Though this episode appears to be transitional, there’s info galore to keep up with.

1. “The trickle becomes the hurricane”

In the beginning, only three doctors are in OR #7: SuJeong (SJ), Intern Park, and Dr. Jo for the 15-hour operation of patient Hyuna Lee. The rest trickles in.

A nervous Dr. Do steps out of the committee vote on striking. He uses a potty break as an excuse to leave the room. While he’s a hot mess in the OR, he settles down when more backup joins them.

Ms. Jang, or more correctly, Dr. Jang, confounds everyone when she enters the OR in her scrubs and surgical mask and cap. SJ introduces her as her teacher.

Director Bu walks out of the committee vote after delivering a conscience-provoking speech, “Where should we be? Here, holding our patients’ or in that operating room?” His choice is unequivocal.

Dr. Bae follows him after he tries to convince Dr. Ma to join them. He warns his junior that he’ll regret not assisting in this operation every time he looks at his young niece who’s about the same age as the patient. But Dr. Ma returns to the stage, looking like death warmed over.

Then last and least of all, Dr. Kim from ER joins the team as an onlooker.

Together, they’re a force to reckon with.

The point of this scene, aside from showing that doctors must put their patient’s need first, is teamwork. As we say around here, “Many hands make light work.”

At the impromptu “company” dinner after the surgery, SJ’s other auntie observes that SJ has made friends.

Jang: Nah, just workmates. That’s all.
Honorary Uncle: But at least she’s not lonely. That’s pretty nice.

2. The award for the longest monologue in this episode goes to…

Director Bu. Lol. He’s the metaphorical microphone of the speechwriter.

BU: Today, at our hospital, there is only one operating room with a surgery in progress. Operating Room 7. At this moment, in our largest OR a surgery is underway on the smallest of children. And that child is a patient who was repeatedly turned away by our main hospital, as well as the surgical team here, and many other hospitals. Today, that child is receiving surgery that no one else would perform. The procedure essentially entails removing six organs, resecting the tumor, and placing the organs back into the body. It’s called multivisceral ex vivo tumor resection and autotransplantation. And that’s a risky surgery. This is that child’s last hope, her last chance for survival. Everyone, if we are physicians, if we are truly doctors of medicine, then my question is, where do we belong? In this room, using the lives of our patients as bargaining chips? Or do we instead belong there in that operating room? This is the choice that I make.

And he hurls the microphone to the floor.

Frankly I think that he suffers from inferiority complex, most likely because he didn’t come from a privileged background like them. Both Dr. Kim, the president of the Korean Medical Association, and Dr. Gu, the chairman of the Guseo University Hospital Foundation and president of Magnolia society, are aware of his complex so they shame and harass him publicly. They know he will not push back nor demand professional collegiality.

For instance, in this episode, Dr. Kim yells at him in front of the residents and interns at the committee meeting. Then, later Chairman Dr. Gu shouts at him during the operation.

Hence, when Director Bu yells back at Dr. Gu and asserts his primacy, I can’t help but think, “About time, my man!”

Bu: Gu BonPyeong!
Everybody: (stunned into silence)
Bu: I am exercising my authority as director. This surgery will be carried through to completion.
Kim: (starts yapping to defend Chairman Gu)
Bu: Dr Jo. Let’s do that thing you’re so good at.

He means to unplug the microphone and silence the fool.

To me, that’s one of the problems of giving awards to the undeserving. It’s more than a matter of fairness. It also demotivates, frustrates, and lowers the esteem of those people who were passed over. It instills in them that their hard work has little value because a “protected” class can steal their hard work and take credit.

Note: Don’t be naïve to believe that the “protected” class only means the elite, rich, upper class. Here in the US, individuals – or groups of individuals – can be protected based on their race and color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, and so on.

3. The reveals in this episode

a. There were two co-founders of the Guseo Hospital. It’s possible that they’re a husband-and-wife team.

The first one mentioned is Gu YeoRim who “expanded gynecological care.” We don’t know if she’s dead or alive.

Noteworthy: After the celebratory dinner, Dr. Jo drops by the “Onyu nursing home.” This scene may look random, but I think the script is setting the viewers up for Ms. Gu’s entrance. Ms. Gu can be living in an assisted residence for senior citizens.

The other one is Kim SeungHyo (KSH). He was a general surgeon who graduated from Guseo University and founder of the “White Wings Medical Corps” as well. He supposedly saved countless children with his medical/surgical skills and was nominated for Nobel Prize for his philanthropy. He’s praised “as a great, benevolent healer of our age, even revered as a god.”

Dr. Jo and Intern Park have a visceral reaction to his portrait.

What do we know about him? Oodles, considering that his character was introduced in the 10 minutes of the show.

• He’s the individual SJ was operating on in this episode’s flashback. SJ performed his “initial” transplant operation. She did it under difficult conditions. There was an armed conflict going on outside. Ms Jang had her gun pointed at the door, ready to shoot an enemy combatant entering the OR. The nurse fled, leaving SJ to perform the surgery on her own.

That time, Ms. Jang had delivered the heart to the OR but she sustained a gunshot wound. SJ wanted to treat her, but she urged SJ to attend to the patient first. SJ looked hesitant, but I think, to calm herself, she called to mind Ms. Jang’s warning that there might come an occasion when solo surgery is her only option so she must soldier on.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Ms. Jang spoke, “A doctor must always stay by their patient’s side. That is our duty. It’s why we chose to practice this practice.”

