That afternoon, after all the patients with appointments at Geumsan Clinic had been seen, Taeho went to Kim Mangnae’s house together with Nurse Bak Geumja.
Before they could even get out of the car, Granny Kim Mangnae came running out. She must have been waiting anxiously; she was even wearing her slippers backward.
“Well, would you look at this. You really came all the way here. It couldn’t have been easy coming all this way. Even the nurse came with you.”
Granny Kim Mangnae was so grateful she didn’t know what to do.
Bak Geumja beamed.
“What’s so hard about coming out here? It must be harder for you elders.”
Bak Geumja usually spoke standard Korean, but whenever she met elderly patients, a bit of dialect would slip out.
Beyond a stone wall too shabby to even call a wall, shingle-roofed houses huddled close together.
Smoke from cooking dinner rose from the chimneys. As the firewood burned, it gave off a sharp yet cozy scent.
They followed the grandmother into the main room of the farmhouse.
“Oh dear, our place is so cramped…”
Granny Kim Mangnae apologized, saying the house was small, but it had been cleaned so neatly that it felt rather cozy.
Knowing it would be hard for the doctor to go from house to house, the grandmother had gone around and gathered the sick people at her own home.
Bak Geumja first took each patient’s blood pressure with the blood pressure monitor she had brought, and then Taeho took out his stethoscope to check their breathing sounds. The medical tools were simple, but with Rema, he could check each patient’s condition at the level of a comprehensive examination.
Every time Taeho touched his glasses, Rema scanned the patient’s information. Basic vital signs such as pulse, body temperature, and respiration appeared as a hologram on one side of the lenses. Each value was marked in different colors depending on whether it fell outside the normal range, and a graph predicting suspected diseases appeared alongside it.
The first patient was Granny Kim Mangnae’s husband.
—Signs of deformation in the knee joint area detected. Probability: 65%. Physical examination required for accurate confirmation.
To Taeho’s eyes, red markings appeared over the old man’s shoulder and knees.
“Elder, when you get up after sitting for a long time, your knees feel stiff and throb, don’t they?”
“When you get old, everything’s bound to ache a bit. It hurts more these days because of the weather.”
Taeho prescribed the medicine he had prepared in advance.
Then Rema’s voice sounded.
—Coin charging has begun.
—Coin charge rate: 1%.
‘It’s started.’
Taeho smiled quietly.
The next patient was Granny Kim Mangnae’s neighbor.
Taeho lightly tapped the grandmother’s back and checked her lung sounds. At the same time, he compared the lung capacity graph visualized by Rema.
“Elder, you said you’ve been coughing a lot lately. Have you had a fever or felt extremely short of breath?”
“No fever. The coughing makes it a little hard to breathe.”
“Fortunately, you’re all right for now. But if a cough lasts too long, it can harm your bronchial tubes. I’ll prescribe medicine for you, so make sure you take it.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“If it gets any worse, you must come to the clinic. If it’s hard to come out, at least call us.”
“I will. Thank you so much.”
—Coin charge rate: 2%.
Watching the coins charge, Taeho gladly saw the next patient.
“Grandmother, where are you most uncomfortable?”
“My back hurts every day, and for the past few days, I keep coughing too.”
Taeho listened to the patient’s breathing, did a simple examination, and prepared the appropriate medicine for her. Then he slowly and carefully explained everything from lifestyle habits to back exercises.
Bak Geumja helped Taeho by carefully recording the grandmother’s symptoms in her notebook.
“Elder, make sure you take the medicine after meals. If your cough gets worse, contact us right away.”
“Doctor, you’ve gone through so much coming all the way out to this mountain valley.”
After the grandmother went out, holding the packet of medicine as though it were precious, two elderly men and another elderly woman who had been waiting took their turns being examined. There were no urgent conditions or major illnesses, but since they were elderly, they had many minor symptoms such as joint pain in their backs and legs, coughing, and phlegm.
Taeho examined each and every one of them sincerely and provided as much treatment and advice as he could.
—Coin charge rate: 5%.
