In front of a café in Seoul.
Taeho and Park Suhyeok slowed their steps side by side.
“Taeho, like you said, I didn’t tell Hyeongjun that the doctor he’d be meeting today was ‘Gang Taeho.’ But why insist on hiding it?”
“I just want to meet him first as one human being to another, as one doctor to another. Without any preconceptions.”
Taeho was just about to push the door open.
“Hey, move!”
With a rough shout, a man in his late twenties shoved his way out. A part-time worker whose shoulder he brushed was pushed backward and lost her balance.
Crash. The coffee tray tilted in midair, and the glass cups shattered against the floor. Splintered shards flew in every direction, and coffee spread in a circle.
“Ah!”
The part-time worker, about twenty years old, clutched her left hand. A piece of glass was embedded deep in her palm, and blood was streaming down.
Taeho instinctively moved forward, but then he saw someone from inside the café shove back a chair and rush out first.
It was a man in his early thirties, wearing a neat shirt, with calm eyes.
“Huh? That’s Hyeongjun.”
As Park Suhyeok reflexively tried to call out to him, Taeho stopped him with a gesture.
“Let’s watch for a moment.”
The man knelt and moved close beside the part-time worker.
“It’s all right. Look here. May I lift your hand a little?”
“Ah… I’m bleeding.”
“It’ll stop soon. If we pull out the fragments carelessly, you’ll bleed more.”
He took a small emergency kit out of his bag. When the zipper opened, disposable gloves, disinfectant gauze, saline solution, tweezers, and a compression bandage were neatly revealed. He put on the gloves first, poured plenty of saline over the wound, and washed it out. Without touching the large fragment embedded deep inside, he removed only the small pieces, carefully angling the tweezers.
“Here, do you feel some pain? Can you feel sensation?”
“Yes. It hurts a little.”
“Good. Don’t clench. Keep your hand relaxed.”
The man maintained hemostasis with compression gauze and wrapped the bandage around her hand. He distributed the tension toward the wrist to check the blood flow, then lowered his line of sight once more to confirm.
“The bleeding is under control for now. I’ve removed the fragments for the moment, but you must go to a trauma clinic, get an X-ray, and receive a tetanus shot.”
“Thank you so much.”
“It’s all right. Could I get an ice pack, please?”
A counter employee handed over an ice pack with trembling hands, and the man carefully placed it over the bandage as he spoke.
“For now, avoid gripping anything.”
“Thank you so much.”
The part-time worker bowed with tears in her eyes.
Taeho watched the entire process in admiration.
Swift and accurate judgment.
A warm attitude toward the patient.
And above all, the instinct of a medical professional, naturally ingrained in his body.
Seeing him in person made it far clearer than reading about him in documents.
This man was perfect for Samcheok Emergency Hospital.
Taeho wanted Jo Hyeongjun.
After finishing the first aid, the man stood and looked around. His gaze found the two people standing by the door. Only then did Park Suhyeok approach.
“Hyeongjun.”
“Professor? I didn’t know you were coming.”
Park Suhyeok glanced at Taeho beside him and said,
“This is also a disciple of mine. He said he wanted to meet you together.”
Taeho took a step forward.
“Hello. I’m Gang Taeho.”
“I’m Jo Hyeongjun. Uh… have we perhaps met somewhere before?”
Jo Hyeongjun tilted his head. The doctor named Gang Taeho seemed somehow familiar.
He wondered if he resembled a celebrity, but no celebrity with a similar image came to mind.
Taeho smiled briefly.
“This is our first time meeting. What you just did was impressive.”
Hyeongjun awkwardly shook out his hands and took off his gloves.
“When you run into something like that, you just do what you always do.”
The sound of glass shards being swept up from the floor and the hiss of the espresso machine filled the café again.
Park Suhyeok lightly patted Jo Hyeongjun on the shoulder.
“Let’s have some tea first. There’s something we need to talk about.”
The three of them moved to a window seat.
Taeho lifted his glass of water, drank about half, and spoke.
“From what I saw earlier, it seems you carry an emergency kit with you. Do you usually keep one on hand?”
