episode_0127

Episode 127. Return to the Academy (1)

****

As always.

When I return from a business trip, I have a lot of work to do.

I was sitting at my desk in the lab.

There’s a lot to do. First, I’m going to present about aspirin at an academic conference. I need to prove that it has an analgesic effect before I can sell it or something.

If I had been to Winia, people wouldn’t have gotten sick. Of course, outpatient treatment would have been delayed, and depending on what Amy did, there might have been a pile up of inpatients.

Let’s get this done quickly and get to the promotion and research of aspirin. The first thing that caught my eye was… … a mountain of letters on my desk. I thought about it.

“Oh, Professor, you’re back. Hello.”

“Yeah.”

Amy went to work at the lab.

What were you doing while Istina and I were gone? I looked at Amy for a moment.

“Amy. What is all this?”

“I organized it as much as possible. I only left the letters that I thought you should see in person. I put the rest in the corner.”

“Yeah… … .”

“You come in such large numbers.”

I skimmed through the letters. There must have been dozens. In the few days I was away from the lab, more than ten came a day.

“Amy. Sit down.”

“Yes.”

Amy sat down at my desk. I started talking without taking my eyes off the letter.

“Nothing happened while you were gone?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Are there a lot of patients?”

“No. But there are a few new patients that came in. I was going to tell you about that.”

A new patient? Well, if there’s no professor, wouldn’t it be better not to admit any patients to my ward at all? Amy continued.

“I couldn’t take on very urgent patients because I lack the skills. One patient with pneumonia. Another patient who was lying down with a stretched ligament, and another who was taking care of a wound on his arm.”

I looked at Amy.

There is a rumor going around among doctors that if you work for Doctors Without Borders for even a short time, your skills will improve significantly.

Because you can practice your drinking skills in a relatively free environment. Of course, it might be a bit scary to say that to a patient.

How would Amy react?

“How did you treat it?”

“For the patient with a broken arm, I asked another professor to put a splint on him.”

“Good job. Who else?”

“For those with infected wounds, we cleaned them with boiled water and alcohol. We bandaged them.”

“Good job. It’s not good if the alcohol touches the wound directly, but anyway, you did well.”

“I heard that you feel a little pain in boiled water.”

I couldn’t help but raise my head at these words. What are you talking about? This is it again.

“Yeah… … ?”

I squinted my eyes. Did you pour boiling water on me that wasn’t cooled? That must have hurt… … . If you had just poured it on me, I might not have gotten burned.

“Does the patient have blisters around the wound?”

“No.”

If you teach one, you will know the other.

No, really. At least I was glad that I thought about boiling the water to sterilize it. It was a bit stupid that I didn’t think about cooling the water. At least I was glad that I didn’t get burned too badly.

“You should cool the water and pour it on the wound, you crazy bastard. Do you want to burn the wound as well?”

“Ah. Sorry.”

I sighed.

“You should apologize to the patient, that’s it.”

“Yes. I won’t do that.”

“What about the medicine?”

“I gave you some penicillin that I had made for the experiment. I explained that it was a new drug.”

What, you handled it properly.

“Pneumonia patients?”

“I gave them penicillin that was made for the same experiment, but I don’t know the effect yet.”

Surprisingly, he did it normally and properly. I thought he might have killed one or two people.

“You’ve had a hard time while I was gone.”

“That’s right. Thank you for your hard work.”

I went straight to the ward.

Amy followed me.

You said there were three inpatients while I was away? I can’t believe Amy’s skills, so I have to see for myself.

Patient one.

At first glance, he looked like an academy student.

“Hello. The patient’s name is… ….”

“Logan.”

A patient with a stretched ligament in the leg.

An X-ray would probably be able to confirm whether this is a microscopic fracture, a ligament sprain, or some other condition. But there’s no way around it, since we don’t have the equipment.

Amy stood quietly in the back.

“Yes. Mr. Logan, you were hospitalized because of a sore leg? Did you get hurt in some way?”

“I fell down on the street, just like that.”

“Why did you fall?”

“There is no separate one.”

Patients with clearly visible problems are uncomfortable. Patients with no visible problems have headaches. In some extreme cases, a patient who came in with a simple toothache turned out to have a myocardial infarction.

