Dr. Romantic Season 3 (2023) Episode 2

Episode 2 of Dr Romantic Season 3 starts where we left off with Dr Cha having a confrontation with Eun-jae. Just then, Eun-jae and Woo-jin get a distress call from the operation theatre and Teacher Kim asks them to attend to the patient. Dr Cha tells Min-guk that finding the Trauma Centre in such a condition was not something he expected.

The other staff members discuss how the tension between Dr Cha and Teacher Kim was palpable because they behaved like sworn enemies despite being colleagues. Teacher Kim asks Min-guk why he would ask someone like Dr Cha to join Doldam’s Trauma Centre.

Teacher Kim argues that Dr Cha’s ideologies are very different from that of the doctors at Doldam and he will not work well there.

Meanwhile, the patients from North Korea are still in the hospital while the treaty between the North and the South takes place in Seoul. Someone informs the ministers about the North Korean patients being treated at Doldam.

Just then, government officials ask Min-guk to lead them to the North Korean defectors. Dr. Lee Sun-woong, the naval doctor who accompanies the Doldam staff, is shocked to see the way in which Teacher Kim treats the patients despite the gravity of their illnesses.

Woo-jin is busy trying to help keep the North Korean man alive after his condition worsens. The nurse tells him that Dong-hwa was still MIA after he bailed on them the night before. Eun-tak takes over and helps Woo-jin resuscitate the man. The authorities claim that they will have to take the refugees away but Teacher Kim doesn’t understand how it’s normal for them to have dying patients leave the hospital before being treated.

Woo-jin learns that Dong-hwa had been avoiding his calls and playing video games while his colleagues are working to save lives. Eun-jae’s texts finally bring Dong-hwa to the hospital where Woo-jin gives him an earful for prioritising his time over that of a patient in need as it’s against his code of conduct as a doctor.

Eun-jae goes outside to calm Woo-jin down and the two discuss Dr Cha. Woo-jin states that he’s proud Eun-jae has decided not to work with his father and Eun-jae is glad about how her life turned out. Just then, she gets a call from Teacher Kim and leaves to go to the Emergency Room, but before she can leave, Woo-jin steals a kiss from her.

Woo-jin goes to the break room and finds Dr Cha there. Eun-jae’s father claims that their family was doing great until he showed up and messed Eun-jae’s life up. His curtness shocks Woo-jin. Meanwhile, Teacher Kim decides to operate on the female refugee and asks Eun-jae to gear up.

Ki-tae forgets that an electric inspection was slated for 4:00 pm that day and not knowing that an operation is going on, he permits Dr Nam to let the workers cut out all electric supply for the hospital for a while. At the same time, one of the male refugees asks to be taken to the restroom. An officer accompanies him but the man attacks him.

Dong-hwa happens to be in the same restroom playing games when he overhears the attack.  The refugee hears Dong-hwa from one of the stalls and tries to attack him. Woo-jin, who had been looking for Dong-hwa to reprimand him for skipping his shift, arrives to find out what’s happening

The little boy who was waiting outside tells Woo-jin that the male refugee with them is the one who killed his father and shot his grandfather. Woo-jin enters the restroom and sees that the refugee was trying to kill Dong-hwa. Just like clockwork, the lights go out at 4:00 pm sharp.

Min-guk is observing Teacher Kim and Eun-jae do the surgery skillfully and asks Dr Cha to observe too. Dr Cha is shocked to see how Teacher Kim manages to continue the operation despite a power failure. Ki-tae rushes to find the workers and asks them to turn the power back on.

Teacher Kim asks Min-guk to check up on the male refugee who was placed on life support. Min-guk rushes to the operation room and finds naval doctor, Dr Lee attending the patient. Ki-tae manages to get the power running again and in the meantime, Woo-jin successfully unarms the refugee saving Dong-hwa’s life.

After the lights are back, other government officers arrest the male defector while Teacher Kim congratulates the doctors for the female patient’s successful surgery. Dr Cha seems displeased by the surgery despite its success and walks away without addressing Eun-jae or Teacher Kim.

After this, the North Korean defectors are sent away and Woo-jin wonders why they had to give up on their duty as doctors just because this case was so politically charged. Teacher Kim explains that some things were beyond their control. Ki-tae blames himself for the power failure.

Nurse Oh is sure that Teacher Kim would not have just sent them back to North Korea just like that. Just then, Dr Cha hears news reports about one refugee being sent back to North Korea. The report claims that five fishermen had sailed to the South and four of them have died due to malnourishment.

The doctors at Doldam are also shocked to see how Teacher Kim managed to save three innocent lives by fabricating the story of their deaths. Teacher Kim deletes the medical record for the two North Korean patients as he gets a message from the Defence Minister about the job being done.

The episode ends with A-reum and Moon-jung making their way back into the hospital after their trip to a usual Friday at Doldam.

The Episode Review

I love how this episode was not extremely dramatic but only gave viewers some resolution on what happened with the defectors. I am sure Teacher Kim was able to put the female refugee and her father in a place that would help them lead a normal life as they practised medicine in the free country of South Korea.

Dr Cha’s character is really obnoxious and it looks like he plans on getting on every last nerve of the Doldam staff. I wish Seo-jeong was a part of this season because her sass is the only thing that could put him in his place. However, we still have Nurse Oh.

I am sure Dr Cha seeing a photo of Teacher Kim with Lee Young-jo will have some impact on the dynamics of the two expert practitioners.

The episode starts with Extraordinary Attorney Woo characters making a cameo as doctors applying to work at Doldam but I really wish to see Dong Geu-rami in the next season of Dr Romantic because she is the right character to take Teacher Kim on a wild ride with her antics.