The Doctor With a Diagnosis System

CHAPTER 2: Breaking Protocol

"Got the tube," Dr. Rim grunted, taking the curved metal laryngoscope from Nurse Jo. He tilted the boy's head back forcefully. "Push the paralytics. I'm going in."

[Time Remaining: 00:02:14]

[Death Probability: 99%]

"Wait!" I shouted. My voice cracked, dry and raspy, but it was loud enough to make everyone in the trauma bay freeze. 

Dr. Rim stopped, the cold metal blade hovering an inch over the boy's bloody mouth. He turned his head slowly, glaring at me with utter contempt. "What is your problem, intern? Get the hell out of my trauma bay."

"He has a tension pneumothorax," I said, stepping forward. The blue screen moved perfectly with my vision, the red timer ticking down relentlessly in the corner of my eye. "His trachea is deviated to the left. His right chest isn't rising. If you intubate him and force air into his lungs under pressure, you'll rupture his remaining functional tissue. His heart will stop the second you squeeze that bag."

Dr. Rim's face flushed a deep, ugly red. "Are you lecturing me, you little piece of trash? I have been a doctor longer than you have been alive! He has closed head trauma and his airway is failing. Push the meds, Nurse Jo!"

"No!" I lunged to the side of the bed. I pointed a shaking finger at the boy's swollen neck. "Look at his jugular veins! They're severely distended. You don't need a textbook to see that he's suffocating from chest pressure, not a blocked airway! Feel his chest, there’s no breath sounds on the right!"

"Security!" Dr. Rim roared, completely losing his temper, spittle flying from his lips. "Get this lunatic intern out of here before he kills my patient!"

[Time Remaining: 00:01:12]

[Patient Vitals Dropping]

The heart monitor suddenly changed its rhythm. The rapid, frantic beeping slowed down into a terrifying, erratic sluggishness that made the blood freeze in my veins. 

BEEP…… BEEP………… BEEP.

"Heart rate is dropping! Forty beats per minute!" Nurse Jo cried out, panic finally breaking through her cold professional facade. "He's bradycardic! He's crashing!"

The boy's face turned a horrific, ashen gray. The mother's screams from outside the glass doors pierced through the noise, raw, agonizing, and completely broken. 

[Time Remaining: 00:00:45]

[Ethical Choice Window Activated]

[Option 1: Step back. Follow hierarchy. Let patient die. (Penalty: None. It is not your fault.)]

[Option 2: Intervene. Save patient. (Risk: Immediate suspension. Career destruction.)]

I looked at the glowing red text. I looked at Dr. Rim, who was now staring at the crashing monitor in paralyzed shock, the laryngoscope hanging uselessly from his hand. He didn't know what to do. He had frozen. 

I remembered the resignation letter waiting on my computer upstairs. I remembered why I wanted to quit. Because I hated feeling helpless. Because I hated watching incompetence kill people while the hierarchy demanded silence. 

I wasn't going to be silent today. I didn't care if I got fired. I was already leaving anyway. 

I lunged toward the metal trauma cart. I ripped open a sterile drawer, my hands moving with desperate, frantic speed. I didn't bother looking for a formal chest tube kit; there was no time to set up a sterile field or inject local anesthesia. I grabbed a massive 14-gauge IV angiocatheter—the thickest needle we had—and ripped off the plastic casing with my teeth. 

"What the hell are you doing?!" Dr. Rim yelled, finally snapping out of his daze. "Put that down! That's a direct order!"

I ignored him. I stepped to the right side of the bed, pushing Nurse Jo back slightly. I grabbed the collar of the boy's torn shirt and ripped it open entirely, exposing his bruised chest. 

[Target Area Highlighted]

A glowing, translucent yellow circle appeared directly on the boy's skin, hovering right over the second intercostal space, mid-clavicular line. Dead center of the trapped air pocket. 

I didn't have gloves on. I didn't have iodine to clean the skin. I just had the massive needle, my bare hands, and the ticking clock burning in my vision. 

[Time Remaining: 00:00:10]

Dr. Rim reached across the bed to grab my shoulder. "I said stop, you psycho!"

