Hush, My Sweet Darling

Chapter 12: Classy But Cuss A Little

A few hours earlier...

The clock had just struck eleven o'clock in the morning, and it was finally Kiko's downtime. She only had an hour before she had to start her afternoon pre-round.

Kiko let out a long, deep sigh and stretched her arms—it had been a long and awful morning.

The surgery clerkship had really lived up to its ill-famed reputation. It was the most dreaded rotation by medical students. Not only because it was physically demanding—due to the long, grueling hours that they had to put in—but also because of the audacious, dog-tired, and overworked surgical residents, who were notorious for venting their frustration on medical students. They considered these students to be the lowest in the hierarchy, whom they could just aim their spectacular tantrums at.

This morning, Kiko was scheduled to shadow a chief resident infamous for being obnoxious toward medical students.

They were in a morning meeting discussing anticipated patients for the day, one of whom was a forty-five-year-old victim of a road traffic accident. The patient required operative surgical intervention for an abdominal laceration, and the chief resident picked Kiko out of the group to present the patient's case.

"So, I was thinking about 30mg Toradol for this lady..." she concluded after citing the patient information she had learned during her pre-round earlier.

The chief resident threw her a sour look. "Thirty!? For a little old lady like that!? Do you want to kill her!? Make it 15mg!"

In this kind of situation, most medical students would just shut their mouths and obey the resident. First, because their medical knowledge and experience really couldn't be compared to those of a resident. Second, because there was an unspoken rule among the hospital staff, which implied that a lowly medical student must not argue with a resident—especially this one, lest they wanted to be roasted.

But of course, Kiko wouldn't be Kiko if she didn't stubbornly counter. "Well, I wouldn't call her a little old lady, Dr. Gao. She's forty-five and doesn't have an acute kidney injury. In fact, her charts show a well-functioning kidney. So, that's how I came up with the 30mg."

The chief resident's face instantly reddened. No one had ever challenged him in front of a group of his subordinates. "Don't argue with me, you snot-nosed little bitch! Do you think you know more than me? I've been doing this since you started wearing tampons!" he shouted as he pointed a finger to Kiko's face.

Kiko simmered in anger and was about to rebuke when another resident intercepted, "Dr. Gao, Dr. Li needs us to scrub into his surgery in an hour. Let's wrap this up quickly."

Dr. Lawrence Gao was still glowering at Kiko, ready to tear her to pieces. But after hearing his fellow resident's words, he released his anger on the nearest chair. He kicked it, yelling, "Let's go then!" and turned around to leave for their morning round. The rest of the group followed.

Throughout the morning round, Dr. Gao kept nitpicking Kiko in front of the patients. She tried her best to ignore it. No, she wasn't afraid to lock horns with the nasty resident-chief or not—but not in front of the patients. So, she decided to just put up with it.

As soon as her morning round ended, her pager buzzed, announcing the first trauma of the day. She quickly headed to the trauma bay to assist the team. A few minutes later, the emergency medical technicians emerged through the door, carrying a patient with several stab wounds on a stretcher.

In a moment of confusion, a nurse handed Kiko an endotracheal tube for the general anesthesia procedure. She was supposed to pass it to the anesthesiologist, but after having an awful morning, Kiko couldn't think clearly.