Chapter 1

I don't own anything related to Emily Owens M.D. Although I do wish that we had gotten to see more of their work.

This little story idea came to me this morning. I'm hoping to watch all the episodes again and come up with one of these for each, but we will see how it goes. As always, please read and review.

To be a doctor you have to be a lot of things. In fact that's always a major part of applying to medical school. Your advisors always make you soul search for the personal attributes that you believe will make you a good physician. Then they make you dig down to the roots of them. And to a degree it is a gut wrenchingly difficult process.

Micah knew that one of the reasons he made a good physician was that he was observant. He always had been. He had been the quiet kid on the playground that watched what everyone else did before he made any move. In fact, some of his developmental milestones (like walking and talking) had been delayed because of that. His mother was always teasing him about what a perfectionist he was. But he preferred observant.

And that's why today on rounds with the new intern class, Micah noticed that Dr. Owens wasn't breathing. She was so scared she was literally holding her breath. He remembered his first encounter with the great Dr. Bandari. She had scared him too. She was not nice. And for an intern just beginning his/her career she had A LOT of demands. In fact, she was so demanding that at first it didn't seem like you would ever be able to do this. He had thought about leaving that first night. And usually someone left. Five years of surgery training was grueling. But none of these interns were leaving now. Not today and not under his watch. That's why he kindly reminded Dr. Owens that she had one more thing she had to do: breathe.

He spent the rest of the day finding little things for her to do for him. Things that wouldn't necessarily complicate her day, but things that would allow him the opportunity for continued observation. He needed to make sure that she was okay. He wanted her to relax and keep breathing, especially today. He really was perfectly capable of picking up his own labs, in fact he did it most days, and he wasn't asking any of the other interns to do it for him. Just Dr. Owens, today he was checking up on Dr. Owens' vital signs.

Later, when he got to operate solo on one of the patients Dr. Owens had been working on, she insisted upon standing outside the OR suite door. She was so concerned about her patients and invested in their lives. Micah could guess that the top trait on Dr. Owens' list of why she would be a good physician was empathy or compassion - the ability to place yourself in someone else's shoes and understand what they were going through and the desire to help them. That's why he looked at her and nodded once he knew he was out of the woods. He knew she wanted to be able to comfort the man's wife, and he knew that she would be good at it.

But then when he swung by the floor Dr. Owens was working on to do another routine follow-up, she was missing. He knew the nurses would know where she was; they always seemed to know everything. After five years in the hospital, he had begun to recognize them as a wonderful resource. The charge nurse indicated that Dr. Owens was in the north stair well. She unceremoniously added that half the contents of the vending machine were with her. Had she skipped lunch? – he wondered. She would need to be broken of that habit if she was going to continue down this career path. Long hours standing in surgery did not work if one was skipping meals.

As he turned into the stair well, he realized this was much more serious than skipping lunch once. Dr. Owens was hurting and probably questioning if she belonged here. But Micah knew she did; he could see it in her eyes when she looked at patients. Heck, she started her very first case presentation by talking to the patient not her attending. That was unheard of. She was very empathetic and that is what makes a good doctor. That was something Micah had learned. Five years of grueling surgery training had managed to make him care more. That's what made him ask her what was wrong.

She rambled on and on about various ways her day had gone wrong. He got lost in the description – something about balvery gone wrong. But the main thing was she needed to be reminded of why she was here. Doctors who possess so much natural empathy work for their patients and not for themselves. Dr. Owens needed to get up and SEE her patients' versions of bad days.

So Micah got her up. Walked her around the floor, stood in common areas and briefly described the bad things happening in other people's lives, and ultimately made her see that she was not having the worst of days. He doesn't know what made him use his mother's case as one of these examples, but he did. He hasn't told anyone yet, so maybe he just needed to say it aloud to someone before he has to go break the news to her. Or maybe, he just wanted Dr. Owens to see him the way he saw her.

He took the last remaining ring dings from her, and yes, he knew that there were two packages. He was after all observant. And he smiled as she walked away, because she was going to be just fine.

At the end of the day, she even managed to worm her way into an OR with Dr. Bandari. And he heard that she did great. As she is walking out, he can't resist the opportunity to remind her that she didn't actually have a bad day. After all, she was in the OR on her first day, which is unheard of. She smiles; she knows. She asks if he is leaving, and she has no idea how badly he wants to walk out of the hospital with her. He would love to have no ties to this place of suffering and death after work, but his mother (known to Dr. Owens as the patient in room 501) needs him to be her doctor. So he says he has to stay. Dr. Owens doesn't notice the emotion behind the words or question why, she merely nods and turns away. But Micah knows that years of working here will make her more observant.