I didn't even think. I violently shoved the senior doctor backward with my left arm. I put all my weight into it, sending Rim stumbling back until he crashed into a metal tray table. Stainless steel surgical instruments clattered loudly across the floor in a deafening wave of noise. 

With my right hand, I positioned the thick needle exactly in the center of the glowing yellow circle. I locked my wrist. And I pressed down hard. 

I felt the resistance of the skin, the tough pop of the muscle tissue parting, and then the distinct, sickening crunch of cartilage as the thick needle pierced the pleural cavity between his ribs. 

HISSSSSSS.

A loud, violent rush of trapped air exploded out of the open end of the catheter. It sounded like a punctured tire. The air hit my face, smelling of copper, old blood, and stale breath. A fine mist of dark, deoxygenated blood sprayed outward with the pressure release, coating my bare hands and the front of my scrubs in a warm, sticky film. 

For one agonizing second, the room was dead silent except for the hissing of the escaping air. 

Then, the boy's inflated chest dramatically deflated, sinking back down to a normal level. 

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Heart rate is jumping!" Nurse Jo shouted, staring at the monitor in absolute, wide-eyed disbelief. "Eighty... ninety... one hundred! SpO2 is climbing rapidly! Ninety-two percent!"

The sickly blue tint began to fade from the boy's lips, replaced by a flush of returning blood. He let out a weak, rattling gasp, pulling in his first real, unobstructed breath of air in minutes. His chest rose and fell evenly. Both sides. 

I stood completely frozen, my hand still holding the plastic hub of the needle steady against the boy's chest so it wouldn't dislodge. My own chest heaved as I fought to catch my breath. The massive spike of adrenaline began to recede, leaving my muscles trembling so violently I thought my knees were going to give out. 

The blue screen flashed directly in front of my eyes, a bright, soothing green replacing the crimson red. 

[Mission Success: Life Saved]

[Death Timeline Altered]

[Reward Granted: Surgical Precision +1]

[System Integration Complete.]

The screen dissolved into particles of light and vanished like smoke, leaving me staring at my blood-soaked hands. 

I had done it. Against all odds, against the rules, against the reality of my own exhaustion. I had pulled him back from ninety-eight percent. 

"Are you out of your damn mind?!" Dr. Rim screamed, pulling himself up from the floor. His face was a mask of purple, vein-popping rage. "You assaulted an attending physician! You performed an unauthorized, unsterile, highly invasive procedure! You are finished, Ryeong Bin! Do you hear me? You are completely finished!"

I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I just kept my eyes on the steady rise and fall of the boy's chest, listening to the beautiful, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. 

Suddenly, the heavy privacy curtain of the trauma bay was ripped open. The plastic rings screeched harshly against the metal rod. 

The shouting died instantly. Even Dr. Rim snapped his mouth shut, his rage evaporating into sudden, nervous tension. 

Standing in the entryway was Dr. Kang Min-Jae. 

He was the top resident of the hospital, the golden boy, the untouchable genius of Hanseong Central. He was dressed in a pristine, perfectly tailored white coat over dark scrubs. There wasn't a single hair out of place on his head, and his expensive silver watch caught the harsh fluorescent light of the bay. 

Kang’s pitch-black eyes swept over the chaotic room. He took in the overturned tray, the furious Dr. Rim, the stabilized boy breathing easily on the bed, and finally, me—standing over the patient with a bloody needle in my bare hands. 

The silence in the room was suffocating. It felt heavier than the trapped air in the boy's chest had been. 

Kang Min-Jae stepped slowly into the bay. His face was a mask of cold, unreadable, flawless logic. He stopped two feet away from me, looking down at the dark blood dripping from my fingers onto the linoleum floor. 

"Intern Ryeong Bin," Kang said. His voice was quiet, perfectly calm, and absolutely terrifying in its precision. 

I looked up, meeting the resident's icy stare, my heart still hammering against my ribs. 

Kang held out his hand, palm up. "Hand over the needle. And then hand over your badge. You are done here."