Dr. Romantic Season 3 (2023) Episode 13

Episode 13 of Dr Romantic Season 3 starts with everyone at the hospital looking forward to meeting Kang Dong-ju. Nurse Oh, Do-il and Ki-tae rush from the Trauma Centre to see him while Mr Koo tells the nurses and doctors of Doldam that Dong-ju has arrived, as they too run to see him.

Woo-jin feels awkward after seeing how Teacher Kim reacted to Dong-ju and after seeing the staff run as if he was a celebrity. Eun-jae asks Woo-jin if he thinks Dong-ju will remember what happened between them during college.

Dong-hwa is curious to know what she’s talking about but Eun-jae shuts him down. The nurses and doctors give Dong-joo a chaotic welcome as he reassures the staff that he’s back to stay for good. Dong-ju is introduced to the new doctors and staff who had heard stories of his fistfight with Teacher Kim. In-soo gets emotional and hugs Dong-joo while Eun-tak welcomes him back with a firm handshake.

Other than Woo-jin, Eun-jae, Dong-hwa and Min-guk all of the other doctors smother Dong-jae. He is taken back to his chat with Teacher Kim about how he needed to follow the rules that existed. In the break room, Dong-ju sits at his old desk, reminiscing about his time at Doldam. Just then, Woo-jin shows up and claims authority over his seat. Dong-ju asks Woo-jin how he injured his hand and tells him that a surgeon should really prioritise their hands.

Dong-ju asks if Woo-jin remembers what happened between them and the latter claims that he does remember. Meanwhile, Eun-tak finds himself going to a flower shop to buy a bouquet for A-reum to apologise to her after their fight. He recalls how Dong-hwa had admitted to having a crush on A-reum and how he could see how much she loved Eun-tak. The nurse thinks about handing the flowers over to A-reum but gets shy and dumps them in his locker.

Meanwhile, Ki-tae shows Dong-ju his new office as the head of the Trauma Centre. Dong-ju admits that since nothing was official on paper yet, he would use the break room like the rest of the doctors. Ha-joon is pissed that his junior, Dong-ju, is going to be the head of the Trauma Centre. He tries to instigate In-soo but the latter defends his friend claiming that Dong-ju went to the States to study and upskill himself and was fit to lead the team there.

Dong-ju enters the break room and picks an empty table that he could use. He tries to chat with Ha-joon but the latter ignores him and leaves to talk to Min-guk. Dong-ju asks Eun-jae to gather all the doctors for a meeting in 30 minutes before leaving with Ki-tae to look around the Trauma Centre.

Eun-jae is left wondering if Dong-ju even remembers what happened in the past. Ha-joon goes around the hospital talking to Min-guk and then Moon-jung and Woo-jin, instigating them all to revolt against Dong-ju leading to the Trauma Centre. However, neither of the doctors pay attention to Ha-joon and proceed with their work, asking him to mind his own business

At the staff meeting in the Trauma Centre, Dong-ju tells the staff that the centre would only be treating trauma patients who had excessive internal/external bleeding and/or severe injury. He tells them that they would dispatch the other patients to Doldam Hospital’s Emergency Room and adds that alongside him, In-soo will make the decision about which patients are considered to be trauma patients. Teacher Kim asks Nurse Oh, Do-il and In-soo to follow Dong-ju’s rules and claims that Doldam ER used to deal with such cases before the Trauma Centre was made.

Nurse Oh believes that this will put a large toll on Teacher Kim considering Woo-jin was on rest due to his injury. Teacher Kim claims that he would manage things at the ER. The rest of the day goes by with Dong-ju sending the patients to Doldam because they did not qualify as patients under trauma due to their injuries. The doctors at the Trauma Centre are perplexed but have to follow Dong-ju’s orders. Meanwhile, the staff and doctors at Doldam ER are getting an overwhelming number of patients.

