The Former Mayor’s Final Outing

It was a sweltering August. The rotating fans hanging two to a ward were powerless against the heat. Sweat trickled down my back even while standing still. After a short sprint my clothes clung to me, sticky with perspiration. Rolling up my sleeves only made my already stained white coat look grimier. I wasn’t suffering as much as the patients or their families, but the heat was brutal for an intern.

That summer I was assigned to Internal Medicine. Of all rotations, Internal Medicine was notorious for its relentless workload. In truth, I had brought it on myself—the result of a random draw at our intern orientation months earlier. Had my hand picked a different slip of paper, I might have been sitting in a Family Medicine clinic that day, enjoying the air conditioning. Instead, I cursed my luck.

The day began at 6 a.m. with blood draws across the wards, followed by morning rounds with the staff and residents, then hours of wound dressing changes. Whenever a call came—patient transport, extra labs, a task the residents didn’t want—I dropped everything to respond. These were jobs better suited for lab techs or orderlies, but the interns were the cheapest labor around. Hospitals justified it as “part of training,” but we knew the truth: we were expendable.

I had the scars to prove it. Once, pushing a gurney, the wheel rolled over my toe, ripping the nail clean off. I wrapped it hastily in gauze and was back on duty ten minutes later. Like all interns, I worked long hours for little pay, a “one-year contract worker” in a white coat.

That day I was counting down the weeks until this torment ended. It was noon, and I hadn’t eaten a bite. There was no time for the cafeteria. Instant noodles would wreck my stomach. So I grabbed a rice triangle from the convenience store shelf. Then my phone rang. The caller ID read: Medical ICU.

A patient needed urgent transfer. I set the rice triangle back and sprinted upstairs.

Inside, the ICU was calm, not frantic as I had feared. A nurse smiled, “You came fast.”

I sighed, half-regretting not eating. “Which patient?”

She pointed to an elderly man, unconscious, his chest rising only with the ventilator’s rhythm. “That one.” Then, lowering her voice: “He used to be the Mayor of Seoul.”

I looked again. The face was unfamiliar. A ventilator erases all recognition. But a quick search on my phone confirmed it: not just a former mayor, but a man who had also served as lawmaker, cabinet minister—a figure once at the top. Yet here he lay, in a public hospital ICU, between an HIV patient and a man dying of cirrhosis.

So this is life, I thought.

Soon his family signed the papers, and we began preparations. I disconnected machines, switched him to portable monitors, took over the ventilator with my ambu bag. At the count of three we lifted him onto the transport stretcher, then down the elevator to the waiting ambulance. I climbed aboard, pumping the ambu bag every five seconds, watching the pulse oximeter to keep him above 90.

As the siren wailed, I studied his face. Once, crowds must have lined up just to shake his hand. Officials would have debated routes and security for his visits. Now his life depended on the hands of a rookie intern, squeezing oxygen into his lungs. The contrast was stark.

Power—Mayor, Minister, Congressman. Even now, people in the National Assembly claw for such titles, ready to sell their souls for a “seat.” But staring at this man, I wondered: is it really worth it? He had held them all, yet here he was, frail and breathless, taking what might be his last ride.

I remembered a morning hike with my father, years ago. At the mountain spring he pointed to a sign: Private Property. He picked up a stone and asked me what the words meant. “It means someone owns this land,” I answered. My father nodded. “Yes. But the so-called owner will leave without ever touching most of these stones. Then another will inherit the title. The land never truly belongs to anyone. Perhaps it owns us, only for a moment.”

Looking at the old man, I thought: power is like that land. No one truly possesses it. We borrow it for a while, then hand it back. Yet too many believe their “seat” is permanent, wielding authority as if it were theirs alone. I had seen the same delusion in hospitals—residents and staff who forgot their authority was only temporary, granted for training.

If I ever held such a “seat,” I told myself, I must remember: it is borrowed, not mine.

We reached the university hospital quickly. As we rolled him out, I resolved on one final gesture. Ambulance stretchers always jolt when their legs unfold. I braced my arms, lowering him gently so he touched the ground without a bump. He was unconscious, but it felt right. A small courtesy for a man at the end of his road.

Later, I read his obituary. He had passed away soon after, his wake held at the very hospital we had reached that day. I closed my eyes and offered a silent prayer.