Dr Romantic – Season 3 Episode 4 Recap & Review

ABRACADABRA

Episode 4 of Dr Romantic Season 3 starts in the operation room where Teacher Kim performs surgery on the skiing patient’s leg in order to treat his ruptured nerves. Woo-jin feels guilty for not letting the patient rest and prays for Teacher Kim to have a successful surgery. Dong-hwa is cocky and claims that Woo-jin must be glad he had someone as talented as Teacher Kim to back him up on his mistakes.

The surgery goes well and Teacher Kim leaves Eun-jae to finish up the rest of the surgery. Just then, many patients rush to the Emergency Room (ER) after a nearby villa burns down. There are a couple of severe critical cases including an old woman and a younger woman in her 20’s.

Teacher Kim leaves the Operating Room to check on the new emergency patients. Dr Cha waiting outside chides Teacher Kim for leaving Eun-jae to handle a severe case all by herself.

Teacher Kim claims that Dr Cha lacks faith in Eun-jae because she’s handling the surgery pretty well all by herself. Meanwhile, A-reum takes responsibility for treating the woman in her 20’s, who seems to be in a critical condition. In-soo sends out a distress call about the old woman and Woo-jin rushes to the ER to examine her. Dong-hwa is upset that he won’t be able to clock out with so many new patients.

After Woo-jin prescribes surgery on the old woman, In-soo discovers a lighter in the patient’s hand. The doctors call the cops in order to declare the old woman to be an arsonist. Dong-hwa argues with Woo-jin about his prescribed method of surgery, further instigating Woo-jin. Woo-jin and Dong-hwa have an argument which is overheard by Teacher Kim.

Dong-hwa blames Woo-jin for what happened with the skiing patient but the latter of the two argues that he was a doctor and needed to treat patients for the injuries that they already had in comparison to what they would have in the future. Woo-jin states that dwelling on the skiing patient was not something he could afford to do as a doctor but Dong-hwa doesn’t get his point.

In the operation room, Eun-jae asks Seon-ung to finish stitching up the skiing patient’s knee but learns that he was very underconfident in doing so. She takes it upon herself to finish the stitching and eventually leaves the Operating Room satisfied with herself. Seon-ung is apologetic for not having the confidence to stitch up the skiing patient. The other medical staff on the operating team wonder how he worked as a full-time military surgeon with his limited skills.

After the operation, Eun-jae goes to the ER and learns that the villa that had burned down was the one that she used to live in before she moved in with Woo-jin. She is shocked to learn that the old woman was an arsonist and refuses to believe the same. The old woman’s son and daughter-in-law are called to the ER and are in shock as well.

Eun-jae asks around about the arson incident and she learns that a young man was the eyewitness to the old woman setting the villa on fire. Teacher Kim is pleased to see A-reum perform a procedure on the critical patient all by herself but refrains from praising her. He asks A-reum to take the next few steps to treat the patient and does not let her dwell on the success. The woman in her 20s had severe burns and needed to be airlifted to a burns special hospital in Seoul.

A-reum and Nurse Hyeon-jeong prepare to have the patient sent away to the city hospital. Since the old woman was in critical condition, Woo-jin decides to go along with Dong-hwa’s prescribed method of surgery. The son refuses to sign the consent form for the old woman’s surgery as he did not have the money to pay for the treatment. Teacher Kim volunteers to pay for the treatment and the team rushes the old woman to the operating room.

Eun-jae notices the eyewitness fleeing from the hospital and has him arrested for being the real arsonist. At the same time, Teacher Kim fills in for Dong-hwa and claims that the intern had clocked out. During the surgery, Woo-jin and the other doctors learn that the old woman had cancer and decide to conduct the operation on a larger scale in comparison to what they had initially decided. Dong-hwa waits outside the operation room and ponders on his argument with Teacher Kim.

After his fight with Woo-jin, Teacher Kim reprimands Dong-hwa for being bratty with his seniors. Dong-hwa argues that Woo-jin should have paid more attention to the skiing patient when he was faking an injury in comparison to a criminal arsonist who caused harm to so many people. The intern is unapologetic for his thought process which further infuriates Teacher Kim to the point that he banishes Dong-hwa from being in the operating room.

