The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim

Wednesday.

It was the busiest day of the week since changing to a seven-day schedule.

“Ugh~!”

With Hwang Sang-hoon on his day off, I had to see his patients too, and there was a particularly large influx of patients in the morning.

Perhaps due to the high energy expenditure, I felt hungry earlier than usual.

“Everyone! What are you having for lunch?”

“We were thinking of ordering from Yongho Chinese Restaurant. Would you like to join us, Doctor?”

“Sounds great! Let’s order all the delicious dishes. One menu item each, plus chili shrimp, sweet and sour pork, and cold noodles with vegetables!”

I declared confidently, waving my card.

“…Really? Is that okay?”

While the employees were checking if it was really alright, Seo In-ae quickly opened the delivery app.

“Of course it is! Why wouldn’t it be? If there are leftovers, I’ll take them home!”

The food we ordered arrived right on time for lunch.

We were about to dig into the Chinese spread laid out on the table.

Bzzzzt.

But then my phone vibrated.

“Who… Oh, it’s mine?”

Who could be calling? Strange.

It was an unknown number not saved in my contacts, but I answered anyway.

If it’s an ad, I’ll just hang up.

“Hello?”

“Is this Doctor Han Yeowon of Seongsu Korean Medicine Clinic?”

It was a man’s voice. Not someone I knew.

“Yes, that’s me. Who is this?”

“I’m Yoon Han-byeol’s attending physician.”

Ah…?

The surgeon from Sowon General Hospital who performed the operation?

“How did you get my personal cell phone number?”

“I got it from Yoon Han-byeol’s guardian. When I asked where he got the herbal medicine prescription, he gave me this number.”

I had heard that Jung-hoon talked to the doctor about me.

But if he was going to give out contact information, he should have given the clinic’s number. Why give out my personal phone number?

“Go ahead and start eating without me.”

I had no choice but to put down the chili shrimp and move to the consultation room.

“If you need to contact me again, please look up the clinic number on the portal and call there. What’s this about?”

I deliberately spoke stiffly. It didn’t seem like he was calling about anything good.

“I heard the dumping syndrome got better in a month. What did you give him?”

As expected, he was picking a fight.

His suspicious tone was very unpleasant. Instinctively, I almost blurted out “Why should I tell you?”, but I held back.

Still, he’s the doctor who performed Han-byeol’s surgery well.

“It’s a medicine called Yukgunja-tang. It wasn’t just the medicine that treated him; he followed the lifestyle management well, so he improved quickly.”

“Hold on.”

The doctor went silent.

For almost a full minute.

“Hello?”

“Pinellia, Atractylodes, Citrus peel, Poria, Ginseng, Licorice, Ginger, Donguibogam. Is this correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You didn’t mix in anything else besides what’s listed here?”

“…What could I mix in that would treat dumping syndrome?”

My voice sharpened, having lost patience.

I’ve heard accusations of mixing steroids into pharmacopuncture, but what could you mix into Yukgunja-tang?

Would mixing in steroids cure dumping syndrome?

“That’s true. Is this medicine safe to give to patients who’ve had a total gastrectomy?”

“I gave it because it is, didn’t I?”

“Yoon Han-byeol had a 60% resection. I’m asking if it can be given to patients with total gastrectomy.”

His tone sounded familiar somehow… Is he a professor or something?

“If you’re asking about safety, it’s fine, but whether it will help with treatment depends on the symptoms. If you’re not talking about Han-byeol, why are you picking a fight over the phone?”

I answered each question in detail, thinking he was calling out of concern for Han-byeol’s health.

And personally, I think he’s better than doctors who tell patients not to take herbal medicine without even bothering to look into it.

It’s a direct approach, isn’t it? I too confronted the doctor who misdiagnosed Kim Jin-sang a few months ago.

“Ah, my mother had a total gastrectomy, and she’s had symptoms suspected to be dumping syndrome for two years without improvement.”

You bastard.

You should have said that from the beginning.

“I don’t do phone consultations. Bring the patient in and we’ll talk.”

“Wait…”

“How would you feel if a stranger suddenly called during your lunch break asking what the survival rate is if they have stomach cancer and get surgery?”

“Oh.”

He seemed to finally realize something.

