Night duty
We managed to get through three quarter of med school. I couldn't believe that I could stand being in medical school up until this point. Even my parents were surprised to see that I managed to get into this point. They predicted that I would drop out after a semester or two, considering how much I've voiced my dislike toward this medical profession. My mother suspected that it was because of a certain girl that often came to my house to study. I didn't confirm nor deny her accusation. Anyway, since we had to rotate to all departments in the hospital, we were divided into groups again, and as usual I got Jackson and Mark into the mix. But if we were in a bigger department, there would be more people in the group. At this point, we were tested not only for our brain, but for our stamina as well. I made sure to take my vitamin everyday and made sure that she did as well. And got enough rest even though on duties. And ate on time.
Unfortunately, this month, we rotated to surgery department. Since my dad is a cardiothoracic surgeon, I felt burdened on this rotation. I became more self-conscious. I tried to study more and I beat myself up if I couldn't get it right whenever being asked during the morning rotation. Whenever we got the time off, I would spend it reviewing and studying instead of sleeping. I heard from Mark that Jackson's grandfather was a surgeon as well, so he was on his toes as well. He got the same pressure as I did even though his family wasn't here.
"Guys, let loose a bit," Mark scolded us. "It's okay for us not to remember everything. We're still students after all. If you guys got sick, then we're the ones that will suffer as we have to pick up your duties as well."
I quickly glanced at her. She looked really tired. It was understandable as she was the only girl in the group. Of course, she didn't have the stamina as strong as us, boys. If one of us got sick, she would surely take it harder than Mark. I quickly nodded and mentally reminded myself to loosen up a bit. The next week, both of us loosened up and things went back to normal.
"Tonight's menu is craniotomy to remove subdural hematoma and the other R has plate and screw. Who wants to watch which one?? Mark asked when she arrived and Jackson picked the orthopedic one. Mark went with him so it left us with craniotomy. Both of us were reluctant to join in as usually neurosurgery took hours to finish, but subdural hematoma was one of our must-knows for medical students, so both of us dragged our feet and took notes in the operating room for just in case the professor decided to ask questions at both of us. But suddenly, one of the resident told us to follow him to the ER as there was a new case there. I felt better since ER was always more exciting than the OR. But the moment we arrived at the ER, we could see that it would be a hard one. It was blood bath in the ER. The patient was a traffic accident victim and it looked like his condition was pretty bad when he arrived. The ER doctor tried to resuscitate the patient since he has lost a lot of blood. The nurses were running here and there to grab fluid or blood bag. The resident immediately went over to help while we both stood in shock. It took me another second to gather myself and started to help.
At that time, I didn't pay attention to where random girl was. The next thing that I knew was, there was a commotion in the waiting room. I saw one of the family member grabbed her and she tried to yank herself free but it was useless as the other person was stronger than her. It escalated to the point that the family member raised his arm, as if he was going to punch or slap her while she covered her face with her arm. I ran over quickly and grabbed the man's wrist and yanked it free from her body. I placed my hand on the small of her back and felt her relaxed under my touch. I kept staring at the man in front of me, but from the side of my eyes I could see she started to straighten herself and opened her eyes already. I scolded the family member for disturbing other people and warned him if he didn't comply, the security guard would have no choice but to escort him out of the building. Luckily he heeded to my warning and sat back down.
