Mercedes first day at Ambrosias was only a week after graduation. She was sad to miss Pads and Judy's wedding but her mother promised to send pictures. After being shown to her new living space, she was expected to be ready to begin her studies after lunch. She quickly unpacked all her belongings and set about putting them away or in the case of the pictures and things, setting them out. She finished with plenty of time to spare so she decided to get the map of the school and do a bit of exploring. Seeing as it was a circle of buildings there wasn't a lot of exploring to do and she had no chance of getting lost.
She wandered out of her building and took a slow meandering walk to the cafeteria. It wasn't a long walk but there were plenty of sights to see. The campus was lovely, the park like setting made it pleasurable for the healers as well as the patients. The buildings surrounded a beautiful courtyard of trees, plants, flowers and paths with a lovely fountain in the middle. It would be a tranquil place for her to study or just think. Surrounding this natural beauty were buildings unlike any she had seen in her small town.
The hospital was a gleaming white multi story, long building with plenty of windows for all the different rooms. The diagnostic and procedure rooms were in the middle of the building and they still had windows but they were for student's viewing only. Anything a healer needed for a patient was there or close by. The other buildings all had similar structure to this one, only the paint and size was different.
The next building was a light blue color. The whole ground floor of that building was the cafeteria she was heading to. It was split with one portion set aside for the private use of healers, those in training, nurses, assistants and researchers and the other side was for families, visitors and the rest of the workers. Above that floor were the healer medical offices and areas for the office staff.
After that was the research laboratory, a pale green building. It had labs of course, but it also contained the teaching labs. The two were kept separate so that students didn't interfere with the projects of the full researchers. That didn't mean that there weren't students in with the full researchers, they played a part in that side as well but it was more of a gopher role. The students did a lot of potion ingredient preparation and running after books or objects to help.
Grey was the color of the classroom and library building. The main floor was one big amphitheater. That is where they held full faculty meetings, large lectures and sometimes entertainment. Above it was the main library floor, though the other buildings had some small libraries. The classrooms above held anywhere from thirty to fifty students. Though she was the only one in her year, she wouldn't be alone in the classes. They would be learning about illnesses, procedures, projects and many other things in the classrooms. A student could repeat their attendance in them because new things were being found all the time. The research and healing classes were actually one on one with a full researcher or healer.
The light brown building was the living quarters. They were more like apartments, each had a bedroom, bathroom, living/study room and kitchen area. But they didn't want any type of cooking, or experimenting, in that building so if you wanted warm meals or drinks you had to go to the cafeteria. Each room did have a small refrigerator, cabinets and a sink, but no stove, hotplate or microwave was allowed. Warming spells for left overs were allowed but that was it. The laundry room was in the basement of that building.
The buildings were joined by multi story glass hallways that would, on the bottom floor, let you out into the courtyard or out into the parking areas. Not everyone had a car but some had muggles relatives, so they couldn't just apparate to where they lived. Some muggles were in the know about magic and they could come visit, therefore they obviously came by car. They even had a muggle name for Ambrosias, Emrys Care Facility was known as a very expensive private hospital that sometimes took charity cases. Mercedes reached the cafeteria on time and showed her badge to get into the private dining area. Her mentor was just arriving as well.
"Good you're on time." Erin Cartwright greeted her, "Come on I'll show you around and we'll get some lunch."
"Great!" Mercedes grinned, "I'm starving."
Once they had picked out their food, they found a table, "Are you all settled in, any problems?"
"I'm settled." Mercedes nodded, "No problem, this is a beautiful area."
"You won't say that come January." Erin warned.
"I'm from Minnesota." She replied, "I can't see Virginia winters getting that bad."
"You may be right." Erin laughed, "On to business. After lunch we'll get your training robes and scrubs then begin training. Have you decided what position you want to play first?"
At Ambrosias all researchers were healers, but not all healers were researchers. Mercedes had decided years ago she would be a researcher so she had the option to pick if she wanted to learn healing or research techniques first. No research would be joined until after her healing courses were done so she had made her decision.
"Healing first." She answered, "I don't want to chance forgetting the research techniques before I get to use them."
"Just so you know, you don't really get a choice. Healing is always first just for that reason." Erin grinned at her astounded face, "Throughout your application process you get a series of questions like that. We are testing your ability to reason things out and think on your feet. Most people we don't accept have made wrong choices in those questions. You answered them all correctly or you wouldn't be here."
