After several days in the Oncology Department, the five students finally understood one very simple rule about the hospital: never assume you've gotten used to the pace here. And the work of a medical student remained fairly boring, repeating itself over and over.
On an ordinary Monday morning, what awaited them wasn't rounds. It was a lecture hall, because Tú Linh's group had class that day.
At 7:15 a.m., the five members of the Leopard Team stood outside the lecture hall, all wearing expressions that said none of them wanted to go inside. Quân checked the schedule on his phone one last time.
"Wait, hold up. Wasn't Professor Phước supposed to teach this course today?"
Mai bent down to check the schedule again.
"It is Professor Phước, but it looks like they changed the instructor or something."
Khánh frowned.
"Oh my God, the Academic Affairs Office just sent out a notice changing the instructor. If they'd waited until Lunar New Year to send it, that would've been early enough!"
Trang looked at the screen.
"It says right here."
"Says what?"
"Replacement instructor in charge: Đinh Thanh An."
The whole group fell silent.
"Do you feel like life is absolutely kicking our asses?"
Tú Linh burst out laughing.
"Why are you being so dramatic?"
Khánh sighed.
"We run into her at the hospital. Now we're running into her in class too. Good Lord, somebody save me."
Mai folded her arms.
"Well, at least we won't have to get acquainted with a new instructor."
Quân looked at Linh.
"That's exactly the problem."
The lecture hall was more crowded than usual today.
Most of the students were underclassmen who hadn't started their internships yet. The Leopard Team sat in the back, taking up an entire row and filling it with noise and chaos.
Compared with the younger-looking faces in front of them, they had automatically become the oldest group in the room.
But no one looked proud of that. Quân propped his chin on his hand.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Khánh looked at him.
"What kind of bad feeling?"
"She knows we're doing our internship. What if she calls us up to answer questions? I'd die of embarrassment."
Mai laughed.
"At this rate, you might as well run into the woods and never come back."
Trang nodded.
"The monkeys might chase you around until you never come down from the mountain."
Trang turned to Tú Linh.
"What do you think?"
Tú Linh was still looking at the schedule.
"I don't know."
She paused.
"But if Ms. An is teaching, I don't think she'll ask anything we don't know..."
She hadn't finished speaking when the lecture hall door opened. The entire class immediately fell silent.
The person who walked in wasn't wearing a white coat. Thanh An wore a light-colored button-down shirt and dark slacks today, her shoulder-length hair neatly pulled back. There were no patient charts in her hands, no phone pressed to her ear, and none of the usual hurriedness she carried in the hospital hallways. She had only a thin stack of materials and a pen in her hand.
She set the materials on the desk and looked at the class.
"Good morning, everyone."
"Good morning, Professor."
Their voices rang out together. Thanh An nodded.
"I'm Đinh Thanh An. According to the original plan, this course was supposed to be taught by Phước, the M.D., Ph.D."
She looked down at the list in front of her.
"But Professor Phước is currently abroad on a professional trip."
A few students began whispering. Thanh An waited until the room quieted down before continuing.
"According to the assignment from the Academic Affairs Office, I'll be handling the rest of the course starting today. Because the class schedules and internship schedules for several cohorts overlap, the university has decided to combine a few cohorts for this class."
Her eyes swept across the room.
"The underclassmen will study the foundational material. Students currently doing their internships will be expected to engage more deeply with clinical situations."
A student in front raised a hand.
"Professor, does that mean we're taking the class together with the interns?"
"That's right."
"But is the material the same?"
Thanh An nodded.
"The framework of knowledge is the same."
She picked up her pen.
"The approach isn't."
The whole class fell silent.
"Those of you who haven't started your internships will learn how to identify things."
She wrote on the board.
"Those of you who are interning have to learn how to apply that knowledge."
Tú Linh looked at the words on the board. For some reason, the statement sounded exactly like Thanh An—clear, concise, and without a single unnecessary word.
Thanh An set down her pen.
"So if I ask a question, don't be surprised if I ask the students currently interning to add to the answer."
Quân immediately lowered his head.
Khánh turned to look at him.
Quân whispered,
"See?"
Khánh tried to contain his shock.
"Oh, shut up."
Thanh An looked down.
"Is there a problem in the back row? Should I move you somewhere else?"
They both immediately sat up straight.
"No, Professor."
"Then let's begin."
The class quickly moved into the main lesson. Thanh An didn't teach by reading every line on the slides. She presented one situation after another, letting the students think for themselves before analyzing each case.
