Dr Romantic – Season 3 Episode 7 Recap & Review

Inciting Hope

Episode 7 of Dr Romantic season 3 begins with Min-gk discussing the merits of Doldam Emergency Hospital and seeking funding from government officials. The woman who lost her son is also at the meeting and watches Min-guk brag about his competent team of doctors.

The meeting ends and the woman confronts Min-guk, calling him out for being shameless. Min-guk tells the woman that he has remorse for her loss but adds that she was taking leverage of her position and making things personal by holding off the Doldam Trauma Centre’s budget.

At the same time, Eun-jae asks Woo-jin to be safe on his morning run since it’s snowing. On his way back to the hospital, Woo-jin runs into a hiker who has a wounded leg. The hiker tries to assault Woo-jin at first but backs down when he sees that Woo-jin was only trying to help him.

Woo-jin tries to take the man to Doldam but the hiker is adamant he’s okay. When he suddenly faints, Woo-jin picks him up and hurries to Doldam.

At the Trauma Center, Nurse Oh gets a call about a shooting incident at the military base camp, and several patients who are in serious condition are brought into the Trauma Centre. Nurse Oh asks Dr Cha for permission to allow Teacher Kim to work on the military patients suffering from gunshot wounds. She tells him that Woo-jin was off and Min-guk was at a meeting which meant Eun-jae and In-soo were the only doctors available with four critical patients.

At Doldam, Teacher Kim and Moon-jung get done with critical surgery and find Seon-ung in the other operating room practising his stitches. They notice Seon-ung doing well on his own but grows conscious when he realises he’s being watched. Teacher Kim asks him to keep practising and attends a call from Nurse Oh about the situation at the Trauma Centre.

Woo-jin brings in the hiker for treatment at the Emergency Hospital but he is adamant about holding on to his bag. Woo-jin begins treating the hiker while A-reum and Eun-tak assist him. Dong-hwa joins too when he learns that the patient has an infected wound. Woo-jin gets a call from the Trauma Centre about the gunshot patients coming in and he tells Eun-tak that he will be working despite it being his day off.

Dong-hwa is shocked by the fact that Woo-jin would spend his day off working at the hospital. A-reum changes the track of the conversation and asks Dong-hwa to stitch the hiker’s wound. He seems scared at first but starts acting smug in front of Eun-tak promising to stitch the hiker’s leg. Just then, Teacher Kim calls A-reum and tells her that she will be in charge of Doldam and the patients there as he was needed at the Trauma Centre for the gunshot wounds.

A-reum is worried since the only two surgeons she can rely on are Dong-hwa and Seong-ung. Two more patients are brought into Doldam after a motorcycle accident, while four gunshot victims are led into the Trauma Centre. In-soo is overwhelmed by seeing the patients but Teacher Kim and Woo-jin rush in time to help Eun-jae and In-soo out.

Teacher Kim asks In-soo to take charge of the observation area while he, Woo-jin, Eun-jae and Dr Cha handle the gunshot patients. Dr Cha observes Teacher Kim guide the doctors from afar and starts thinking about why they need him to lead the Trauma Centre when Teacher Kim is competent enough on his own.

Dr Cha notices Teacher Kim’s hand and concludes that he’s having trouble with it which prompted Min-guk to appoint Dr Cha to head the new hospital. Woo-jin and Eun-jae get working on the patients and determine their protocol for the operation. Meanwhile, at Doldam Hospital, Moon-jung comes in to help A-reum with the surgery involving the motorcycle patients.

The patient, Byeong-bae, recognises Eun-tak and asks if he remembers his friend – Seok-gu. Eun-tak is shocked to see Seok-gu at the hospital along with the other accident patients. The four motorcycle patients look like gangsters and somehow recognise Eun-tak. In the meantime, Moon-jung consults with Teacher Kim and they conclude that the motorcycle patient, Byeong-bae will need surgery. Teacher Kim asks Moon-jung to get Seon-ung to work on the surgery with him.

At the Trauma Centre, Teacher Kim notices In-soo being overworked by himself and wonders why Ho-joon was not back from his lunch break. As it turns out, Ho-joon had gone out of the city for lunch before it started snowing. With the heavy snow and roads jammed, Ho-joon was stuck in traffic for hours. Teacher Kim wonders why Dr Cha was not downstairs, treating the patients but in the comfort of his cabin.

Just as Teacher Kim was about to send someone to check on Dr Cha, the surgeon makes his way down to see the patients. The two senior doctors argue with each other for a bit and Dr Cha uses Nurse Oh’s comment about Teacher Kim’s years of dependability to mock Teacher Kim. Teacher Kim directs Dr Cha to work on removing the bullet from the thigh of one of the soldiers.

Dr Cha mentions that it was not wise for Teacher Kim to overwork himself given the condition of his hand. Teacher Kim and Nurse Oh are shocked but Dr Cha leaves to check on the patients. Dr Cha overhears Eun-jae administering instructions to the nurses. He advises that instead of inserting another tube into the patient, Eun-jae should just go ahead with the surgery.

