EVERY BEAT OF MY HEART

CHAPTER 51: I Don't Date Interns and Residents

"My passion for Emergency Medicine goes way back to my own personal crisis Dok Drake. It was like yesterday when my mother went in to cardiac arrest right before my eyes. She was rushed to the nearest hospital, where she and all the emergency personnel of AMC fought an uphill battle to save her life. I had never seen so many syringes before. One after another, the nurse was pumping their contents into the IV connected to my mother's arm. I was mesmerized by this unfamiliar, chaotic, frantic, bloody yet flawlessly organized environment. It was AMC's Emergency Room." Emma, one of the five female resident shared while Drake is asking them one by one why they chose Emergency Medicine.

It was their first day being an ER Residents. Drake was trying to have a quick interview before the flock of patients will cover the whole department.

"How about you? Why did you chose this specialty? You can be a Surgeon like Dylan. Why did you came here Dawson? I heard you enjoyed your OR rotation? I heard-"

"Because you are here." Dawson straightly said it while looking into Drake's eyes.

"Whoah! Do you want me to fail you on the first day of your residency? Don't try to be smart infront of me kapag hindi mo kayang panindigan. We are on duty little girl. Your residency might be jeopardize. Kahit magbugbugan pa kami ni Dylan kapag binagsak kita. He won't beat me."

"Grabe ka naman kuya Drake! Joke lang! Tanggap ko ng binasted mo ako. Fine! Basta gusto ko dito sa ER. No particular reasons."

"Binasted kita?" He remembered how Dawson confessed to him on her eighteenth birthday. He was one of the eighteen roses. Drake remembered how Dawson cried infront of him that night after he rejected her.

"Mm! Nakalimutan mo na?" She pouted her lip. Kahit pa ganoon ang nangyari, naging malapit pa din si Drake sa dalaga dahil bestfriend nito ang nakakabatang kapatid ng binata. Lagi ito sa bahay nila noon. Pero kahit ano pang gawin ni Dawson, hindi magbabago ang isip ni Drake. Dawson will always be a little girl like her younger sibling. At hanggang ngayon, iyon pa din ang tingin ni Drake sa kanya.

"How about you Sarah? Why ER? Why did you-"

"Because I wanted to be like Doctor Ace. I wanted to follow his footsteps." Sarah started in nervous tone.

"Doctor Ace? Hmmm...okay...interesting. He was your professor back then? Ah...I remember, you did your ER rotation here noong intern ka? Right?" Tumango ang dalaga sa kanya bago uli nagsalita.

"It was the caring and methodical way in which Doctor Ace handled every patient he had. Not just the patient but their families as well. I dreamed to be an OB Gyne before, it would be more stable in terms of money. I mean...I can put up my own clinic. Even without doing invasive procedures, sitting their in my clinic...doing prenatal check ups everyday, I can have a fat bank account. I can choose if I want to go with surgeries or not. Or I can be with any specialty that would give me higher doctor's fee. That is my plan, but I began to ask myself the critical question when I was rotated here. What if I could offer desperate people that very same sincerity and compassion Doctor Ace had with his patients? That became my urgent sense of purpose. I just don't want to practice medicine just because of the money I can get out of it. I want to be a real doctor. A real doctor...because not all doctors are a real doctor. And I want to be one." Seryosong sabi ng dalaga at natahimik ang mga kasamahan niya, lalo na si Dawson. Ganun din ang mga nurses. Malaman at makabuluhan ang bawat salitang binitawan ni Sarah.

"And you?" Drake was referring to the woman who wears hijab.

"There's one ER Doctor whose passion for teaching stood out above all. Not for all the interns, but for me, it was. He was a very patient mentor. He really took his time to answer all  my questions, even stupid and self explanatory one. He explained the disease processes, and gave me a firsthand look at many heartbreaking and uplifting moments he shared with his patients. He was the most patient doctor I have encountered. Always smiling in the midst of toxic duties. I was amazed by the wide breadth of his medical knowledge. I absorbed the notion of how Emergency doctors calmly and confidently rule out life threatening conditions while simultaneously trying to ascertain the most probable diagnosis. I want to be like him." Shahida said with atonishment in her eyes.