1.
Nurse Aid's work
2.
Melody of two people and three people
3.
The Indictment of the Subconscious
4.
For the family
5.
Each person's choice

Epilogue
Translator's Note

Amazon Bestselling Author and Bookstore Award-Winning Author
A new work by Chinen Mikito, who is called the next Higashino Keigo.

Mikito Chinen, who has established himself as a trustworthy author with works such as “Murder in the Glass Tower,” “Midnight Marionette,” and “The Paper Crane Murder Case,” has a unique background as both a novelist and a practicing internal medicine specialist.
The author's new work, "Nurse Aid Next Door," is a medical suspense novel set in a university hospital, brimming with medical knowledge and perspective.
Before the novel was published, it was confirmed to be made into a drama and will air on NTV in Japan in 2024. In Korea, a drama of the same name is currently streaming on Wave and Watcha.

Healing the mind and prioritizing technology
The conflict between two medical professionals is like two sides of a coin.

The story begins with Mio Sakuraba, who suffers from PTSD after her sister's death, getting a job as a new nursing assistant at Seiryo University Hospital.

Seiryo University Hospital has an integrated surgery department that brings together excellent surgeons from all over the country.
This integrated surgery department has a ranking system based on surgical skills, with a strict priority on skill.
In this system, nursing assistants, who have neither medical knowledge nor the qualifications to perform medical procedures, are at the very bottom of the class.
Mio and her colleagues are treated as ignorant by doctors and nurses, knowing nothing about medicine, but despite this environment, they are dedicated and devoted to treating patients.

Mio suffers from PTSD after the suicide of her sister, who was a patient with Simnes, and is traumatized by her inability to practice medicine.
Despite suffering from severe trauma, such that even holding a syringe or thinking about her sister causes panic attacks, she is passionate about saving patients and begins working as a nursing assistant. She feels that she is gradually healing herself in the process of reaching out to patients and treating them without performing any direct medical procedures.


The person with the exact opposite medical view of Mio is the genius doctor Taiga Ryuzaki, an integrated surgeon.
He is known as the ace and symbol of integrative surgery and insists that emotions are merely impurities, and that saving patients is only possible through deep knowledge, honed skills, and rational judgment based on data.
The conflict between the two, who had never directly clashed because they were a nurse and a doctor, began when Ryuzaki refused Mio's request to explain the surgery to the patient's family again.

While treating the patient's mind as an impurity, Ryuzaki is also the only doctor who listens to the nurse's words that the patient's condition is different from usual.
Ryuzaki acknowledges the role of nursing assistants and believes that each person should pursue and realize their ideals in their own position. Although Mio and Ryuzaki have different medical views, they share the same heart for patients.

Mio, who has passion and enthusiasm to heal patients' hearts, and Ryuzaki, who wants to perfectly treat patients with cool reason and a warm heart.
These two medical professionals, who share the same medical view as the two sides of a coin, ask us what the true mindset a doctor should have is.

A suspicious shadow cast over me
Mio's Past and Ryuzaki's Secret

One day, after coming home from work, Mio discovers that her room has been broken into and reports it to the police.
Everything in the room, including the cash, bankbook, and seal, was safe, but the only thing missing was the laptop that had been left in a conspicuous place.
It's strange that he ransacked the room and only took the laptop.
The police advise that the thief has other plans and may return to threaten Mio.

Detective Tachibana, Mio's dead sister's ex-boyfriend, also comes to see her.
Mio, who heard speculation that her dead sister, who was working as a reporter, may have been murdered by someone else and that the killer may have searched Mio's house, believing that he had data containing her weaknesses, becomes obsessed with finding her sister's killer.
However, after checking the navigation history of her sister's car and following her to the place she was supposed to have killed, she encountered Ryuzaki with the person who was presumed to have killed her sister.

The identity of the culprit who broke into the house, the culprit who may have murdered my sister, and Ryuzaki standing next to that suspect.
Mio is drawn into the complex flow of the storm without realizing it.

“It was a set-up from the beginning.
“I was trapped from the beginning.”

As expected from mystery master Chinen Mikito, the tightly hidden foreshadowing and suspenseful plot twists keep us immersed.
As we follow Mio's emotional journey, unsure of who to trust or not, a grand conspiracy and the truth are revealed.

Ideal medical care and trust

We often say that when we are sick, the first thing we should do is go to the hospital.
Stories of nurses and doctors saving office workers who have heart attacks on their way home from work are reported as heartwarming anecdotes, and media such as dramas show doctors risking hardship to save patients.
However, the firm belief that any medical professional would do their best to save a patient seems to have been shaken recently.

While medical disruption caused by strikes continues to dominate news headlines, we also frequently hear of patients dying on the road because emergency rooms refuse to admit them.
News of various medical accidents comes out every now and then.

Even without assuming extreme situations, there are doctors who ignore patients' anxieties and respond insincerely, while there are also doctors who are kind but lack the skills to put patients at risk.
In the story, there are doctors who ignore patients' complaints and cause their deaths, and doctors who are incompetent and end up killing patients.

The patients appearing in each chapter each have their own circumstances and individuality.
A quirky grandmother about to undergo an esophagectomy and a conjoined twin pianist who shares only one arm, joined at the chest.
A patient about to undergo brain awake surgery for a brain tumor, a two-year-old child with a congenital disease who might die if he doesn't receive a liver transplant, and a student who is on the verge of death because his parents refuse to allow him to undergo even a simple surgery.

A variety of episodes involving doctors and patients illustrate how medical professionals should approach patients and gain their trust, and what consequences medical care can have if it is provided without consideration for the patient.

To gain trust, you have no choice but to do your best in your position.
The reason we are so moved by the sight of medical professionals doing everything they can to save patients, no matter how chaotic or dangerous the situation, is because we know that the most basic things are often the most difficult to do.

The various types of medical professionals seen in "Nurse Aid Next Door" are ultimately a mirror reflection of reality.
Through the medical professionals and patients who appear in the work, Chinen Mikino asks what each person thinks is ideal medical care, what medical professionals should ultimately pursue, and what must come first to gain patients' trust.