Woo-jin wonders why he is the only doctor that isn’t getting a call to the ER while the other doctors rush about trying to help the patients coming in. Three days go by and the staff at the Trauma Centre are worried about Dong-ju’s actions. Nurse Oh and Do-il discuss that ever since his joining, Dong-ju had sent all of the patients to Doldam ER because they weren’t Trauma cases. Do-il is sure that Teacher Kim was prepared for something like this.

Meanwhile, Teacher Kim is really able to manage all the patients coming into Doldam while the doctors and nurses are shuffling around, helping and treating patients. Dong-hwa asks Eun-tak if he had given the flowers to A-reum but since there was a lot of chaos at the ER, the flowers had been wilting in Eun-tak’s locker. Just then, A-reum discovers that a patient who had colon cancer had lost sensation in his feet. She calls Seon-ung to help her and the CT surgeon calls Eun-jae for help.

At the Trauma Centre, the doctors were losing their minds because they had no work to do. Eun-jae and In-soo try to use the jinx but it won’t work anymore as the phone does not ring alerting them about new patients. Eun-jae gets Seon-ung’s call and checks the patient’s CT scan. She believes that the patient needs abdominal surgery and asks him to be transferred to Teacher Kim.

Seon-ung reveals that Teacher Kim is already in critical surgery and he’ll take another couple of hours to be out of surgery. Dong-ju asks Eun-jae to tell Teacher Kim that the patient is critical and to wait for his decision. Eun-jae is frustrated with Dong-ju’s decision and asks Seon-ung to prepare for surgery.

She leaves to go to the Doldam ER without informing Dong-ju and starts helping Seon-ung with the surgery on the colon cancer patient. As soon as she does that, the trauma centre gets a call about a multi-vehicle accident. Through the phone call, In-soo learns that four out of the six patients are critical while the remaining two were trauma patients.

Dong-ju calls Teacher Kim just as he was finishing up his surgery and tells him about the accident. He tells Teacher Kim that he would take the two trauma patients including a child patient. Teacher Kim gives him the go-ahead claiming he was still in surgery and would be there for a while. Moon-jung wonders why Teacher Kim lied to Dong-ju and he claims that Dong-ju wanted to treat the child himself and he only facilitated his wish by saying he was busy. In-soo claims that Dong-ju should have let Teacher Kim handle the child because he was skilled with child trauma cases.

Just then, Dong-ju learns that Eun-jae was at Doldam ER performing surgery without informing him. At Doldam, Woo-jin confronts Teacher Kim for keeping him out of the ER on purpose. Teacher Kim consults Moon-jung, Woo-jin’s doctor who concludes that Woo-jin still needed rehabilitation on his hand. Determined to help his peers, Woo-jin starts practising his surgical stitches on a pillow but fails miserably because his fingers are unable to move.

Outside the ER, Teacher Kim is frustrated with Eun-jae for making such a hasty decision. He asks A-reum who was responsible for calling Eun-jae for help and she tells him that it was Seon-ung that called Eun-jae from the Trauma Centre. Woo-jin overhears the conversation when Teacher Kim tells Nurse Nom that he was worried about Dong-jae being able to handle the child trauma patient in the absence of Eun-jae. Meanwhile, Eun-jae tries to hasten the colon cancer patient’s surgery as much as she can.

The three car accident patients come into Doldam for treatment while the child and the three trauma case patients, including the child trauma patient are taken into the Trauma Centre. One of the three patients at Doldam Hospital is the mother of the child trauma patient. She asks A-reum to let her know about the condition of her daughter while she gets a cast for her fracture.

Dong-hwa checks on the male patient who is throwing up while the teenage patient tells Nurse Nom that she was on her period. Nurse Nom gives the girl a heating pad but it looks like she is hiding her pain.

At the trauma centre, the child is sent into the observation area but Nurse Oh tells Dong-ju that she’s lethargic. Dong-ju asks In-soo to prioritise the child and check up on her constantly. He tries to manage both trauma case operations on his own. Just then, Woo-jin enters the operation theatre and starts helping with the trauma patient. He tells Dong-ju that he would be able to manage the surgery with his right hand alone and Dong-ju lets him try it out.