It was a little disappointing that it charged so slowly, but the fact that it could be charged at all was something. And seeing patients in person like this, by visiting them directly, felt different from sitting in a hospital examination room and seeing them there.
It felt as if he had become a real doctor.
A feeling of pride welled up inside him.
Taeho concluded that it had been a satisfying house call.
After all the examinations were finished, Taeho and Bak Geumja began cleaning up.
Before they knew it, outside had turned completely dark.
“Doctors, please eat before you go.”
A meal had been laid out in the main room.
Freshly cooked white rice, tofu grilled in perilla oil, potato ongshimi soup simmered gently, seasoned dried greens such as gondre, bracken, and chamnamul, refreshing dongchimi, and the highlight among them was seasoned and grilled dried pollack with deodeok.
It was a meal prepared with great care.
Taeho and Bak Geumja picked up their spoons with grateful hearts.
“Eat up while it’s warm.”
“You should eat with us too, Elder.”
“We already ate outside earlier. Don’t worry about us and eat.”
“Thank you. We’ll enjoy the meal.”
“These might look like withered greens, but we picked and dried them ourselves. We didn’t use a single bit of pesticide, and they were dried well in the sun, so they’re good for the body.”
The elderly villagers busily urged the young doctor and nurse, who felt like benefactors to them, to eat even one more spoonful.
Taeho and Bak Geumja ate their fill of the warm meal.
When the table was cleared, the residents gathered again, each holding a bundle of something. Inside were neatly packed dried bracken, dried pumpkin slices, and garden greens.
“You young folks may think this is nothing special, but this is all we have.”
The grandmother who set down the basket spoke.
Bak Geumja waved her hands and tried to decline, but the other elders had already joined in, each saying a word.
“This is a village where we can’t even get a glimpse of a doctor, but you came all this hard way here and treated all us old folks too. It isn’t much, but please accept this at least.”
“No, but still…”
“Thank you. We’ll eat it well when we get home.”
When Taeho accepted the bundles and gave her a look, only then did Bak Geumja accept them as well. Refusing too much would have been rude.
“Doctor.”
The last person to offer something was Granny Kim Mangnae.
“Please take this too.”
In the yellowed cardboard box the grandmother held out were plenty of pale wild pine mushrooms. Each was about the size of an adult’s fist. They had been picked in the mountains and carefully cleaned of dirt. If sold in town, they would fetch quite a price.
“Something this precious…”
“Please take it. Such precious people came all the way here, and this is the only thing I can give you.”
Granny Kim Mangnae insisted on pushing the box into his hands.
In the end, Taeho accepted the pine mushrooms.
Bak Geumja also received a box of pine mushrooms, and the corners of her mouth stretched up to her ears. Her expression said she had stumbled into a windfall.
“Wild pine mushrooms are expensive… The scent is really strong. You know these are delicious even raw, torn along the grain, and if you lightly grill them on a hot pan and dip them in sesame oil with salt, they’re better than meat. Slurp.”
Bak Geumja swallowed her saliva and even smacked her lips.
And so their first house call came to an end.
***
The next evening, after all scheduled appointments had been completed, Taeho called Nurse Bak Geumja and Pharmacist Gu Hyejeong. It was to discuss the issue of elderly people living in remote areas without access to medical benefits.
Bak Geumja said there were quite a lot of elderly people living scattered throughout the mountain villages.
“In those kinds of villages, buses usually run three times a day. Occasionally there are people who drive trucks or their own cars, but not many. Most of the people living like that are quite old, so they have a lot of painful places too.”
Gu Hyejeong, who had been listening, added,
“Most of them keep painkillers or digestive medicine stocked at home, but they come out because those don’t work anymore. Most of them are probably in a state that can’t be solved with simple household medicine. If prescription medicine can be supplied on time, it would be much better.”
If treatment was not given in time, the ones who suffered in the end were the patients and their families.
Taeho, who had been listening, spoke.
“From now on, I’m thinking it would be good to go out on house calls at least one day a week. I think it’ll be possible if we only take appointments in the morning.”
