Nam Ha-Neul occupied herself with nothing but study all her life through school and higher education, up until her joyless lifestyle throws her into the greatest slump in her adulthood.
Doctor Slump follows two high school rivals who become great doctors in their respective fields.
However, Yeo Jeong-Woo hits rock bottom after losing his career due to a botched surgery that takes the client’s life.
Meanwhile, his former rival, Nam Ha-Neul has hit her rock bottom after working herself to gastric issues and depression.
From way back
Right from her childhood, Ha-Neul got herself into a new lifestyle where she’d drifted away from the usual childhood experiences.
She wasn’t an average elementary student.
Whereas others entertained the idea of taking a break from their studies, she insisted on studying more.
Her studious fervor accompanied her to middle school and high school, and as she always kept to herself, she became more and more isolated and alien to others.
She even forgot how to make friends. All her time, every other second of it, went into studying.
It was nothing less than extreme.
She would run to places instead of walking so that she could spend that time studying.
She would restrict her diet to foods that didn’t consume more of her time than she was ready to spend.
As a result, she would dehydrate herself or weaken herself by pulling all-nighters.
One time, she also fainted because of an extreme study session.
Her father was always in a decrepit state in the hospital.
However, he always had a smile on his face whenever Nam Ha-Neul visited him and showed him his report cards.
That only pushed her to work harder, keep making him smile, and potentially get her family out of a financial rut and bring stability.
Hitting rock bottom
However, in doing so much she lost any semblance of a social life. She also did a huge number on her own health and body.
As an adult, she works in a university hospital as an anesthesiologist.
She works under a professor who’s just as abusive to her as he is an incompetent jerk himself.
The professor works her like a machine and she lets him mistreat her for way too long.
Consequently, she suffers from severe stomach pain and almost dies after fainting in the middle of the road.
She is diagnosed with depression before she decides to quit tolerating her abusive superior as well as her job.
She hits rock bottom, and slumbers in the greatest slump of her life, with her former rival re-entering her life with a similarly bad slump of his own.