The operation on the old woman ends up successful and the doctors leave Woo-jin to chat with Dong-hwa. After learning that the old woman was not the arsonist, Dong-hwa seems to have come to his senses. He is apologetic for being rude to both Woo-jin and Teacher Kim. Dong-hwa apologises to Woo-jin. Woo-jin praises Dong-hwa’s judgement and claims that his prognosis is what saved the woman’s life.

Teacher Kim is glad to see that the mentor and mentee have reconciled. Teacher Kim finally praises A-reum for her work as she is on her way to Seoul with the critical patient. Eun-tak decides to join A-reum despite being tired after two back-to-back surgeries. Dr Cha and Eun-jae are in the lounge where he reprimands her for following Teacher Kim’s footsteps and disregarding rules when it came to her practice as a doctor.

Eun-jae wonders if her father wanted to praise her for doing such a good job on the surgery but Dr Cha claims that he needed her to follow the rules instead. Woo-jin compliments Eun-jae instead and they rest hand in hand in the lounge for a while. Teacher Kim finds the skiing patient’s coach sitting outside the ICU room. He learns that the coach was the skiing patient’s father who was living his dream of being a national skier.

The coach wonders if his son will be able to ski again and Teacher Kim replies that there were some things above medicine and states that the patient’s will plays a key role in what they would be able to do after an accident. As he is on his way home, Teacher Kim runs into Dr Cha who calls the former prideful about the little success he had accumulated at the Doldam Hospital.

Teacher Kim calls Dr Cha out for his betrayal which pisses the latter off. Dr Cha leaves Doldam Hospital before doing a double take on the trauma centre. The next morning, everyone at Doldam Hospital is in a chirpy mode but Ki-tae is shocked to see that Woo-jin and Eun-jae had fallen asleep together on the couch in the lounge.

Ki-tae stops Ho-joon from entering the lounge and takes him away. Eun-jae wakes up all of a sudden and rushes back to her apartment. Dr Cha asks Eun-jae to have breakfast with him and offers to drive to the hospital together. At Doldam Hospital, Dr Cha and Eun-jae run into A-reum. Dr Cha thanks A-reum for letting him stay in her room and asks if he could use the room for some more days. A-reum plays along with Eun-jae’s lie and offers Dr Cha her room for as long as he would like.

Woo-jin overhears the conversation and seems irritable about the situation. Min-guk and Teacher Kim look at Dr Cha’s final list of doctors that he was willing to take to the Trauma Centre.

As it turns out, Dr Cha has decided to take all the staff from Doldam Hospital to work with him at the Trauma Centre. Now, the only medical staff left at Doldam are Nurse Hyeon-jeon, Dr A-reum, Nurse Oh, Teacher Kim, Dr Dong-hwa and Dr Seon-ung.

Nurse Oh wonders if Teacher Kim had known that Dr Cha would do something like this all along. Dr Cha tells the new team at Doldam Trauma Centre that the next two months will have the doctors perform operations in simulations to prepare them for the real patients that will eventually come to the Trauma Centre.

Min-guk asks the doctors to focus on the simulations for a while as Teacher Kim manages the patients at the hospital on his own.

Woo-jin backs out from working at the Doldam Trauma Centre. Dr Cha claims that he’s running away because he lacked the confidence and relevant skills to perform at the Trauma Centre. Nurse Oh tells Teacher Kim that Dr Cha will train the doctors to perform in a way to abide by the rules.

Teacher Kim believes that there are only two outcomes with this – one in which the elephant will fit inside the fridge and another where the fridge will break trying to fit the elephant inside.

The Episode Review

Dr Cha’s personality is very unlikeable and I feel like Teacher Kim’s sass will be the only saving grace every time the old man tries to act out. He is aware of Eun-jae and Woo-jin’s live-in situation, but Dr Cha still refuses to acknowledge it which leads me to believe that he will never move out and that our reset couple will never be able to live together.

I love the chemistry between A-reum and Eun-tak and hope that the two new boys, Dong-hwa and Seon-ung also end up finding their potential partners on the show. I empathise with both of these new doctors and I am sure both will grow a lot in the next few episodes under Teacher Kim’s guidance. Working with Teacher Kim, Dong-hwa will surely become more humble and Seon-ung a lot more confident.

On the other hand, the only outcome of trying to suppress the Doldam doctors at the Trauma Centre will be Dr Cha succumbing to the power of the Romantic Doctor Kim Sa-bu and I can’t wait to see more of that as the series progresses.