"Doctor X" Episode 2 ranks first among miniseries with a 17.4% viewership rating... Gyesoojeong's skills proven - tension over past suspicions

SBS Friday-Saturday drama ’Doctor X: The Era of the White Mafia’ ranked first in Saturday mini-series viewership ratings after just two episodes. According to Nielsen Korea, episode 2 of ’Doctor X,’ aired on the night of the 10th, recorded nationwide ratings of 14.9%, 14.7% in the metropolitan area, and a peak rating of 17.4%. The 2049 demographic rating also ranked first among all Saturday programs and all programs aired during the week, with a peak of 5.4% and an average of 4.6%. In this episode, surgeon Kye Soo-jung (played by Kim Ji-won) demonstrated outstanding skills by performing surgeries on two patients consecutively. Soo-jung provoked resentment from other surgeons by acting independently of the hospital hierarchy, such as taking the wheelchair of VIP patient Park Kwang-chul (played by Kim Ki-cheon) to transport emergency patient Lee Joo-hee (played by Yuna). The surgeons assigned intern Park Tae-kyung (Kim WooSeok) to monitor Soo-jung, but Park Tae-kyung instead developed respect for her. Soo-jung clashed with surgical chief Do Yoon-sik (played by Kim Young-min) over the surgeries of Park Kwang-chul and Lee Joo-hee. Do Yoon-sik advocated for a partial resection surgery that would leave some of the cancerous area to reduce the risk of death for Park Kwang-chul, who has pancreatic cancer, while Soo-jung confidently insisted she could completely remove the cancer. Ultimately, Do Yoon-sik took charge of Park Kwang-chul’s surgery, and Soo-jung handled Lee Joo-hee’s surgery. On the day of the surgeries, Do Yoon-sik attempted to stop the operation due to the patient’s condition being more severe than expected, and hospital director Boo Seung-kwon (played by Son Hyun-joo) urgently called Soo-jung to Park Kwang-chul’s operating room. Soo-jung had already completed Lee Joo-hee’s surgery, which was expected to take 3 to 4 hours, in just one hour, and then successfully performed a complex surgery involving en bloc resection of the pancreatic head including the artery, completing both patients’ surgeries in 6 hours and 30 minutes. During this process, Soo-jung prioritized life over the patient’s status or power and drew attention for her stance against the hospital’s power structure and practices. Jang Hee-sook (played by Lee Jung-eun), the head of the medical staffing agency representing Soo-jung, received double the usual fee, and upon seeing the news of the search of Park Kwang-chul, said, ″You have to be alive to be punished and pay the price.″ At the end of the broadcast, suspicions related to Soo-jung’s past were raised. The medical staff at Gu Seo University Hospital discovered the existence of a doctor named ’Doctor X’ who had used the same surgical method in the past, and that a patient who underwent that surgery died within two months. Soo-jung’s face was captured in a news photo, adding to the mystery. Hospital director Boo Seung-kwon warned, ″You can’t avoid failure forever,″ to which Soo-jung replied, ″It seems like you have already failed, director.″ ’Doctor X: The Era of the White Mafia’ airs every Friday and Saturday at 9:50 PM.