Re-uploading with a few tweaks from my amazing Beta.
It's July 1st.
That's a special day if you ever want to be a surgeon. It's the first day that new surgical interns start at Seattle Grace Hospital. The infamous Seattle Grace Hospital, home of Derek Shepherd the only neurosurgeon that mattered –where the godlike plastic surgeon Mark Sloane was, and the war veteran trauma magician, Owen Hunt, but most importantly where I, Elaine Robinson, was finally going to be an intern. An undergraduate degree majoring in community health at St. Cloud, outstanding MCATs, a four-year stint at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and a 38-hour bus and train trip later, I was finally at Seattle Grace Hospital. Elaine Robinson – medical school graduate, and surgical intern. There were six of us. Six hopefuls. Six supposedly bright young minds. Six people who were living their wildest dreams. Six friends – I hoped; but in reality I would find six competitors, all vying for the attention of the residents, the attending's and the Chief.
Lot's of people back home asked: Why bother going to Seattle Grace? Why not come back home to St. Cloud and do my residency at St. Cloud Hospital? Why put pressure on myself, and possibly fail abroad? That was the extent of my support system. No one had assumed that the cheerleader from St. Cloud would ever become a doctor. Let alone travel cross-country, alone, to join the revered Seattle Grace program, which was churning out some of the most promising young surgeons in the country. But I'd done it just to spite everyone.
My older sister Mary Jane had always dreamed of running away to Hawaii when she was little. It just seemed better to her than dreary old Minnesota. So, when she'd graduated high school, valedictorian, she did. She left St. Cloud and began her trek cross-country to somehow get to Hawaii – she only got as far as Seattle. She'd arrived in Seattle that night, courtesy of a crowded bus. Dragging her suitcase, Mary Jane had told me this was when she considered turning around and coming back home to be a teacher. That's when she walked past this crowded Irish pub. There was raucous noise, lots of drinking and plenty of bad dancing going on. Mary Jane had told me that something tangible, yet unseen had told her to go in there, have a drink, and start the rest of her life. So she did – inside there had been a cute Irish bartender, his name was Marcus.
Mary Jane and Marcus had been together from that moment onwards – four years later, they got married. Now they live in a nice apartment in the city, and I joined them a week ago. When I'd decided to leave Minnesota as far behind as I could, Seattle Grace had been my first thought – I had somewhere to live, it was far away, it was a great hospital – that was far away.
"Intern! Hey Intern!" a gravely voice called from behind me. I'd been in the middle of organizing paperwork for my resident – Dr. Alex Karev – at the Pit. I turned around and there he was.
"Yes Dr. Karev?" I asked, carefully closing the folder of Rhiannon Spencer (7-years old, reported to the Pit last night with persistent thick nasal discharge, nasal congestion, cough, and intermittent low-grade fever).
Karev beckoned me. "It's your lucky day, Intern," he mumbled as I came closer and we began walking. Dr. Karev didn't look at me but continued to storm through the hospital – leading me away from the Pit.
"Um, why is it my lucky day, besides being my first day?" I asked, drawing my white coat closer around me, a hesitant smile on my face. However Dr. Karev took no notice and kept walking, leaving me to catch up.
This wasn't the first strange thing to happen today. I'd woken up early, but to the smell of pancakes. Mary Jane had made pancakes; and she didn't usually cook unless someone was dying.
"MJ?" I called out hesitantly into the kitchen, and found her looking into the fridge. She looked at me and smiled widely.
"Good morning El. Happy first day of the rest of your life, you doctor you." She closed the fridge, and came over and squeezed me tightly.
I sighed with relief. "Thanks MJ, but you didn't need to worry with the breakfast really. I could've had coffee…" I mumbled, sitting down at their quaint breakfast table. She came and wrapped her arms around my shoulders in another affectionate embrace.
"No. My baby sister is starting off as a doctor with a full stomach."
That was the first strange thing. The second was that when I arrived at the hospital. I had been sitting quietly in the waiting room, waiting to be collected by my resident, or someone, when a slightly Hispanic doctor with bright red lips and a big smile came over and sat down beside me.
"Sweetie, what are you doing out here? You're an intern aren't you?" she asked. She wasn't condescending, and sounded genuinely concerned.
"Um, yeah" I answered, stuffing the Cosmopolitan magazine back into my bag. She smiled and gestured to some big double doors. "Move your ass honey, you should be in the locker room. You don't get 'collected' you meet your resident like a grown up."
My eyes widened and I quickly stood up. "I thought… um… oh shit"
The doctor smiled again. "Go down the hall past three doors and a corridor, and another two doors, but the third on the left, that's your intern locker room honey. Get a coat on, and follow the herd to the Pit"
I just nodded and bolted, but stopped short of the doors and turned around to see the doctor grinning at me.
"Thanks um… Dr…?" I called out, but faltered.
She waved at me. "Dr. Torres, now go." So I left.
A hundred yard dash and a white coat later I was one among about thirty interns. Chief of Surgery, Owen Hunt stood in front of us talking about what it took to be a surgical intern, what Seattle Grace stood for, what we would learn, who we would become and most importantly, who we needed to pay attention to. He took us on a small tour of the hospital, ending outside a door marked 'Resident Lounge – Interns WAIT OUTSIDE'.
