The first thing that Yeonhee likes about Trauma rotation is, it starts much later than wards' one. When she was still rotating for Cardio, she needed to wake up at three in the morning to have an hour at least of studying and morning preparation to be in the hospital at five. But in trauma, her shift starts at seven so she has about an hour or two additional sleep hours before she gets ready to work. 

Though it doesn't really change her habit, Yeonhee only sleeps for two hours after the last day and wakes up at three because her natural alarm just lets her do so. She decides to study, reading some e-journals about enhancing social skills, because it's what Trauma needs the most, and she knows how she lacks it the most too. Yixing wakes up at four-thirty and sits on the couch after making some teas for both of them, he practices his knotting while watching some shows on Netflix in the most minimal sound to not disturbing Yeonhee's reading. It's only half an hour later that they start preparing themselves to go to work. 

Showing up early on the first day of rotation is always a big help. They get to have the time to introduce themselves to all the emergency department staff, and that, Yixing says, is the first lesson of how to get yourself a long-time backup. Having the staff; nurses and technician's back is always beneficial when you have to work on difficult cases because they're always willing to help you in every situation. Yeonhee is not surprised to see how the nurses happily welcome Yixing on the team, he's always their favorite. Especially now that they know about his specific skill in suturing, everybody knows how beneficial that skill is for this rotation, the nurses seem to ready to queue to have him train them for it.

The thing about trauma rotation again, the attending is always around. Unlike her days on Cardio which she was only able to see the attending two or maybe three times only in rounds, she will work with Dr. Kim Junmyeon and his fellow, the senior resident Kim Hyoyeon, and learn their skill from them themselves to treat the life-threatening physical injuries. They are life-threatening because those injuries can affect internal organs. Immediate treatment is necessary to rapidly assess and make decisions about what to do. And Yeonhee feels that it's specifically challenging because she has to train herself to build confidence in her decision since trauma doctors often work with incomplete information.

They start their morning by having a meeting in which the previous night-shift team presents them the cases of the patients that were admitted and how they have been handling them. And since Yeonhee and Yixing join the for the first time, both the attending and the fellow doctor give them some basic explanation about how they organize the ED. It's been nationally known that Geomdan Seoul has one of the biggest emergency department in the country, they have a Level I Trauma Center which is capable of providing total care for every aspect of injury, from prevention through rehabilitation, with 24-hour in-house coverage by the general surgeons, and prompt availability of care in all specialties.

They are the referral resource for communities in nearby regions that adding the annual volume of severely injured patients in the hospital. And they have many patients, like, sooo many, that later on, Yeonhee finds it hard to believe how high the accident rate in Seoul only seeing the number of the patients incoming in a day.

“Eat when you can. Sleep when you can.”  Dr. Kim gives them his last tip before they start the morning shift, emphasizing how important it is to stay energized and hydrated during their work, because well, it actually goes on for all rotations, but he loves to remind them about it since specifically, trauma will drain a lot of their energy.

He has a very unique way of dividing the residents and interns their job since they're going to be in charge of the patients according to their arrival, Dr. Kim makes them do the paper rock and scissor to determine who has the first turn and the next ones. Yeonhee personally thinks that his team is really fun. 

And Yeonhee sticks with Hyoyeon in her first half of being in the ER. Because they have no traumas yet, they chat about her time growing up in the rural areas and how her city clinic has solidified her steps to pursue this carrier. When she gets through the patients' charts, she decides that she wants some teaching, so they talk about hypothermia and acidosis through the specifics of some of their previous patients. And then they talk about the bitter days of being a young female doctor in the ER.

Hyoyeon tells her that the days can be made unpleasant by all sorts of factors. "Being a female never helps," she says, "No matter how competent you are. Sometimes, even after introducing myself as the treating doctor and performing an assessment on a patient, I'd still get asked, 'Nurse, when do I get to see the doctor?' And that's the worst feeling ever."

It's actually not the first time that she heard this kind of story. It's not always sparkling and rainbows of being a doctor, there's a lot of people think that in this profession, everyone will respect them and treat them well. When Yeonhee is invited to attend the residence's meeting in her apartment complex, even people there think that she holds up a very noble job. They think the patients will 'kiss your a**' because she's the doctor, or that the nurses will always look up to her. As an intern, she indeed has no experience that much compared to her senior, but from her experience of working for a month here in the hospital also from her seniors who have been going through a lot longer here, she can say that this is not true.

Though people know how she is, and her fame under her mother's name, there are people who still consider that she doesn't deserve the name that she holds despite her skills. They think she's only there because of her mother, and that she's just another spoiled kid who uses up her father's money to be in the prestigious program while they have to work their a** off just to be here.