A patient case appeared on the screen.
"A sixty-two-year-old male patient is admitted with a persistent cough, weight loss, and chest pain."
She turned around.
"If you were the first person to receive this patient, what would you ask?"
A hand went up.
"Professor, I'd ask when the symptoms started and how severe the pain is."
"Good."
Thanh An nodded.
"What else?"
Another student added,
"Smoking history, medical history, and family history."
"Correct."
She switched slides.
"But that's only theory."
Thanh An looked down at the class.
"What about in a real clinical setting?"
This time, her gaze turned toward the back of the room. Quân was drinking water. He slowly set down the bottle.
"Don't..."
Khánh gave an awkward laugh.
"Hey, I mean..."
Thanh An looked straight at them.
"Quân."
Quân stood up.
"Yes, Professor."
"You're doing your internship in the department. If you encountered a patient like this, what else would you pay attention to besides those questions?"
Quân looked at the screen.
"I'd observe the patient's condition first. Whether they're short of breath, how severe the pain is, whether they're alert, and whether their complexion and breathing rate are abnormal."
Thanh An nodded.
"What else?"
Quân thought.
"Since the patient has a cough, we'd need to ask how severe it is—for example, whether they're coughing up blood."
"Good."
She turned to the board.
"This is the difference between memorizing a list of questions and actually standing in front of a patient."
She wrote: ASK + OBSERVE.
Quân had barely sat down before he let out a sigh of relief.
"Damn..."
Khánh leaned toward him.
"Look at you, senior student."
Quân glared at him.
"What kind of senior student gets called on once and immediately wants to check himself out of the hospital?"
Mai burst out laughing.
Tú Linh lowered her head, laughing too.
At the lectern, Thanh An didn't seem to notice their little conversation. Or maybe she had noticed and simply didn't see any reason to bother with them.
Another situation appeared on the screen.
"A patient undergoing chemotherapy develops nausea and has difficulty eating. What should you pay attention to?"
An underclassman raised a hand.
"Make sure the patient gets enough fluids and monitor the vomiting."
"Correct."
Thanh An nodded.
"But what if you're working in the Oncology Department?"
She looked toward the back of the room.
"Mai."
Mai had been propping up her chin and jumped.
"Yes?"
"Give it a try."
Mai stood up.
"Besides those things, we need to check how much the patient is actually able to eat, how much food is left, how tired they are, signs of dehydration, and any accompanying symptoms."
Thanh An looked at her.
"Correct. You can sit down."
Mai sat down. An underclassman in front turned around and looked at her with admiration. As soon as Mai caught the look, she straightened her back a little more.
Quân and Khánh leaned toward her, grinning.
"Look at you!"
"You really are a senior."
"Oh my God, I swear, you two are impossible."
Khánh burst out laughing.
"Mai was so nervous earlier she almost laughed herself to death! Hahaha."
Mai turned to him.
"At least I answered the question."
"Yeah."
"What about you?"
Khánh hadn't had time to answer when Thanh An called out:
"Khánh."
He closed his eyes.
"Yes?"
The whole group burst out laughing.
As the class went on, it became more and more lively. Thanh An would ask an underclassman a question. Then she would ask, "What about in real life?" And her eyes would once again search the back of the lecture hall.
Sometimes it was Quân, sometimes Mai, Trang, or Khánh. And sometimes she simply said:
"Tú Linh?"
Tú Linh gradually realized that Thanh An wasn't calling on them to make things difficult. She called on them because the five of them had something the underclassmen didn't yet have: real-world experience.
An underclassman would finish answering about how to take a patient's medical history, and Thanh An would ask, "Correct. But when you're standing in front of a real patient, what do you think is easiest to miss?"
Then Trang would stand up and add to the answer. Another student would talk about assessing symptoms, and Thanh An would ask, "What if the patient says, 'I'm fine'?" Then: "Khánh?" Khánh would answer.
In another case, an underclassman offered a treatment plan based on the textbook. Thanh An nodded.
"Correct in theory."
She looked toward the back of the room.
"But have you encountered a case like this in your department?"
This time, Tú Linh raised her hand. Thanh An looked at her.
"Go ahead."
Tú Linh stood up.
"Yes, Professor."
She described what she had observed. She didn't go on too long or try to show off. She simply shared what she had actually seen. Thanh An listened to the whole thing.
"Very good. Thank you."
Tú Linh sat down.
An underclassman in front turned around to look at the group.