He rapped his fist on the door and smiled. "Have fun kids," he said, and then he left. The door suddenly opened, and we were face with a short black woman with a serious expression,
"And what do you want?" she asked, pursing her lips at us. Someone mumbled something and she raised her eyebrows, "You're interns huh? I'd have never guessed. I know you're interns. Now back up. Make way for your residents. You know who you're assigned to don't you?" No one answered that, so she swatted us out of the way and called back into the lounge, "Grey, Grey, Yang, Karev, Kepner and Avery – we have interns, let's move". The third surprise came streaming out of the door next - a lady with long blonde hair, another with chestnut brown hair and a worried expression, a woman with long black curly hair and a scowl, a tall guy with five o'clock shadow, a small lady with auburn hair, and trailing very closely behind another tall guy with dark skin and bright blue eyes. The guy with the budding beard collected a clipboard of the short lady who had answered the door and looked at it disdainfully.
"Albert, Frasier, Hunter, Jones, McGrath and Robinson – move it or loose it" and with that he turned and stormed down the corridor, the six of us dashing after him.
We'd followed him back to the Pit. It was there he'd introduced himself.
"I'm Dr. Karev. I don't have a first name that you get to know. You all suck as far as I'm concerned. You suck until I say you don't. You're interns, you don't have brains, or opinions – you follow instructions." He said this without looking at us. He was grabbing a stack of folders from some nurses. After he'd glanced through these he began pointing and distributing folders.
"You are?" He pointed to a girl with glasses and curly hair.
She grinned. "I'm Hannah," she said reaching for the folder, which Dr. Karev snatched back, scowling,
"Who?"
Hannah frowned and then realization struck. "Oh, Albert" she replied reaching for the folder again. This time Dr. Karev handed it to her.
"Right, you are with Katy Ewing, bed 5 – she is in for observation for a few hours. She is anaphylactic, came in with a bee sting. IV's are taken care of. Watch her and page someone if something happens – go" Hannah took the folder and slowly walked off. Dr. Karev turned to a tall guy to my left. He was super tall, he should've been a basketball player, but apparently he was an intern –
"Sasquatch – you are?" Sasquatch nearly glowered at Dr. Karev. "Sam Hunter" he spat out.
Karev smirked, and thrust a folder to him. "You're going to go and get the labs for Annabel Beth - she is 18 months old, and is an unhappy baby – get the labs and find Dr. Robbins. She is waiting in Room 212. Go."
Sam bit back what I guess was a thousand curses and stormed off in the direction of the laboratory.
Dr. Karev pointed to me, or at least I thought he did. "You with the red hair."
I nearly replied with disbelief – I had blonde hair – when a voice mumbled, Anne Jones" I twirled around and saw a girl with frizzy red hair and freckles just as a folder was handed to her.
"Jacob Simons. He is two and a half and headed for a HRCT scan. He has reoccurring pneumonia, but this is something new. You will go and watch the scan and bring it back to me – clear. Go."
Anne turned abruptly, and nearly ran into a wall. She righted herself and ran down a hallway. There were three people left and one folder. This was bad news. Dr. Karev pointed two fingers at the guy and girl standing to my right, "Names?"
"Nathan Frasier," he replied.
"Louise McGrath," she replied.
Dr. Karev nodded. "You two are with me. We are going to go and talk to the family of Georgie Marie – she is twelve, and we've diagnosed scoliosis – I need to go and talk to the family. You will be quite and listen."
They both nodded. Dr. Karev then looked at me, "And you, Blondie – you've scored the Pit. You will update my other charts until you are collected. It is called scut work – interns do plenty of it, so get used to it. You two – lets move."
And with that, Dr. Karev, Nathan and Louise began walking away.
"Um, Elaine Robinson by the way!" I called out.
And that was the fourth strange thing that had happened. I had been abandoned within an hour of my first day. I had a resident who didn't even want to know my name. And on top of that, I was doing scut work, paperwork, for people I didn't even get to meet. And that was how I spent the first three hours of my shift. Writing down temperatures, urine outputs, pulse rates, and blood counts.
Dr. Karev stopped abruptly before a curtain to a bed in the ER and turned around to face me. He wasn't scowling, so I assumed I wasn't in trouble.
"Robinson. This is a test. You better be ready," he said, and then he opened the curtain. There was a young boy lying on the bed, his face scrunched in pain. His mother stood at his bedside, talking angrily into her phone. "Adam, I swear to god, you leave that meeting and come to the damn hospital, now. Your son is sick and he's…" She saw Dr. Karev and I. "Now!" She hung up the phone. "I'm so sorry Dr. Karev. Are we ready for the next step?"
Dr. Karev nodded and walked to the end of the bed, and beckoned me over. "Mrs. Nowell, this is my intern, Dr. Robinson, and with your consent, I'd like Dr. Robinson to help out," he said.
Mrs. Nowell nodded and Dr. Karev turned to me – "Intern, ready?"
I nodded as I took the chart from Dr. Karev.
"Ok. This is James. He's seven years old and was admitted to the emergency department this morning after a complaint of abdominal pain that started yesterday after breakfast. James vomited after lunch, and going to the bathroom didn't help the pain, did it James?" James nodded. Dr. Karev kept going, "Mrs. Nowell told us that James didn't eat dinner, or sleep well, so, she brought him to us this morning. While he's been here, the pain has gotten worse, moving to the lower quadrant of the abdomen, he's been sick again and it hurts to walk or cough. We've just completed some…" Dr. Karev didn't get the chance to finish - I knew the answer.
"Acute appendicitis." I interrupted. It was loud and squeaky – typical of me being excited. Dr. Karev looked at me and smiled.
"Good work Robinson. You might actually be a doctor. Would you like to tell Mrs. Nowell what the procedure is for acute appendicitis?"
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. "Um, sure. Thank-you Dr. Karev" I stammered as I faced James' mom.