Woo-jin states that Eun-jae should discern the protocol of the surgery on her own and not follow Dr Cha’s suggestion since it was her patient on the table. Eun-jae claims that her father was more experienced in such situations and chooses to go ahead with his suggestion. Teacher Kim notices that In-soo was still having a hard time coping with the death of the teen.

At Doldam, Seon-ung learns that he will be taking over the surgery for the motorcycle accident patient. He wonders if his contact lenses had been delivered but Ki-tae tells him that there was no package delivered to the hospital that day due to the snow. Seon-ung is concerned about the surgery as his contact lenses were torn and he did not have a spare.

At the Trauma Centre, one of the doctors tells Teacher Kim that the hospital is full of armed soldiers. Ki-tae and Chief Lee wonder if the person who shot the soldiers was a military officer as well, prompting intense military security to show up. Ki-tae tries to talk to one of the soldiers but he is not able to get through to him.

After he finishes stitching the hiker up, Dong-hwa asks the patient to rest while checking on the motorcycle patient with an injured hand, Seok-gu. Eun-tak is dressing his wound with A-reum when Seok-gu starts calling Eun-tak out for leaving them and hiding out in the hospital. Eun-tak tries to keep calm but Seok-gu antagonizes him, trying to create a scene.

Seok-gu tries to attack A-reum but Eun-tak grabs his hand, asking him to cut it out. Woo-jin is at Doldam Hospital, talking to Moon-jung when Nurse Eom asks the two men to rush to the Emergency Room where Eun-tak was being attacked. Seok-gu claims that Eun-tak had killed someone leading the two men to start a fistfight.

Woo-jin arrives just in time, stopping Eun-tak and threatening to have Seok-gu kicked out if he stirs up trouble. He even puts Mr Goo in charge of dealing with him. Eun-tak rushes outside, trying to calm his nerves, embarrassed to face A-reum. Eun-tak starts having a panic attack when he recalls a young boy asking him to help save his life.

Min-guk discovers that Ho-joon is in the car across from him as they’re both stuck in traffic. Min-guk is pissed at Ho-joon for going out of the city for lunch.

Meanwhile at the Trauma Centre, Eun-jae leads the surgery with Teacher Kim assisting. Woo-jin takes over surgery on the second patient with Dong-hwa’s help.

Woo-jin decides to start without Eun-tak, while Dong-hwa is worried about filling in for him. Dr Cha takes on the surgery of the third patient with Nurse Oh’s help, while Seon-ung tells Moon-jung that his contact lenses are torn. As a result, they try to determine a way to operate the motorcycle accident patient together.

On his way to the Operation room at the Trauma Centre, Eun-tak runs into Seok-gu who had lied to Mr Goo asking to use the restroom. Teacher Kim learns that both hospitals are running out of blood supply and that the supply van was stuck in traffic due to the snow. He calls Ho-joon and asks him to run to the hospital with the blood supply. Min-guk joins Ho-jun and pushes him to run to the hospital in time. They are both out of breath and almost passing out when they return to the hospital with the blood.

Meanwhile, Dong-hwa is not able to keep up with Woo-jin during the surgery initially but he eventually manages to assist Woo-jin well and their surgery ends successfully. Woo-jin compliments Dong-hwa for his good work during the surgery leaving him smiling after it was over. At the same time, Eun-jae notices that the patient on her table is not able to breathe during the operation because of the lack of a second tube in his lung. She blames herself and starts having a panic attack during the surgery.

Teacher Kim takes over trying to resuscitate the patient but Eun-jae is not able to focus on the surgery leading Teacher Kim to yell instructions out at her to make her focus. At their operation theatre, Nurse Oh assists Dr Cha well and they are able to perform the surgery initially. However, Dr Cha learns that the bullet had lodged into the patient’s thigh bone causing him to suffer more blood loss.

The surgery with Teacher Kim and Eun-jae goes downwards and they end up losing the patient on the table. Eun-jae blames herself for not trusting her own instincts and following her father’s instructions. A-reum tells Woo-jin that Eun-tak is nowhere to be found. Nurse Eom also learns that the hiker has left his bed without finishing the IV drip. Mr Goo tells Nurse Eom that the motorcycle patient is nowhere to be found as well, leaving the episode on an ominous cliffhanger.

The Episode Review

This was a stressful episode to watch. For Eun-jae to have a panic attack during the surgery despite having years of practice by now could be difficult because she probably blames herself for not following her own instincts. With so many armed military officers at the Trauma Centre, I am starting to suspect that the hiker is the shooter responsible for the attack at the military base.

It is clear that he is hiding something in his bag and I would not be surprised if it turns out to be guns. I am sure Eun-tak’s interaction with Seok-gu has something to do with his past. I like how we are getting to know more about his character and past in this season too and I hope this revelation does not cause an issue in his relationship with A-reum or worse, his life as a nurse at Doldam.