Actually, it’s true that you should have noticed something was wrong when you came to the emergency room with a toothache.

Anyway, this patient is the same. If he fell down on the street, he could be concerned about vasovagal syncope, cerebellar infarction, or Parkinson’s disease.

Well, that’s what it is. It’s much more likely that there was just a rock in the road. A seemingly healthy young man happened to be there.

“Do you usually drink alcohol?”

“No, not at all.”

“The splint isn’t uncomfortable, is it?”

“Yes. Not really.”

I was worried, but decided to let it go for now. I’m not at an age where I would suffer a cerebellar infarction.

****

Actually, it wasn’t him that was important.

The person whose safety I am most concerned about right now is the patient who had a wound that had boiling water poured on it. As expected, this patient’s expression was not bright.

Second patient.

A young-looking academy student.

“Let’s take a look at the wound on your arm.”

“No, last time you poured boiling water.”

“Oh my. I’m sorry. I guess it had to do with the disinfection, probably.”

I checked the patient’s wound. Well, Amy couldn’t have stitched it up properly. The wound was stitched crookedly, like a child’s.

I scratched my head.

“I’ll sew the wound up again. This is a bit much. Our student sewed it up too roughly.”

“Does it have to be like that?”

“That way it will heal well.”

The height of the stitches is a bit odd. It won’t heal, but it’s better to avoid stitching them up wrong. After a while, the nurses in the ward brought boiled needles and silk thread.

I wiped my hands with alcohol.

“What is the patient’s name?”

“This is Natalie.”

I stopped what I was doing.

Natalie. A name I’ve heard a lot.

“Huh, I thought you looked familiar… … . It was Teacher Natalie. How did you get hurt?”

“I got cut by a knife. While I was trying to cook.”

Natalie. If you don’t remember, it was the ADHD patient I met last time. I remember giving him some medication.

Naturally, people with this condition are victims of personal accidents more often than the average person. I thought about it for a moment.

“Was it a clean knife?”

“Maybe?”

Should I get tetanus treatment?

I guess I’d better leave no room for that. Anyway, I injected some local anesthetic and started stitching up the wound that had been clumsily sutured.

“Do you have any sensation at the site of the injury?”

“No.”

I cut the sutures that had already entered the wound and then checked the condition inside the wound.

As expected, there were foreign substances and scabs inside the wound that had not been completely washed away.

Because I washed it with hot water, I couldn’t clean it thoroughly because of the patient’s reaction. I took out the sterile saline solution. Natalie was terrified.

“Is this boiling water again?”

“No. It’s cooled down.”

“I hate boiling water.”

“Yes.”

I guess he was quite sick.

I washed the patient’s wound and removed any clots or foreign matter that might have been there. It didn’t take long to sew it up again.

“Did the medicine run out?”

“Oh, it fell.”

“Please take it before discharge.”

Amy’s sewing skills still had room for improvement, but there didn’t seem to be any problems with the diagnosis. There was no infection in the wound.

That’s good.

****

Third patient.

This was a middle-aged male patient. It was a complicated case. There are many types of pneumonia that can be treated with penicillin, but there are also types that cannot be treated.

I thought about it for a moment.

In modern times, there is no one who has never taken antibiotics, so there are many bacteria that are not easily affected by basic drugs such as penicillin.

Looking at this patient’s case, it seems quite possible that pneumonia could be cured with penicillin.

“Is there anything that you feel uncomfortable about?”

“None.”

“Try coughing.”

Cough, cough. There was that deep cough that is typical of pneumonia patients. I thought about it for a moment. Let’s try it for one more day with oral penicillin.

“If you don’t have any particular pain, we’ll see you for another day with oral penicillin, and if your symptoms worsen, we’ll change the medication.”

“Yes.”

****

We left my ward.

Amy tilted her head.

“Do you know what could be improved?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, wait a minute. I had to ask the first patient if the splint was comfortable. The second patient was just not as good as I thought, and the third patient turned out okay.”

It would be much better for you to figure it out yourself rather than me telling you, because Amy has seen firsthand what it’s like when these patients come in.

The process of studying and improving is what’s important.