Author's Note: This is a prequel, set in London about 2-3 years before Martin Ellingham comes to Portwenn. Martin, Portwenn, Doc Martin and everything else belong to Buffalo Pictures and I make no claims to anything.
Losing It
Chapter 1 – Bloody Brilliant
If you had inquired of the physicians, students and staff at St. Thomas's Hospital for their opinions on Martin Ellingham, nearly everyone would have agreed that he was a bloody brilliant surgeon. Not the bloke you'd turn to if you needed a shoulder to cry on, a lift to the airport, or a second chance at proving yourself. But if you or someone you loved needed the expert, steady hands of a vascular surgeon to repair delicate blood vessels, he was simply the best.
His reputation preceded him. The Midas touch, they called it – the way he had of fixing even the most desperate cases and doing it calmly and without fuss. Making it look almost easy. No problem seemed insurmountable when he applied his considerable brilliance and his talented surgeon's hands to the task.
His patients were in awe of him – constables and countesses, shop assistants and stock brokers, labourers and Labour MPs. He had treated the Queen's cousin and the Prime Minister's mother-in-law. He was not impressed by any of them, but applied his remarkable skills to their veins and arteries with equal vigor.
His peers envied his skills and his meteoric rise to be the youngest qualified vascular surgery consultant in the history of the hospital. The junior doctors and medical students longed to emulate him, even as they cringed at his acid tongue and biting critiques of their efforts. One or two even sought out his tailor in hopes of currying favor. Members of the surgical team admired his results and railed against his insistence on perfection in every aspect of every procedure. The ward sisters generally fell into two camps – those who froze and cowered as he swept into the room and those who rolled their eyes and ignored his blustering. Care managers and hospital administrators hated his patent disregard for protocol, even as they marveled at his dedication to his patients. Receptionists found him infuriating.
He was tireless. He was the first on his team to arrive and the last to leave, and a willing volunteer for weekend and holiday rotations. He taught students and lectured colleagues. He literally wrote the book on carotid stenting for medical students in the UK. He occasionally undertook clinical trials. But his life-blood was surgery. And for the socially awkward Ellingham, the operating theatre was where he felt most at home, at peace.
He rarely joined the banter in the changing rooms or the hallways about test matches, golf games, or plans for the week-end. He seemed to have few interests apart from his work, and even fewer friends. Once in a great while he would disappear on a mysterious holiday, but he rarely mentioned where he had been or what he had done there. Although cordial, he seemed uncomfortable and a bit standoffish at conference social events and department parties. It was only a desperate hostess who would prevail upon him to fill out a dinner party, given the likelihood he'd arrive with a peculiar gift, criticize the nutritional value of the menu, or insult one of the other guests, even without the benefit of wine.
He was rarely seen outside the hospital – in fact some of his students were convinced he emerged each day in his immaculate suit from digs somewhere in the bowels of the hospital's heating plant. And those who did see him somewhere else – browsing antiques in Portobello Road, attending a concert in the Albert Hall, comparing espresso machines in the cookware department at Harrod's – rarely had the nerve or the inclination to approach him. The concept of his having a real life, being human in some way, disturbed them.
There were rumours of course. And, given that at least a couple of the doctors on staff had known him since medical school days or even before, there was probably a kernel of truth to some of them. But no one could quite picture him as a bullied bed-wetter at a posh public school, as some had reported. And the idea that his heart had been broken by a red-headed Canadian gynaecologist seemed even less believable.
In fact he was devoted to his profession. He took his responsibilities to his patients with deadly seriousness and he considered surgery the highest of callings. He held himself and everyone around him to nearly impossible standards, and was exceedingly displeased if those standards were not met. He did not suffer fools.
He had a handful of close friends, mostly from medical school. They checked in by e-mail mostly these days, and shared the occasional meal. He was estranged from his parents and had no other real family. Occasionally a tentative bond might form between him and an ambitious student or a star-struck nurse. They might have a coffee at the café across the street now and again. He might even invite one or two for dinner. But he never joined the pub crawls or late night pot-lucks organized by the students that built the informal social networks among the medical staff.
Odd duck, they called him. But such a bloody brilliant odd duck.