Jongdae said this once when they were having their dinner group, "You will have patients that will disrespect you, swear at you, even as far as hitting you. My attending was assaulted 3-4 times by his patients in the past, and he was knocked out once. Sometimes the nurse will not talk to you or not do things for the patient that was supposed to be done. No matter how good you are in your job, there will always be people who will have the doubt on you, that's just the nature that we can't avoid. Most of the patients you encounter will respect you and be appreciative... but not all the time. And if you are going into this profession thinking that everyone you meet will be like 'Oh wow, you are a doctor, you must be so smart, and can I do something for you?' then you need a wake-up call."

And it's true.

In retrospect, Yeonhee thinks that she will probably not be able to answer with certainty when asked what makes her want to become a doctor. The only thing she knows so far is that Sehun is in love with this world, and she wants to be what he wants to be.
But does she want to be a doctor because she wants to save lives? Hum, no.
Does she think it's a prestigious job? No.
Does she choose this line of work because it makes a lot of money? Damn no, she doesn't even care about it.

To think about it again, she doesn't really that passionate about anything about this job. Yes, she loves surgery, she thinks that to be in an OR is thrilling, as thrilling as riding the rollercoaster back in Everland. But to say that it's what she wants the most in her life, she can't say that. She doesn't say that it's her dream to be here, to be precise, she doesn't even know if she has ever had a dream in the first place.

So that's why, Yeonhee personally loves to talk to her seniors, because there's always something new she can learn from them; whether it's from their skills or just a life experience. Their stories, and their discourses, always inspire her. It's actually a refreshment after years of hearing the side of a doctor's life only from Sehun's point of view.

At about 10 o'clock they get the call of an incoming trauma patient with a stab to the left chest. Hyoyeon has everyone ready and orders the nurse to prepare the X-ray, ECG, and everything else that they may need for the assessment. In exactly ten minutes the ambulance comes to deliver an eighteen-year-old boy who is still awake and alert, with a knife still intact on his left chest.

Yixing and Kyungsoo help the EMT to get him off from the car and move him to the trauma bay where Yeonhee has been waiting with her glove on with Hyoyeon. The boy is moved from the stretcher onto the examination table, and the only complaint obtained from him is shortness of breath.

"Oh, God, are you an angel? Am I in heaven? I am, aren't I?" the boy is delirious as Yeonhee puts an oxygen tube in his nose, seemingly reacting the painkiller that the EMT has given him during the transport.

All the people who are working at him can't hide their chuckle for the boy's reference, but the only reply that he gets is Yixing's joke that 'yes, he's in heaven, and they're preparing his halo for him to put on' that has everyone burst in small laughter.

From the patient's uncle, they get to see that apparently the boy was visiting his cousin's family from Dojeon when he became a victim of a stabbing. This all began when he confronted the family's neighbor about a personal conflict which occurred between them years ago. What started out as a verbal argument eventually resulted in physical violence. The boy sustained a single stab wound to the left chest in the mid-axillary line, just below the .

They place the cardiac monitors, blood pressure cuff and oxygen saturation probes on him to get a stable vital sign, with decreasing breath sounds at the left base. Yeonhee then removes the boy's clothes with her scissor to thoroughly examine for other injuries, and have everything else generally positive; no lacerations, no hematomas, no fractures palpated, no bleeding, even regular rate and rhythm in his heart.

From the chest x-ray, they find left sided hemopneumothorax, which means that he's having air and blood in the chest cavity. They're able to sit him up because he has an isolated penetrating injury to the chest, and luckily it doesn't warrant spinal precautions. But they can't have Pelvis and lateral C-spine films because the nature of the injury isolates it.

"There's no pericardial effusion," Yixing says after he's done his transthoracic ECG exam.

"And what does that mean?" Hyoyeon asks, only to test him to see if he knows exactly what he's talking about.

"Because the knife can be aimed in any direction—well, medially, superiorly, inferiorly—the heart can be potentially injured. No pericardial effusion means, we don't have to be worried about any pericardial tamponade, because I see no fluid around the heart," he answers her casually while hanging his stethoscope back around his neck.

"Good, Oh Sehun teaches you really well." Hyoyeon then turns to Yeonhee, "And what blood test should we order?"

"Uh," Yeonhee wipes her nose with her forefinger while she decides, "Blood type and screen, coagulation panel, complete blood count, arterial blood gas and toxicology screen." 

"Why ABG? Not hematocrit (the ratio of the volume of red blood cells to the total volume of blood)?"

"Because ABG is a better indicator of hemorrhage than hematocrit? When a trauma victim bleeds, the shed blood is the whole blood which has the same hematocrit as the intravascular blood. It is only after the movement of interstitial fluid (the body fluid between blood vessels and cells, containing nutrients from capillary by diffusion and holding waste products discharged out by cells due to metabolism) into the vascular space in an attempt to increase the total volume does the hematocrit drop from dilution. Hematocrit is not going to reflect the amount of bleeding this patient may have because it is a percentage of red blood cells in the blood, so that's why ABG is more