Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim 3: Episodes 13-14

by alathe

Lights! Camera! Richardson retractor! The Trauma Center has a flashy new leader with a familiar face, and Doldam’s staff are itching with anticipation. Still, not everyone’s convinced by this surgical savior descending from on high… in fact, both sides of our OTP have some strong things to say on the matter. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that keeping up with Teacher Kim is never easy.

EPISODES 13-14

Word of Dong-joo’s (Yoo Yeon-seok) return as Head of the Trauma Center surges across Doldam. Soon, a gaggle of delighted staff surround him — including a proud Nurse Oh and a beaming Dr. Nam. Manager Jang all but weeps for joy. (What a relief, to finally suck up to someone he actually likes!) For his part, Dong-joo is relieved that Doldam hasn’t lost a scrap of its old weirdness. Still, it’s not all sunshine and scalpels. Dr. Yang is already working up to a Category Three tantrum about taking orders from his junior. Eun-jae is fidgety, sitting on her knowledge of a fight Woo-jin once had with Dong-joo. Meanwhile, Woo-jin eyes this newcomer with open contempt. First, he makes Teacher Kim laugh — now, he’s sitting in Woo-jin’s chair? Are there no depths to which this man will not sink?

Dong-joo takes all reactions in his stride. He remembers his last conversation with Teacher Kim. If I’m to take over, he’d said, then I’ll need total control. You’ll have to trust me. Done, his mentor had replied. But only if you promise that if you do need help — you’ll ask. Later, privately, Teacher Kim meets with Nurse Oh, Dr. Nam, and Dr. Jung. They have one mission: support their new leader no matter the circumstances.

Dong-joo is quick to exercise his new, limitless authority. Going forward, he announces, there’ll be a firm delineation between trauma and emergency patients. Only the former will be treated at the Trauma Center; the rest will go to Doldam. This seems sensible in theory. In practice, it equals three days of total inaction. Dozens of patients are wheeled into reception. Dong-joo examines each, only to deem them insufficiently traumatic. Redirect to Doldam! Staff slump at their desks, trading mutinous whispers. Eun-jae looks well on her way to murder. Even Dong-joo’s old allies, Nurse Oh, Dr. Nam, and Dr. Jung, are taken aback. Still, they hold fast to Teacher Kim’s instructions.

Eun-jae isn’t nearly so tolerant. At Doldam, Ah-reum finds an unexpected embolism patient, with a history of colon cancer. Sun-woong calls Eun-jae in a whirl of panic; Teacher Kim’s in surgery, and this goes far beyond his own expertise. Dong-joo has nonetheless ordered her, under no uncertain terms, to stay put. Eun-jae thinks, hard. She stares angrily at the desolate Trauma Center reception. Then, she turns on her heel and heads to Doldam. The surgery is a nightmare situation: the case is finicky, adhesion is bad, Sung-woong keeps trembling, and Eun-jae herself is on edge. Still, after taking a moment to breathe, she dives in.

With grim inevitability, the Trauma Center phone rings. There’s been a car crash — six patients are on their way. Dong-joo directs them calmly. Three go to Doldam; the other two, with the familiar diagnoses of hemoperitoneum and flail chest, go to the Trauma Center. The third, a child with abdominal injuries, is an edge case, so Dong-joo calls Teacher Kim. I’ll be tied up in surgery for a bit, Teacher Kim lies swiftly, as he prepares to hand over to Dr. Bae. You’ll take that one. When Dr. Bae questions the deception, he smiles. Once you know a person, you can read between the lines. Dong-joo wanted the pediatric surgery experience.

Alas, Nurse Oh must deliver the crushing news: Eun-jae, their only cardio expert, is missing in surgical action. All of a sudden, Dong-joo must tackle two patients at once. He thinks back to the promise Teacher Kim extracted from him — to call for help if necessary — then decides to keep calm and carry on. I’ll be fine on my own, he assures Nurse Oh. I’ll have to be. Just then, a white-coated savior strides onto the scene. He’s been barred from surgery. He’s in rehab. He’s emphatically not supposed to be here. Still, when has a little scolding stopped Woo-jin diving headfirst into an emergency?