“You never know when something might happen.”
At Jo Hyeongjun’s clear answer, Taeho nodded.
“The reason I asked Professor Park to arrange for me to meet you today is because I’d like to invite you to join us.”
“Pardon? Invite me?”
“I’m in the process of expanding my hospital, and I need an emergency medicine specialist. Of course, I’ll offer you the best possible treatment, including salary.”
Jo Hyeongjun guessed that the doctor sitting in front of him must have been born into wealth.
Was he looking for a doctor for a hospital run by his family?
Jo Hyeongjun lowered his gaze for a moment, then raised it again.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to decline. Actually, I’m scheduled for redeployment with Doctors Without Borders. I have ten days left. My mind is already there.”
“I know. I’m trying to offer you a position where you can be fully satisfied without necessarily having to go overseas.”
“…In that case, Director, I have one question for you.”
Jo Hyeongjun spoke with a serious expression.
“Ask me anything.”
“Is truly patient-centered care possible in Korea?”
There was deep exhaustion in Jo Hyeongjun’s words.
“The emergency room is always pressured for being in the red, they tell us to focus only on bed turnover rates, the records pile up like mountains… There’s no time to properly stay with even one patient. Even when you save someone, the system pushes them out. That’s why I’m leaving.”
Park Suhyeok quietly looked at Jo Hyeongjun.
‘He’s become deeply disillusioned with the medical system while I wasn’t seeing him.’
When Park Suhyeok had taught him, he had been a student overflowing with passion, which made his current state all the more heartbreaking.
Taeho drew a breath and continued.
“Dr. Jo, I once thought exactly the same thing. But I’m changing the system myself.”
“Director, I’m sorry, but… believing you can change something in Korea is an illusion. Every single day, the reasons to leave only pile up.”
“Come to my hospital. It’s definitely different. I’m going to build a hospital for true doctors, a hospital for patients.”
Jo Hyeongjun looked at Taeho again in surprise.
‘Where does this confidence come from?’
Jo Hyeongjun blinked, then his expression suddenly changed.
“Wait a moment. Could you possibly…”
He took out his smartphone and began searching for something. Then he looked back and forth between the screen and Taeho.
“Uh, surely you’re Director Gang Taeho… the one who treated President Ibrahim of Gambia?”
“Ah, you know about that.”
“Not only that, you also saved a mother and baby at the scene of a traffic accident instead of attending the WHO award ceremony.”
Jo Hyeongjun’s voice gradually began to tremble.
“My God! Are you really, truly that Dr. Gang Taeho?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Jo Hyeongjun sprang to his feet and bowed deeply.
“Hello! It is truly an honor!”
Taeho was slightly flustered.
“You don’t have to go that far…”
“No! I’ve sincerely admired you, Director! I know very well that in Gambia, amid political pressure and conflict with WHO officials, you thought only of the patient.”
“How do you know that?”
“A close friend of mine was on the WHO dispatch team. He told me in detail about what happened at the time. And I read the article about how you gave up the award ceremony in Geneva and saved the traffic accident victims. I was deeply moved by your words, ‘A doctor’s duty is to treat patients.’”
Park Suhyeok smiled warmly.
“So Hyeongjun had been admiring Taeho all this time. This meeting turned out well.”
“It feels like a dream. I never thought I’d meet the person I admired so much in person like this. You look younger than I expected, so I didn’t recognize you.”
“You flatter me. Rather, after seeing how you performed first aid just now, I can tell that you are truly an excellent doctor, Dr. Jo. I’d very much like to work with you.”
“…”
Jo Hyeongjun was conflicted. Because the doctor sitting before him was none other than that ‘Gang Taeho.’
‘Maybe, if it’s this person, he really might be able to change the system.’
Taeho said,
“I understand your mother passed away from a rare disease, and that your father is currently living alone.”
“How did you…”
Guilt colored Jo Hyeongjun’s face.
Because leaving his elderly father alone and going to Africa was the one thing weighing on his mind.
Taeho smiled.
“I’ll resolve that for you. In Samcheok, I’ll connect your father with care services and support him with regular medical consultations as well.”