“I apologize. I didn’t know it was your lunch break. Do I need to get an endoscopy… no, pulse diagnosis or something?”

“Yes. Come on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday.”

I didn’t explain any further.

I just hung up.

“Doctor~ We waited for you!”

When I went to the break room, the employees were waiting for me.

Phew, I’ve seen all sorts of strange people!

‘Are surgeons allowed to talk to patients like that?’

Well, I guess with demand far outstripping supply…

As long as they’re good at surgery, it doesn’t matter if they’re not friendly.

In a way, I was a bit envious.

“Oh my! You should have started without me!”

“How could we eat without you, Doctor?”

“Hurry and eat! Lunch break is almost over!”

I quickly popped a chili shrimp into my mouth so our kind employees wouldn’t have to wait any longer.

I need to fill my stomach quickly, as I have to see patients kindly in the afternoon too.

That doctor’s mother would be my patient if she came, right?

Of course I’d have to do my best to treat her if she came!

◆◇◆◇◆

The surgeon from Sowon General Hospital and his mother appeared on Saturday.

He didn’t introduce himself, but I recognized him the moment he opened the consultation room door.

Tall stature. Thick eyebrows. Distinct features. The gesture of standing straight with arms folded. And above all, the charisma emanating from his entire being.

He was the epitome of the arrogant surgeon you’d see in medical dramas.

“You’re the one who called on Wednesday, right?”

“That’s correct. I’m Park Young-gil, Chief of General Surgery at Sowon General Hospital.”

The doctor handed me his business card. I glanced at it briefly and set it down.

“Nice to meet you. Park Young-gil-ssi, Moon Young-hee-nim.”

The patient was his mother, Moon Young-hee.

Unlike her sturdy son, she was a thin 67-year-old woman.

“I heard briefly from your son, but I’d like to hear directly from you, Moon Young-hee-nim. When did your discomfort start, and how does it feel?”

Park Young-gil nodded slightly and kept his mouth shut.

He looked quite imposing, sitting with his arms folded and legs crossed.

“It’s been just over two years since I had a total gastrectomy for stomach cancer. Since then, whenever I eat, I feel a tightness here, and my heart keeps pounding.”

Moon Young-hee glared at her son once before speaking to me.

She pointed to her epigastrium, slightly below the heart and above where her stomach used to be.

“I’ve been to various university hospitals, but there’s no good solution, and they just tell me to be careful with food. Of course, I’m doing that, but…”

“The dizziness she complained of right after surgery improved with blood sugar control medication. The burning, pain, and palpitations are being managed through diet, but not very successfully.”

Park Young-gil interrupted Moon Young-hee to provide additional explanation.

Moon Young-hee cut off her son’s words again.

“It’s not that it’s not working well, it’s not working at all. No digestive medicine or painkillers help at all. The tests show everything’s normal, but just in case, I even tried heart medication, and that didn’t work either. They told me to go to psychiatry, so I went, and they gave me tranquilizers? It just makes me sleepy, and nothing else changes.”

Moon Young-hee pounded her chest as she vented her frustration. She seemed angry not only at the unresolved situation but also at her son.

“Are you still taking the psychiatric medication?”

“I’ve stopped now. Ha! It didn’t have any effect at all!”

“……”

Park Young-gil closed his mouth again and folded his arms.

“You must have had a very hard time.”

“Exactly! I just wanted to try herbal medicine, but my son threw such a fit, and finally agreed to bring me here today.”

“She also took herbal medicine once in secret. That didn’t work either. But I brought her here just in case.”

I assessed the situation as I listened to them contradicting and elaborating on each other’s statements.

It certainly didn’t seem like it would be easy.

“Let’s check your pulse first.”

Normally, I’d start with a consultation, but it didn’t seem like asking about sleep or bowel movements would yield any answers.

I pondered what to say as I felt Moon Young-hee’s pulse.

If there were no particular abnormalities in the pulse, we’d have to hope for improvement by addressing such symptoms, but…

‘Hm?’

Of course, her pulse was generally weak. That was to be expected at her age after major surgery.

The details were what was strange. The heart pulse was noticeably more unstable than the spleen, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine pulses associated with the digestive system.

“Do you perhaps experience feelings of depression or lethargy? Or do you tend to get angry easily?”

“Of course I do. With how difficult things are.”