"Makes sense." Mercedes replied after a moment of thought, "If you can't make the right choices on the little things you have less of a chance of making right choices when things are happening fast."
Their conversation continued through lunch and before she knew it Mercedes was being given a stack of her healer in training robes, her name was on a pocket for each item. Full healer robes were white with green scrubs underneath while training robes were lite green with lite blue scrubs. Once she reached the research training, she would have blue robes and lite blue scrubs, and as a full researcher she would have white robes with dark blue scrubs. She had been informed that she wouldn't need a lot of other clothes because most of the time she would be wearing the scrubs as a uniform of sorts. They were also encouraged to have several pairs of white shoes, preferably comfortable active wear shoes.
Erin had brought her to the brown building basement to get the robes so they walked up to her rooms to put one set on and leave the rest to be put away later. Mercedes also grabbed a notebook and pen then followed her mentor to the hospital. Erin was doing her rounds and introducing Mercedes to all her patients, some of whom were conscious. Her last patient was an older man and it seemed like he had a good disposition.
"Good afternoon Mr. Smith." Erin entered the room with Mercedes right behind her, "How are you feeling today?"
"Not too bad." Mr. Smith answered, "I feel like I've been run over by only one bus today and not the whole fleet of them."
"Well that's some improvement I'd say." Erin grinned, "I've got a new student who will be following me around, I want to introduce you."
"Alright then who do we have here?" he asked.
"This is trainee Mercedes Raine." She told the man then turned to Mercedes, "Mr. Smith has a rare blood disorder that causes him pain. He is currently on a new potion that we started just over a week ago."
"Seems to be working." He grinned, "I've lost a few buses each day I've been on this one."
Mercedes grinned back at him, but she wasn't allowed to converse with the man yet.
"Once all the buses have finished with you, and stayed away at least two days, we'll see about some time at home." Erin chuckled, "But I'll want to set up frequent appointments and you'll have to come back if any of the buses do."
"Not that I don't appreciate the hospitality and friendly company, but I'm looking forward to getting home." The man grinned.
The two of them left Mr. Smith to his television program and headed to her office. She was shown around the exam rooms and introduced to the nurses and clerical staff. Next was her private office, Erin sat behind her desk and Mercedes took the seat opposite her.
"Any external patients come here for appointments." Erin explained, "When I am not instructing you on healing practices you will be helping with patients in here. You'll sit in on appointments and once I'm satisfied with your skills, you'll get to have first crack at seeing a few patients. I'll be there watching you so don't worry. We are going at your pace so if you study and work hard you could be seeing patients this year."
"Seeing patient already?" Mercedes asked.
"That will be months away." Erin eased her worry, "In the meantime you will have homework every night. It can be just reading or essays or it can be an assessment of a patient or procedure. Ask questions, point out areas you see could be improved and be inquisitive. We all come from different experiences and here an Ambrosias we understand that means you may have an insight that someone fifty years older won't have. We promote you asking question but ask that you don't scare patients. You'll have a few minutes after we meet with a patient to point out something you question."
"I understand." She nodded, "I have a comment on Mr. Smith."
"Go ahead." Erin wondered what she had seen.
"I noticed he has black spots on his fingernails." She pointed out, "To me that looks like the first stages of spattergroit. Does it have anything to do with the potions he's on?"
"I don't know, but we'll have him tested." Erin nodded, "That was a good catch. What made you look at his fingers?"
"He was clinching the blankets when he'd have a spasm." She said, "His knuckles were white and his fingers were still very pale when he would let go."
"How many spasms do you think he had?" she asked making another note.
"I saw four." Mercedes answered, "But there may have been a few before I noticed."
"What can you tell me about spattergroit?" Erin asked.
"We had a patient in Minneapolis General that had it." Mercedes gave a comprehensive explanation of the illness, spotting it, the treatments available and how well they worked for each patient demographic.
"You have a very good memory." Erin grinned, "Is it eidetic?
"No." Mercedes shook her head, "I'm a natural Occlumens, I've got a library in my head. I do forget things though. I remember that patient's last name, but for the life of me I can't remember his first name."
"For tonight I want you to write out what you just told me. See if you can site where you got the information on the demographics." Erin nodded, "If you were there for the treatment did the patient fall into the expected demographic and how you know they did."
Mercedes took notes and nodded along as she spoke, "Do I give it to you tomorrow?"
"Yes, we'll have breakfast at eight thirty have it with you." Erin was pleased with her new student so far, "For now we have a patient in room one."