Together, our heroes tackle the hemoperitoneum patient. For a while, it’s a mess of blood and terminology. Richardson! Nylon tape! Vascular tourniquet! As Dong-joo sutures at the speed of light, the spitting image of Teacher Kim, Woo-jin observes in grudging awe. This time, though, it’s not enough. Machines blare; the blood pressure plummets to nothing. Dong-joo hurtles into action with a transdiaphragmatic open heart massage. However, in three whole seasons, only Teacher Kim has ever coaxed a heart back into action with his bare hand — and this time is no exception. The moment of hope passes. Dong-joo is forced to call time of death.

Dong-joo angrily punches Eun-jae’s number into his phone. Caught in the middle of an aortobiiliac bypass, she hears him list the remaining patient’s symptoms. Damaged liver. Damaged spleen. Six flail segments in the ribs, with the top two puncturing the lungs. She works at the Trauma Center, not Doldam — what will she do? At this, Woo-jin, audacious as ever, snatches the phone from his boss. Don’t let him distract you, Eun-jae, he says. We’ll deal with the liver and spleen — you focus on the patient in front of you. Eun-jae, he angrily informs Dong-joo, is saving a life. She’s doing exactly what Teacher Kim always taught them!

Dong-joo’s eyes narrow. Do you know, he asks, why the parrotbill dies chasing the stork? It can’t follow the pace of its strides. There’s only one person who can be Teacher Kim — and if you keep chasing him, you could wind up losing worse than your hand. Turning from Woo-jin, he orders that the child be moved to Doldam. Teacher Kim might represent what our approach ought to be, Dong-joo thinks, but he can’t be our goal, or we’ll never succeed.

Later, Woo-jin accuses Dong-joo of risking lives for bravado. Watch me in surgery, Dong-joo replies. If I impress you, will you come work for me? And indeed, as Dong-joo performs a splenectomy in fifteen minutes flat, Woo-jin looks like he might be at least somewhat of impressed. Still, later, he’s determined to know, why is Dong-joo approaching management like it’s a death match? Dong-joo insists that he has no time for niceties. He came back to see if he could beat a nigh-invincible opponent — Teacher Kim. It’s not a far cry from Teacher Kim’s hopes for Dr. Cha: that he’d fight, and think, and blaze an alternate trail. But it sure rings ominous.

Speaking of no-holds-barred doctoring, Eun-jae is seconds out of surgery when she slams smack into another emergency. One of the car crash patients was a teenager girl — who was secretly pregnant. In the throes of agonizing labor, she dragged herself to the bathroom, delivered the child, and left it swaddled in her bloodstained sweater. Eun-jae races to the ER, bloodied baby in her arms, before performing delicate, two-fingered CPR. She and Ah-reum, working on half-remembered knowledge from their resident years, successfully intubate the newborn. By the time Eun-jae arrives to operate on the flail chest patient, Dong-joo — to the astonishment of all — has successfully inserted a fluid-draining tube into the lungs.

The patient pulls through. But Eun-jae has a bone to pick with her new boss. When he inserted that tube, it was a cardio surgeon’s call, not general. He crossed the line. Not unreasonably, he retorts that she was late. Then he adds, perhaps less reasonably, that a critical patient died in her absence. She can’t juggle two full-time jobs, racing between Trauma Center and ER. Eun-jae scoffs. She’s their only cardio surgeon — what’s he going to do, fire her? Dong-joo’s next words threaten exactly that. He’s already assembled a team in the U.S., cardio surgeon included. They’ll be joining in a matter of days.

This announcement rocks the Trauma Center like a knockout blow. For the first time potentially ever, Eun-jae and Dr. Yang are in full agreement: this is a travesty. Dr. Yang, whose proactivity in the absence of a motivating sandwich is honestly impressive, suggests an all-staff boycott of Dong-joo. To everyone’s shock, Eun-jae is on board. So is Nurse Joo, who hasn’t forgotten the three-day torpor that led to this. Dr. Jung is uncomfortable. Woo-jin is bitterly opposed. In the end, in defiance of Woo-jin’s protests, Eun-jae (flanked by her new, bargain store minion, Dr. Yang) issues Dong-joo an ultimatum. They’ll return when he learns how to compromise.