She reminded SJ that should a transplant fail, three lives were lost: the one who donated the heart, the one receiving the heart, and the other one who also needed that heart. In moments like this, SJ was all the patient had; she meant everything to him.

It’s important to remember her words because these considerations will apply again for Episode 11.

• KSH is the man in the burning White Wings Medical Corps who stabbed SJ in the leg as she was carrying Baraka out. It’s possible that he started the fire himself.

That’s where he got the burns on his face and hands.

• KSH lives overseas (America?) but returns to Korea. Ironically, he’s going to receive the heart from the fire fighter that Dr. Kim attended to. The fire fighter is brain-dead but he signed up to be an organ donor.

Note: is he also the one who sent her the letter from Switzerland in Episode 9? The stamp says Helvetia and it refers to Switzerland’s Latin name, Confoederatio Helvetica. Lol. Don’t tell me that he visited Switzerland to copycat Seri’s move in “Crash Landing on You”!

• The anesthesiologist Dr. Jo is his guardian.
• Intern Park is about to smother him with a pillow while Dr. Jo watches when SJ stops him.
• He calls SJ “Doctor X.”

b. Intern Park

He lets Ms. Jang and the rest of SJ’s family know that he’s adopted. His parents adopted him from the orphanage that they were volunteering at. According to his adoptive parents, he used to sit quietly in the corner, never smiling or crying. The sight of him had broken their hearts so they decided to adopt him and try to make him smile as much as they could.

Well, given how much he smiled, cried, and laughed throughout the day, it’s hard to believe that there’d been a time that he was reserved and unemotional. He was obviously traumatized by something.

Noteworthy: In the previous episode, he started crying when he overheard Hyuna’s mother on the phone, comforting her husband and talking about their finances. I also remember in Episode 8, he evinced curiosity when Dr. Bae mentioned that the grandmother of the child GaEul collected scrap-paper.

Then, in Episode 2, he was upset when he mistakenly thought SJ was abandoning their penniless young patient for the rich old man. He shouted, “You’re a doctor. You should look after your patient until the end! You promised her a hundred years!”

It’s possible that he feels a connection with the poor because he was born poor and raised poor until the wealthy Busan doctor(s) adopted him. That said, it’s also possible that he was born well-off and his parents exposed him to charity work early in life so it’s ingrained in him to feel a certain affinity for the poor.

He’s prepared to break all his ethical and moral standards and commit asphyxia homicide. SJ stops him.

c. Dr. Jo

• She’s looking after someone who resides in the Onyu nursing home.
• She’s related to KSH. She can be his daughter (but she changed her last name, perhaps to cut ties) or his daughter-in-law (her husband is most likely deceased as she’s raising her daughter alone).

4. “To hit a rock with an egg”

The English equivalent is “to spit in the wind.”

Mr. Kim, the president of KMA, says that it’s futile to fight the KMA, hospital, foundation, Magnolia society as their organizations are bigger and wield more power and influence that Hyuna’s parents. Any challenge from Hyuna’s parents will backfire and waste their time and already limited resources.

But SJ points that any negative publicity will stink up the reputation of all these organizations. Mr. Kim and his cohorts will want to avoid damaging media coverage.

Besides, it’ll be ironic if their Magnolia Society will cease to “smell” pure and fragrant when it’s dragged through the mud.

To me, the burned man KSH is no different from the Magnolia Society. He “smells” godlike and benevolent when the show implies that he’s committed many unspeakable foul things.

5. Ethical dilemma?

It’s a shocking plot twist when the affable and ever-idealistic Intern Park attempts to kill KSH, with Dr. Jo’s seeming approval/consent/permission from the sideline. Unlike the time in Episode 8, when she charged into the General Surgery room to break up the interns’ fight, she simply watches Intern Park about to commit a crime.

It’s SJ who breaks up the fight.

The dilemma for the next episode is this: if KSH is proven guilty of the most heinous acts (let’s say, pedophilia), is it ethical of SJ to kill him during the surgery, to deliver substandard care, “recuse” herself on grounds of conflict of interest, or refuse to see him altogether.

The thing is, as was his initial physician, there may be established “abandonment rules” or protocols. She can’t simply walk away; she’ll need to stay by his side.

Anyway, I’ll wait and see what the creators of the show have to say about this issue.

Meanwhile, I think the show gave us a few foreshadowing on the side the screenwriter is leaning towards.

a. In the flashback, Dr. Jang told SJ that, “A doctor must always stay by their patient’s side. That is our duty. It’s why we chose to practice this practice.”

Note that she didn’t attach conditions or impose requirements. She didn’t say that a doctor should stay only if the patient is a good person or that a doctor can leave him unattended to die on his own if the patient is a criminal. She didn’t say that SJ should make a moral assessment/judgment of the person’s character before surgery.

Note: this is my biggest disillusion with doctors during the Covid era who refused to see patients who didn’t take the “jab”. I couldn’t believe that it was even a @#$@# issue and the general public didn’t see the unethicality of it. [facepalm]

b. SJ commented when she was doing Hyuna’s surgery.

SJ: Hyuna here hasn’t even been to school yet. She’s never given her mother a hard time. But I hope Hyuna becomes a really disobedient daughter. So I will make sure that Hyuna grows up to be an adult.

Make of that what you will.

We’ll see next week whether or not she will also make sure that rotten KSH live through his golden years, and whether or not her first recorded “failure” (remember her motto is “I never fail”) will be KSH.