Woo-jin assists Dong-ju for most of the surgery but since the patient has a lot of internal bleeding, his vitals start dropping. The two doctors and the nurses start working at full speed, trying to save the patient. Woo-jin notices that Dong-ju’s style of operating was oddly similar to Teacher Kim’s. Just then, the patient goes into cardiac arrest and Woo-jin starts trying to resuscitate him.

Eun-jae is panicking through her surgery trying to rush it when she learns that Woo-jin has gone to the Trauma Centre to fill in for her. She scolds Seon-ung for not doing things right but Eun-tak asks her to calm down and concentrate on the patient she’s operating on.

Eun-jae manages to finish the surgery while Teacher Kim waits outside, worried about how things are going at the Trauma Centre. He recalls how Dong-ju had said that he would call for Teacher Kim’s help if he needed him and backs off from going to the Trauma Centre. Dong-ju uses Teacher Kim’s method to try and resuscitate the guy by using his finger to make his heart beat again but the man has no pulse.

Just then, In-soo tells Dong-ju that the child trauma patient has a bleeding spleen. Nurse Nom asks Dong-ju to give up on the patient and call his time of death. They then move on to the other chest trauma patient and learn that he too is in a pretty serious condition.

Woo-jin asks to call Teacher Kim but Dong-ju rings Eun-jae instead. He asks her what her protocol should be considering she was working for the Trauma Centre. Eun-jae tells him that she was working on an abdominal surgery but Dong-ju starts yelling at her for bailing on a CT patient while she is the Trauma Centre’s only CT surgeon.

Woo-jin snatches the phone from Dong-ju and tells Eun-jae to calm down and work on the patient. He promises to treat the chest trauma patient till she is done with the surgery. Dong-ju and Woo-jin get into an argument and Woo-jin says that they were just trying to do what Master Kim taught them. Dong-ju retorts back, claiming that Master Kim is the only person who could follow his own rules and that they should not mimic him or they’ll struggle trying to be like him.

Teacher Kim overhears the conversation from outside the operation room while Dong-ju leaves to check up on the child trauma patient.

The child’s mother is asked to sign the consent form and A-reum discovers that the young woman who complained of menstrual cramps has bled through her clothes and on the hospital bed. She suspects something serious and asks the staff to look for her.

Eun-jae asks Seon-ung and Eun-tak to wrap up the surgery as she leaves for the Trauma Centre. Dong-ju starts operating on the child trauma patient as the episode comes to an end with Teacher Kim entering the other operating room, given Eun-jae does not make it back in time.

An epilogue shows Eun-tak discussing his relationship trouble with Woo-jin, Moon-jung and In-soo while A-reum discusses her side of the story with Nurse Nom, Nurse Joo and Eun-jae.

The Episode Review

This epilogue was great as the women could see clearly how Eun-tak is wrong, while the guys are just as foolish as Eun-tak. Dong-hwa is really the only man we can trust and I am loving how he is actually trying to get to know Teacher Kim better. He and Seon-ung will probably end up joining the list of Teacher Kim’s sons after Dong-ju, Eun-tak, and Woo-jin considering the way Teacher Kim treats his boys.

Seeing the way Dong-ju is operating the hospital will likely make you miss Dr Cha but Dong-ju really is the better of two evils. I don’t understand why Ha-joon still has to stay working at Doldam. Other than being useless as a doctor, he is really trying to divide the doctors from each other which will definitely stir up some trouble in the future.

I love how Teacher Kim decided to back off and have fun with his surgeries at Doldam, while giving Dong-ju the freedom to work in his own way. It is clear that Doldam Hospital can manage non-trauma cases well. Had Seon-ung sent the colon cancer patient to the Trauma Centre, a lot of the chaos could have been avoided.