小児外科のゆうか先生 1

This is a workplace slice-of-life story set in the pediatric surgery wing of a children's hospital. The cast of characters is introduced gradually and includes ゆうか先生, the titular character and pediatric surgeon with blond hair and a blunt personality; 十 (つなし), a male nurse who is earnest, a bit indelicate, and loves kids; 百田 (ももせ), a newbie female nurse who is Trying Her Best, has a bit of a temper, and has found nursing far more stressful than she anticipated; and 千石 (せんごく) せんせい, a black-masked freelance anesthesiologist introduced in the last chapter who looks like he'll add some drama to the cast.

Not gonna lie, I picked this one up because ゆうか is hella pretty and I'm a sucker for antisocial, blunt characters lol. But he's not just pretty, he also makes super cursed faces! And very occasionally, he even smiles!

(It was also on sale for like 55¥ in December, so minimal investment for a genre I don't usually read.)

That said, I actually loved it, and I do not regret that I bought the second volume at the same time because I am definitely going to read it. The characters are all very well fleshed out, including the one-off side characters like patients and their families, and I enjoyed how they all interact with each other, as well as how their first impressions of each other shift as they get to know each other better.

Language-wise, this is at a higher level of difficulty. There is a LOT of medical terminology that I had to look up. Think of a typical medical drama and the sorts of words you might hear in it, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're in for. The good news is that a lot of the words repeat (カルテ - patient's chart/clinical records; 小児外科医師 - pediatric surgeon and ゆうか's job title; 病棟看護師 - ward nurse; etc etc), but it was mentally fatiguing at times, especially during scenes with surgical explanations.

In this volume, we meet patients with conditions like funnel chest, laryngeal fistulas, ovarian cyst, cancer, and an extremely premature infant. So be prepared to look up related words!

I found the story well worth the work.