“There are no issues with your digestive system on endoscopy now, right?”

“No.”

Park Young-gil stated firmly.

“ECG, echocardiogram, and other tests are all normal too.”

“From what I can see, your heart is perfectly fine.”

“From what you can see?”

“Most said that, but one professor said that sometimes issues are found when you open up even if tests are normal, and suggested open-heart surgery if the discomfort was too severe.”

I couldn’t hide my expression.

“Actually, I was going to have that surgery and had even set a date, but my son absolutely forbade it and canceled it!”

And Moon Young-hee even says she was going to have open-heart surgery.

“…Does that make any sense? Does that happen?”

“No. Well, I should say it’s almost nonexistent since we’ve heard this suggestion now. I thought that didn’t seem right either, so I brought her here. It seemed safe, at least. I looked into the Yukgunja-tang you mentioned. While it’s hard to say there’s sufficient evidence, I found a few papers on administering it to patients who’ve had total gastrectomy.”

“Ah.”

You looked that up? You’re not going to use that medicine anyway.

Moon Young-hee is a completely different case from Yoon Han-byeol.

Anyway, what I was curious about wasn’t Yukgunja-tang, but whether there was a heart abnormality.

I asked Moon Young-hee again.

“Your son mentioned earlier that the blood sugar-related symptoms have mostly improved. Has the epigastric pain remained constant from right after surgery until now?”

“Other things have improved like he said, but the epigastric pain has actually gotten worse.”

“Is it more of a constricting feeling rather than burning?”

“Ah, that’s right. Right after surgery, it was burning and nauseous, but now it doesn’t burn.”

As I thought.

Because it started after stomach cancer surgery, it was only thought to be one of the symptoms of dumping syndrome.

They did consider heart or mental issues, but Western medicine ruled them out due to normal test results.

Except for the crazy person who suggested open-heart surgery.

“Are you certain that the current epigastric pain and palpitations are definitely related to food?”

“I… think so? It gets worse when I eat?”

“Does it noticeably decrease if you don’t eat at all?”

This was the most important part.

Is it really dumping syndrome? I was certain it wasn’t.

“I think it did at first.”

“Not at first. Have you not fasted at all in the past three months?”

If it was that painful every time she ate, you’d think she would have tried fasting.

“I don’t want to eat, but my daughter insists I need to eat in small portions and makes a fuss whenever it’s time. Ah, my daughter is taking care of me.”

“How about in the morning, on an empty stomach?”

“Just thinking about eating…”

Park Young-gil’s eyebrow twitched at the word ‘thinking’.

“From what I can see, this isn’t dumping syndrome at all.”

“…It’s psychogenic, then.”

“It’s understandable to misdiagnose. The surgery would have been a stress trigger. Both the cancer and the subsequent dumping were extremely shocking to the patient.”

Park Young-gil nodded, and Moon Young-hee asked me:

“So there’s no way to treat it with herbal medicine? Do I have to take those psychiatric drugs again?”

Of course not.

If that were the case, I wouldn’t have questioned so thoroughly.

“No. I’ll prescribe herbal medicine suited to your current symptoms. Switch to a regular diet starting today, and take the medicine twice a day.”

Yoon Han-byeol was actually my first time directly treating dumping syndrome, rather than just observing professors do it.

Stomach resection surgery wasn’t possible in Murim, after all!

But I have considerable treatment experience with the symptoms Moon Young-hee is complaining about.

You could even call me an expert, perhaps.

After all, I was the top expert in treating Murim PTSD. I’d seen hundreds of patients with similar symptoms from the shock of losing limbs.

“Ah!”

Moon Young-hee’s face lit up at the words that she could be cured. Park Young-gil remained expressionless, but his lower eyelid twitched slightly.

“Get acupuncture today too. I’ll send the decocted medicine tomorrow. You’ll definitely improve within a week… at most a month.”

“I’m counting on you!”

“…I’ll give it a try.”

Park Young-gil still had a sour attitude, but it didn’t matter.

Park Young-gil’s doubt, not Moon Young-hee’s, wouldn’t affect the treatment at all.

Besides, judging by his basic manner of speaking, he must be the type of doctor who believes that as long as the patient gets better, kindness doesn’t matter.

I was confident I could treat Moon Young-hee.