The North General Hospital in the Tondo district of Manila was as busy as a battlefield. Hideyuki Harada, an intern on duty at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, worked without having time to breathe. It was six years ago that Harada decided to become a doctor. Harada, who worked at the Manila branch of a Japanese trading company, was supposed to marry a junior at the university, Masami, when she returned to Japan, but she told her that she was married to Harada's best friend, Isomura, a sergeant at a large hospital.