Lynn's thoughts raced—
This man was being misdiagnosed.
If they followed the current treatment plan, his heart would stop within eight minutes at most, and he would die in the emergency room.
Should he save him?
From a purely selfish perspective, this wasn't his patient.
Whatever happened had nothing to do with him.
Besides, All-Things Diagnosis had said he was an ordinary person, with no superpowers to copy.
But from another perspective—
Lynn's gaze shifted between the onlooking residents and Griffin.
He needed this neighborhood to know what Miracle Clinic was capable of.
One public, undeniable diagnostic victory would be better than spending a hundred thousand dollars on advertising.
And... it would also shut Griffin up.
He finished weighing the pros and cons in less than a second.
Lynn walked into the emergency room.
His pace was unhurried as he went straight to the patient's bedside.
The young doctor was signing some paperwork and hadn't noticed anyone enter.
"You're not having an anxiety attack," Lynn said to the man in bed, his voice calm and clear, easily heard by everyone in the quiet emergency room.
"You're having an acute heart attack. Your left anterior descending artery is blocked. If we don't treat it within five minutes, you'll die."
The young doctor's pen stopped.
He looked up and saw Lynn. His expression shifted from confusion to displeasure.
"Who are you? This is the emergency department. Family members have to wait outside."
"I'm not family," Lynn said. "I'm a doctor at the Miracle Clinic across the street. Lynn."
The young doctor remembered him—the young Chinese man running the small clinic, the one Griffin had mocked.
He retorted almost immediately.
"Doctor Lynn, is it? Our ECG shows sinus rhythm and no ST-segment changes. This is an anxiety attack, textbook presentation. You can diagnose a heart attack just by taking one look from outside?"
"You placed the ECG leads incorrectly." Lynn's gaze fell on the electrodes on the man's chest.
"V1 and V2 are in the wrong positions. V1 should be in the fourth intercostal space at the right sternal border, but you placed it on the left. V2 should be in the fourth intercostal space at the left sternal border, but you put it on the right. You switched them, so the anterior leads recorded completely inaccurate signals."
The young doctor's face tightened.
"Impossible. I've placed hundreds of ECG leads—"
"Then do it again," Lynn interrupted. His tone remained unhurried, but there was an unshakable certainty to it.
"Switch the positions of V1 and V2 and run another ECG. Once the results are in, it'll be obvious who's right."
The emergency room fell silent.
The nurse holding a syringe froze, unsure whether to continue or wait.
The man on the bed was in so much pain that his face was twisted. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
The number of onlookers at the entrance had grown from four or five to more than a dozen.
Griffin had come over too.
He'd heard Lynn's voice, set down his coffee, and walked to the emergency room entrance.
"What's going on?" Griffin asked, frowning at the young doctor.
"Deputy Director Griffin." The young doctor flushed. "The doctor from that little clinic across the street says we placed the ECG leads incorrectly. He says the patient isn't having an anxiety attack but a heart attack."
Griffin turned to Lynn.
He remembered that face—the young man he'd mocked during the clinic's renovations.
"Doctor Lynn." Griffin's tone was hard to read. "Our emergency team is professionally trained. You're unlicensed—"
"My temporary license was approved last week," Lynn calmly interrupted. "License number NYS-TP-2024-7783. You can look it up."
"Deputy Director Griffin, I have no interest in discussing my credentials with you right now. The man in that bed has about four minutes left. Are you going to waste those four minutes arguing with me, or let your doctor reposition the leads?"
Griffin's expression changed.
It wasn't that Lynn had convinced him. He'd simply left him speechless.
The residents began whispering among themselves.
A middle-aged woman lowered her voice and said to the person beside her, "What if that young doctor is right? What if the leads really are in the wrong place?"
Griffin was silent for two seconds, then nodded to the young doctor.
"Do it again."
The young doctor was reluctant, but he didn't dare disobey the deputy director.
He went to the bedside and peeled off the V1 and V2 electrodes. When he checked their positions—
His hands stopped.
Then his face went pale.
He really had placed them backward.
V1 and V2 had been switched.
He repositioned the electrodes and started the ECG machine.
The paper strip crackled out for about ten seconds.
The young doctor tore it off and glanced at the results—
The ST segments showed a convex upward elevation.
The anterior leads from V1 to V4 all showed changes.
A classic, textbook case of an acute anterior wall myocardial infarction.
The air in the emergency room seemed to solidify.
The young doctor's hands were shaking.
"Start resuscitation!" Griffin suddenly shouted, his voice rising an octave. "Notify cardiology! Get the catheterization lab ready! Prepare for PCI! Now!"
The entire emergency room sprang into action.
Nurses prepared medication, doctors gave orders, and calls went out to the surgical team.
The man was quickly rushed to the operating room.
Less than four minutes had passed from the moment Lynn spoke to the confirmed diagnosis.
There was no applause from the crowd—it wasn't a TV drama.
But everyone looked at Lynn differently now.
They regarded the young Chinese doctor in gold-rimmed glasses in a way they hadn't five minutes earlier.
Lynn stayed where he was for a moment, then turned and left without lingering.
He walked out of the emergency department, crossed the street, returned to his clinic, and closed the door.
Griffin stood at the emergency room entrance, staring at the sign for Miracle Clinic across the street.
His coffee had gone cold, but he'd forgotten to drink it.
The young doctor came out behind him, his face clammy with sweat and shame. He said quietly, "Deputy Director... if we'd treated that patient for an anxiety attack..."
"He would've died." Griffin's voice was hoarse. "You nearly killed a man."
The young doctor fell silent.
Griffin glanced at the clinic across the street again.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he could see Lynn sitting back down in the chair behind the front desk. He picked up his coffee and opened his anatomy book.
Everything was as usual, as if nothing had happened.
That evening, word spread through the neighborhood: "Young doctor in Hell's Kitchen spots misplaced ECG leads outside hospital and saves a life."
The story was first passed along by the women who'd witnessed it. They told their neighbors upstairs and downstairs.
Their neighbors told the woman who owned the laundromat.
The laundromat owner told every customer who came to pick up their clothes.
As the story spread, it grew more and more exaggerated—
"That Chinese doctor could tell at a glance."
"Everyone at the hospital across the street was stunned."
"He just took one look and knew what was wrong with you."
By the next morning, three people were lined up outside Miracle Clinic.
By the third day, there were seven.
Before you continue