Hospital Playlist – K-Drama Episode 3 Recap & Review

The Organ Donor

Hospital Playlist returns this week with another interesting episode as we see how each doctor deals with their patients. They are all very talented surgeons but have specific ways of caring for them or teaching their fellow medical students. This keeps the plot engaging and the show remains  realistic when it comes to its medical cases or character arcs.

We begin episode 3 of Hospital Playlist with Jeong-Won tending to a little boy with a stomach ache while Jun-Wan diagnoses one of his patients with a serious condition that requires urgent surgery. Song-Hwa takes her two residents on her rounds while Jang has a conference to decide how to approach a specific surgery and chooses Ik-Jun’s method.

Meanwhile, Jun-Wan prepares to operate for the second time on a little baby with multiple heart conditions. He needs to close his chest as he wasn’t able to during the last operation. Unfortunately, he sees that the little boy has symptoms of pneumonia so the surgery has to be postponed for now. Jun-Wan decides to speak to his guardians, who happen to be two very young teens who don’t seem that concerned.

The 5 doctors then meet for lunch while listening to music and trying to relax. They discuss their band and reminisce about the past. Jun-Ik suggests going to a karaoke bar on the weekend but all of his friends are busy doing work or seeing family. He later takes his son to the karaoke bar to show him where he performed for the first time. We then see a flashback of the five doctors singing together in one of the karaoke rooms.

The next day, Song-Hwa goes camping while Jeong-Won gets ready to start his half-marathon. As soon as he is about to start though, he receives a text regarding one of his patients and has to rush to hospital. At the same time, Jun-Wan is out golfing with Jong-Su and Ju-Jeon. He also gets a text about his patient and heads back in hospital.

Ik-Jun gets a call about a previous liver transplant patient of his, Gyu-Bin, who has bad stomach pain. In the staff room, he later gets a call from his wife, Yuk Hye-Jeong, who is coming back tomorrow and we find out that they haven’t seen each other for a year and a half. Jeong-Won arrives in the staff room and we find out that he is looking to leave to become a priest.

After taking a picture of his friends, Ik-Jun heads out to show Doctor Jang, who wonders if Jeong-Won likes him. She asks him to find out what he thinks of her before sharing her food with him. Ik-Jun tries to convince her to stay away as he is very sensitive and plans to be a priest.

We then cut to another patient, Jung Su-Beom, who is taken to surgery. We see his children running to wish him well before he heads to have a heart surgery, which will be performed by Jun-Wan. His family are very worried but instead of being more sensitive, Jun-Wan remains cold and tells them he will do his best. His colleague asks him why he wasn’t a little more sensitive about it but Jun-Wan replies that it is better to be realistic and not emotional with patients. He later visits the baby boy and decides to schedule the surgery for the next day.

Meanwhile, we see that Ik-Jun has a very different and more sensitive approach with his patient as he says goodbye to a man, Hui-Gwan, he operated on. He later meets his wife, who announces that she wants a divorce as she feels they don’t really have a marriage. He tries to protest as he has done everything she has wished for so far. She insists though and tells him she will have lunch with their son tomorrow.

We then find out that Su-Beom’s surgery went well, which relieves his family while Song-Hwa carries on being strict with her medical students, Seok-Min and Chi-Hong. She later apologises to the latter but explains that she wants to keep him on his toes as their job is hard and important.

On his way home, Jun-Wan sees the young mother of the baby. Suddenly she bursts into tears and explains that she has been trying to stay strong and act tough as she was worried people would think she was too young and immature to deal with this. He reassures her though and tells her they will do their best as he has done this operation many times.

Ik-Jun finds out from one of the nurses that the patient he discharged the day before, Hui-Gwan, has been the victim of a fatal car accident and will be donating his organs. He then sees his devastated wife and son in the waiting room but tries his best to stay strong for the boy.

The surgery of the baby, Chan-Hyeong, gets underway while the family eagerly wait for some news. During the operation, Yoon-Bok explains what they are doing to her brother Hong-Do. Thankfully the surgery is a success and the baby’s heart is restarted. Both are allowed to touch it and are surprise by the strength of the heart. We then see a flashback of the first time Jun-Wan touched a child’s heart, which made him want to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon. This has the same effect on the twins who both vowed to study the same specialty. Jun-Wan then heads to see the guardians and tell them the surgery was a success.

Ik-Jun finds out that his son had an allergic reaction while out in a restaurant with his mother. He decides to call the restaurant to find out exactly what he ate and it is here that he finds out that his wife went there with another man. His day gets even more tough when he has to remove organs from Hui-Gwan. He asks the other doctors to wait until midnight to remove the heart as today is children’s day and he doesn’t want his son to cry every year on that same day.

Jun-Wan gets called in for an emergency as a soldier has been involved in an accident. As he reaches her, he sees that it is Ik-Seun, Ik-Jun’s sister, while Song-Hwa goes camping despite the bad weather and is soon met by Chi-Hong who admits being the one who gave her the shoes, which is where the episode ends.

Some of the medical cases the doctors had to deal with this episode were quite emotional and difficult – especially for Ik-Jun who had to remove the organs of a previous patient of his. He is one of the more sensitive doctors of the five and it was a really nice touch when he asked to wait until midnight to start operating or his son would have had to remember his dad’s death on the children’s day each year.

Hospital Playlist’s strongest point though is how different each of the doctors are, while having one very important thing in common – their devotion to their patients. They are each specialized in different medical fields and have very distinct ways of working. This keep things fresh and interesting, especially amidst the many hospital dramas out there and makes this one worth watching for any fans of the genre.