Jo Hyeongjun was completely shaken. The doctor he had admired so much was making him an offer that went this far…
“Director.”
“Dr. Jo, let’s practice real medicine together. In a place where patients come first.”
“Please give me a few more days to think about it.”
“Of course. It might be good for you to stop by Geumsan Clinic before making your decision. The hospital where you’ll be working later is also under remodeling right now, so you’ll be able to see the site.”
Taeho smiled generously.
With his keen intuition, he could tell that more than half of Jo Hyeongjun’s heart had already come over.
Park Suhyeok also smiled warmly.
“Hyeongjun, that place is exactly where you are needed. I hope you make a good decision.”
“Yes, Professor.”
In one corner of Jo Hyeongjun’s heart, a sense of expectation was beginning to bloom.
That if he was with none other than Gang Taeho, even the impossible might become possible.
***
The remodeling site of Samcheok Medical Center.
Wearing a construction helmet, Jo Hyeongjun was following Taeho around the building.
“This is where the emergency room will be.”
Taeho pointed to the wide space as he explained.
“It’s really bigger than I expected.”
Jo Hyeongjun looked around in admiration. The design was clearly different from emergency rooms in Seoul. It was spacious enough to examine each patient with ease, and the flow of movement was efficiently arranged.
“Do you know what I considered most important in designing the emergency room?”
“Efficiency?”
“That’s right. But along with efficiency, I also considered the patient’s dignity.”
At Taeho’s answer, Jo Hyeongjun nodded.
“In an emergency, speed is life, but that doesn’t mean patients should be treated like objects. It’s a design that ensures as much privacy as possible and takes guardians into consideration so they won’t feel anxious.”
Jo Hyeongjun nodded silently. It was a way of thinking unimaginable in Seoul.
“This will be the emergency operating room, that will be the intensive observation room. And this side is planned to become a dedicated lounge for the medical staff.”
“A dedicated lounge?”
“For emergency medicine doctors who have to be on standby twenty-four hours a day, a proper place to rest is essential.”
Jo Hyeongjun was moved once again by Taeho’s thoughtful consideration.
After carefully looking around the remodeling site, they moved to Geumsan Clinic.
“So this is Geumsan Clinic.”
Jo Hyeongjun was surprised as he looked at the modest but tidy clinic building. He had thought that a countryside clinic would be old and shabby, but instead, it felt warmer and neater than some large hospitals in Seoul.
“Director Doctor!”
Just then, an elderly woman coming out of the clinic saw Taeho and approached with a bright smile. It was Grandma Kim Yongsun, a regular patient.
“Hello, ma’am.”
“Oh my. My old man took the medicine you gave him last time, and he’s gotten much better!”
At the grandmother’s delighted voice, Taeho also smiled brightly.
“I’m so glad to hear that. Please keep managing his blood sugar steadily.”
“Of course! If our Director Doctor says it, we gotta do anything! My old man said I had to bring you this no matter what.”
“Oh dear, you carried this all the way here?”
“How’s carrying this little thing hard at all?”
Grandma Kim Yongsun handed Taeho a bundle of waxy corn and went on her way.
Jo Hyeongjun looked at Taeho with new eyes.
‘So a patient can trust and like a doctor that much.’
It was the kind of gaze any doctor would dream of receiving from a patient at least once.
An expression filled with love and respect.
When they entered the clinic, Nurse Park Geumja greeted them warmly.
“Director, you’re here! You must be Dr. Jo Hyeongjun! Welcome.”
“Yes, hello.”
“There aren’t many outpatients today, so please take your time looking around.”
As Jo Hyeongjun looked around the examination room, testing room, and inpatient rooms one by one, his eyes gradually grew brighter. Everything was designed with the patient at the center.
Jo Hyeongjun had finished making a round of Geumsan Clinic under Taeho’s guidance and was just about to head outside.
“Director!”
At the voice calling from behind, they turned to see Nurse Park Geumja running toward them, her face ashen.
“I just got a call from Minsu. He said his friends fell into the water while playing in the stream!”
“Where is it?”
Taeho asked.