thoracic Surgeon Richard Caffrene Dies in Fall on Bukhansan Mountain.

“Caffrene?”
Taesoo’s voice escaped unintentionally.
At the sound of his voice, people around him turned their attention toward him, but Taesoo was completely oblivious to the situation.
The shock was so great that goosebumps covered his entire body.
The person he had been with in their final moments was the world’s most famous thoracic surgeon.
It was a name he had often heard during his medical studies.
The surgeries he performed were often described as groundbreaking, with many of them being the first of their kind in the world.
In fact, in the field of surgery, it was widely said that if you didn’t know his name, you weren’t truly a doctor.
Only then did Taesoo understand the actions of Caffrene.
He had known he was a doctor, but he had never realized just how famous he was.
Still in shock, Taesoo continued reading the article.

[Scheduled to participate in an academic presentation next week, Caffrene had visited Korea and arrived at the university hospital ER yesterday afternoon, where he was found dead. According to the attending physician at the ER, he had fallen from a cliff and sustained fractured ribs…]
Taesoo, who knew exactly what had happened, quickly moved on to the next section.

[Caffrene, known as the living legend of thoracic surgery, was still actively performing surgeries even at the age of 66. He was famous for hiking twice a week, which helped maintain his stamina for long surgeries. It was hard to believe that someone like him could die from a simple fall…]
Taesoo’s eyes trembled as he finished reading the article.
It was still hard to believe that the person whose life he had witnessed ending was Caffrene.
The conversation they had shared earlier came rushing back to his mind.

• You have to be afraid of your patients. You have to feel the fear, your hands and legs trembling with it.
• Only by not running away from that fear can you become a true doctor.
• There will come a time when you’ll want to run away. When that happens, remember this moment. Your patient will only be able to rely on you.

Each word seemed to carve itself back into his heart.
He had been a doctor until the very end.
Even in his final moments, he had humbly accepted his own pain, and yet, despite being a stranger, he had offered advice to an intern.
Who could do that?
Taesoo knew that, if he were in the same position, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything like that.
With trembling hands, he brought his coffee to his lips, his eyes still full of confusion.

Time passed.
But Taesoo still hadn’t left the coffee shop.
The warm coffee had long since cooled.
As time passed, his overwhelming shock had somewhat settled, but he still couldn’t understand the situation he was facing.
As he mulled over it, an idea suddenly struck him.
Dream.

• Do you think you can do it?

The words suddenly flooded his mind.
Taesoo tried to push down his confusion and came up with a hypothesis.
Could his knowledge have been absorbed into him?
He had never heard of anything like that, and it seemed impossible. But if that weren’t the case, then the current situation he was experiencing made no sense at all.
His thoughts widened further.
What if, through some means, Caffrene’s knowledge had been transferred to him?
Even if it was a one-in-a-billion chance, it still seemed impossible.
What could it be?
The problem was so far beyond conventional understanding that his head started to ache again.
This was not the time to keep worrying about it.
Taesoo suddenly took out his phone and checked the time.
He had about an hour and a half before he had to return to the SICU.
He stood up abruptly, shaking himself free of his thoughts, and quickly made his way out.

An hour later, Taesoo was leaving psychiatry and heading back to the SICU.
His mind was still full of the conversation he had had with the psychiatry professor during his internship.

• Memory transfer? Zero percent possibility.

The psychiatrist’s judgment was, of course, correct.
He hadn’t had a brain transplant, nor had he undergone any procedure to transfer memories through a machine.
Even in such cases, memories couldn’t be fully transferred. Furthermore, if such a machine existed, it would have been a global issue.
People die every day, yet no one has ever experienced anything like this.
He had even been told that there were no published cases of such a phenomenon at academic conferences.
At this point, Taesoo shook his head.
“It must just be a coincidence.”
Taesoo decided to put the thought to rest.