“That would be wonderful, of course, but wouldn’t it be too hard on you, Doctor? These days we have so many patients that, rather than going on house calls, it would be more profitable to see even one more patient at the clinic.”
Gu Hyejeong cautiously gave her opinion.
Taeho shook his head.
Being a little physically tired or being unable to take a few appointment patients was not the issue. If he didn’t fill the coins to 100%, that damned Rema would never move.
“I’m fine. Nurse Bak, how about thinking of it as getting some fresh air once a week? Of course, overtime pay will be added separately.”
At Taeho’s proposal, Bak Geumja nodded as if she agreed.
“If it’s once a week, I think it’s possible. It would be much better to see the elders’ conditions directly and decide whether they need to be moved to a higher-level hospital. If we discover illnesses early, we can prevent bigger problems.”
“Then let’s proceed that way.”
Taeho smiled brightly.
Gu Hyejeong looked at Taeho again with a dazed expression.
This young doctor was much younger than she was, but he was far deeper inside. She had been shocked when she heard from Bak Geumja about the house call the previous night.
There was a doctor like that?
That was why she couldn’t help coming by today.
To think there was such a doctor in this day and age!
She had thought he was only handsome in the face, but he was even more handsome at heart.
Ah, if only I were ten years younger…
Smacking her lips regretfully, she rolled up her sleeves.
“The pharmacy will join in too! I can’t follow you on house calls, but I’ll support you with the medicine when you go.”
The three of them made plans, dividing their roles in detail for the house calls.
The next morning, Bak Geumja put up a large notice at the entrance of Geumsan Clinic.
「Geumsan Clinic Weekly Free House Call Notice: Priority for Remote Mountain Areas」
The news spread beyond village after village in an instant.
“They say the doctor really comes right to your house?”
“Oh, it’s easy to say, but that isn’t an easy thing to do. The clinic’s business is doing so well too.”
“It’s true. They came to my uncle’s place a few days ago. My uncle got treated too.”
“Is that so? Then that’s truly something to be grateful for.”
***
Geumsan Clinic’s “free house call service” was not easy from the start. They went to the places with the poorest access to the hospital first, but the winding mountain roads were hard even for a car to climb.
Even Bak Geumja, who had lived in Samcheok City her entire life, clicked her tongue.
“My goodness, what kind of road is this? They call it a mountain village, but this is practically an expedition into the wilderness.”
Bak Geumja barely managed to keep her balance inside the jolting car.
“The scenery is nice, though. People even go hiking in the mountains on purpose.”
“My, Director, you really do have a good personality.”
Bak Geumja smiled shyly, as if embarrassed that she had complained.
Taeho laughed with her.
Of course, the most important reason was to charge the coins. But as they drove along the mountain road, he saw other advantages as well.
Recently, patients had been flooding into the clinic without a break, so he hadn’t had a chance to leave the examination room all day. But now that he was out and about for the first time in a while, he felt as if his fatigue was being washed away.
The air in the mountains was different from the town’s. The fresh air and crisp scent of grass lifted his mood.
Just then, Bak Geumja suddenly shouted.
“Oh my! What is that?”
A human figure had collapsed in the grass.
Screech!
Taeho stepped on the brake and stopped the car. When he rolled down the window, he saw a person lying curled up by the roadside, where the grass grew thick.
Taeho quickly got out of the car and ran over.
It was a young man who looked to be in his thirties, dressed in rags. His face was terribly gaunt, and his pale lips were cracked dry.
When Taeho examined him closely, fortunately, he was breathing. But perhaps because he had not washed in so long, the smell coming from his body was awful.
“Oh! The mountain man?”
Bak Geumja shouted from behind him.
“The mountain man?”
“Yes. There was a rumor that a young man had gone crazy while practicing asceticism in the mountains. Some said he was just crazy to begin with… Anyway, the villagers kept calling him the mountain man, the mountain man. So he really did exist.”
“Hey, are you all right?”
When Taeho called out, the mountain man groaned.
“Ja… jajang…”