Reactions to the boycott are complex. Teacher Kim had expected turbulence, but not to this extent. Director Park, rattled by the news of Dong-joo’s new appointments, takes a firm stance. Well, firm-ish. Some might say that Teacher Kim’s unremitting faith in Dong-joo smacks of favoritism. Teacher Kim must represent Doldam in this, and keep the balance. Teacher Kim’s trying his hardest to keep his hands off the Trauma Center, but with balance in mind, he calls his old student. People, he advises Dong-joo, matter more than systems… no matter how good the system. Which does Dong-joo want to be? A boss — or a leader?

With Eun-jae, he walks a careful line. Well done with the embolism patient, he begins. It must have been tough. But from now on, focus on the Trauma Center. By all means, get angry at Dong-joo. Fight, if things are unfair! But once you learn to ask why people take the actions they do, every problem has endless solutions. A boycott isn’t one of them. You know better than anyone how much it once hurt Woo-jin. Eun-jae is shaken — for a moment, she’d forgotten her boyfriend’s tragic backstory! Peering into his office, she texts him a peace offering. I love you.

Alas, this invokes the Doldam curse: only one couple can be happy at once. Eun-tak and Ah-reum continue to suffer outrageously — almost entirely owing to Eun-tak’s inability to process a single emotion. He’s gotten as far as Stage One: Buy Flowers. Unfortunately, the next steps elude him. For days, a perfectly nice bouquet has been decomposing in his locker, ungifted. Dong-hwa, determined to get this dying romance on life support, shoves a bundle of fresh roses into Eun-tak’s hands. He and Sun-woong eavesdrop supportively from the corner while Eun-tak approaches Ah-reum, flowers shoved behind his back.

It’s too little, much too late. Ah-reum, determinedly calm, apologizes for making him uncomfortable. It’s been hard, working together like this. From now on, she decides, they should be nothing more than colleagues. That way, she’ll have no reason to be disappointed, and he’ll have no reason to worry. Eun-tak, still hiding the flowers, says nothing as she walks away. Back in the ER, Ah-reum finally lets herself cry.

Meanwhile, Dong-joo faces a budget inspection, with all but three of his staff absent. Still, he’s not an overachiever for nothing. Even Director Park takes note as he schmoozes with the inspectors. (Director Park’s not impressed, mind. Just — interested.) (Nurse Oh smiles.) Unfortunately, they’ve both got bigger problems than a charm offensive. One by one, our doctors receive a phone notification. One by one, they gasp. There’s been a forest fire, and the casualties are immense. Meanwhile, an official from the Ministry of Health sits in the empty reception. He’s been watching the phone ring, unanswered.

I love that we’re tackling this season’s biggest question: what does it mean to be Teacher Kim’s successor? For Eun-jae and Woo-jin, it’s a matter of matching his pace: throwing themselves into every possible emergency, and trampling all rules in their wake. But it’s unsustainable. Woo-jin almost lost a hand in the process. And much as she might wish to, Eun-jae can’t juggle responsibilities until she drops. Earlier in the episode, Dr. Bae suggested a solution to the old parrotbill/stork conundrum: don’t kill yourself matching the stork’s strides — just keep moving in the same direction. But Woo-jin isn’t so convinced that Vienna waits for him. Both he and Eun-jae refuse to slow down and reflect.

Dong-joo, Dr. Cha, and Director Park have all tried to do what Teacher Kim demands, and forge a different path. Last week, Director Park failed to be the leader that Teacher Kim hoped he’d become; when the big wave hit, it left him flattened and sputtering up seawater. Teacher Kim wanted Dr. Cha to prove him wrong so badly, but at the end of the day he couldn’t prioritize what mattered. As for Dong-joo? Well, he gets the assignment, but like many high-flying students, he falls to pieces in the face of a group project. Then again, it was a stricter, less compromising Teacher Kim that he learned to love. Much like his mentor before him, he’s got to build trust, not demand it. In the end, I’m hoping that all our heroes who’ve tried so hard, and failed so movingly, will end up succeeding Teacher Kim in their own ways. Whether it’s following that hard-forged path, or picking a new direction — either way, there’s room on the road for everyone.

 
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