"You interns have it pretty nice."
Quân immediately turned to him.
"What's so nice about it?"
"The professor keeps calling on you."
Quân gave a bitter laugh.
"Want to trade places?"
"No, thanks."
The whole group laughed.
By the middle of class, the atmosphere in the room was completely different from before. The Leopard Team had become the most noticeable group—not because they were noisy, but because every time Thanh An asked about a real-life situation, the five of them took turns becoming part of the discussion.
Tú Linh was watching Thanh An. It was the first time she had seen the woman in a completely different setting. Not in a hallway or a hospital room, not in the middle of phone calls and stacks of files, but at the lectern.
Thanh An stood in the light streaming through the windows, a pen in her hand, occasionally turning around to write a few lines on the board. Her voice was calm, her explanations clear. Whenever a student answered incorrectly, she didn't immediately reject the answer.
Tú Linh watched the woman for so long that Trang, sitting beside her, had to give her a light nudge.
"Tú Linh."
"Huh?"
"Why are you staring at Ms. An like that?"
Tú Linh immediately looked down.
"I'm not."
Quân heard her and jumped in.
"You are."
Khánh nodded too.
"You are."
Mai laughed.
"Your eyes are practically sparkling."
Tú Linh blushed.
"What else am I supposed to look at while she's teaching? You three?"
"You got caught and you're still arguing. You're looking at her like she's your idol. Hahaha."
Up at the lectern, Thanh An suddenly looked down.
The five of them immediately sat up straight. She looked over them once, her gaze lingering on Tú Linh for one beat longer than on the others. Then she turned back to the screen.
"All right."
"Let's continue."
Tú Linh lowered her head to her notebook.
But this time, she didn't start taking notes right away.
She stared at the words on the page for a moment.
Then she wrote:
> So the woman standing at the lectern is different from the one I see at the hospital.
She paused, thinking for a moment. Then she added:
> But she's still the person I can't take my eyes off.
Tú Linh stared at the words.
Then she immediately closed the notebook.
At the end of class, Thanh An checked the clock.
"Ten minutes left."
The whole class thought they were finally going to get a break.
She continued,
"I'll give you one last situation."
A soft chorus of groans rose through the room.
Quân lowered his head onto the desk.
"No... It's time, Professor. You should stop now. Boom, boom, boom, boom."
Khánh covered his mouth, laughing.
"Accept your fate."
Thanh An opened the final slide.
"This time, I want the underclassmen to answer everything."
A wave of hands shot up.
The atmosphere immediately became lively.
The students who had been shy at first now actively joined the discussion.
The Leopard Team no longer just sat there waiting to be called on.
At one point, Quân even turned around to quietly explain something to an underclassman. Mai showed another student how to take notes. Khánh debated with an underclassman about how to handle the situation. Trang quietly added details everyone else had missed.
And Tú Linh continued sitting there, looking up at the lectern.
Thanh An looked down at the class.
Her eyes passed over each face.
At last, they stopped on the five people in the back of the room.
The five oldest students.
The five students currently interning in the very department she was in charge of.
And among them...a girl who had only arrived in the department a few days ago but had already made Thanh An remember her name.
Trần Tú Linh.
Thanh An pulled her gaze away.
"Class dismissed."
The whole room immediately broke into chatter.
Quân stood up first.
"Finally!"
Khánh lightly smacked him on the shoulder with his book.
"Let's go, senior."
Mai laughed.
Trang gathered her materials.
Tú Linh stood up too.
She looked toward the lectern one last time.
Thanh An was bending over to collect her materials and didn't look at her. Tú Linh smiled faintly, not even knowing herself what she was hoping for.
Would she get to take another class with her tomorrow?
As for Thanh An...
After nearly the entire lecture hall had emptied, she still stood beside the instructor's desk, flipping through the student list.
Dozens of names filled the page.
She remembered very few of them.
But in the middle of that list were five names that had become familiar after only a few days.
Lê Minh Quân.
Nguyễn Gia Khánh.
Phạm Ngọc Mai.
Lê Minh Trang.
And—
Trần Tú Linh.
Thanh An's finger stopped on the last name.
Just for a moment.
Then she closed the list.
Tomorrow, she still had a clinic shift.
A meeting.
A stack of charts.
And perhaps...another encounter with those five noisy students. She didn't know why she had remembered their names, especially the last one. But some initial attractions didn't need a clear reason.
Sometimes all it took was one person...accidentally crossing your line of sight too many times.