Guest Speaker
A loud groan came from House as Cuddy told him his new assignment for the day.
"Why me?"
"Would you rather work in the clinic?"
"Yeah."
With an 'I'm not amused' look Cuddy continued. "No you wouldn't. You would much rather hear yourself talk for an hour than sit in my clinic for two to four."
"I guess you're right. Where do I have to go?"
"The medical arts building. The class will be waiting."
"We have a medical arts building?"
"Yea it's near Human Resources, but you probably have never been there in your life."
"You're right."
House walked out and met Wilson down the hall. He wanted to hear the news; he could see House wasn't happy about something.
"What did she say to you?"
"I have to go speak to a class for an hour."
"About what?"
"Didn't ask; figure I'll make something up."
"That's so like you."
"I know."
Wilson walked away with a smirk on his face. "Good luck, don't kill anybody." He yelled over his shoulder as he went back to work. House had no real difficulty finding this room, but he did take his time getting there. If they were mad that he didn't show up on time it was there loss, he would much rather not show up anyways. Once he found the room he wasn't sure what he should do. Should he knock, just come in or what. He knocked twice and let himself in. He was a real doctor after all and whatever this "teacher" said about him would defiantly not fire him so he could have cared less.
In his entrance he was met by an over zealous female teacher. "Ok class, here is our guest of honor today. Sorry Dr. Cuddy didn't mention your name or what you would be discussing today."
"It's Dr. House and I don't really know what I'll be talking about yet."
"Oh well…uh… class why don't you introduce yourselves. Would you like to take a seat Dr. House?"
"Sure."
Each of the eight kids introduced themselves in a very well rehearsed manner. He thought to himself while he was pretending to listen or care what they wanted to do, "I almost feel sorry for these kids. This teacher is obviously crazy and on a power trip and these kids have to pay for it." Most of them wanted to be doctors, nurses, or some sort of therapist. Little did they know that they would change their mind at least twice before coming to a conclusion or sticking with their decision only to fail later in life. They were so positive and some confident in their decision that he decided to leave that stuff alone and try to come up with what he wanted to talk about. He wasn't going to discuss his leg, he already did that once and these kids didn't know enough about medicine to do a differential on leg pain. House was just sitting there, resting his chin on his cane while in thought when he was disrupted by the teacher.
"Dr. House?"
In a gravely voice, "Yes?"
"Do you need some time to prepare?"
"Why doesn't someone discuss what you guys do here in this program while one of you goes to get me some water and then I'll be ready."
"Sure thing. Class, who would like to go get Dr. House some water?"
"Why don't you go do that for me?" House really just wanted that annoying person out of the room. He was very good at reading people and this was one person who was going to piss him off if he didn't get some time to think.
"Sure thing. I'll be back shortly. Class, listen to what he has to say."
As soon as she left the room House had to say, "Like you guys would do anything besides listen to me."
After a pause, "Is it just me or is she really, I mean absolutely annoying?"
The class just looked at each other in distraction by what he just said.
"Don't worry, your honesty won't get you in trouble."
Someone finally spoke up, "Yeah, our general consensus is that she is really annoying and basically a pain in the ass."
"I thank you for your honesty. And your name is again?"
"Jessi."
"You'll go far with that honesty, just don't let anyone get in your way. I don't."
Jessi continued. "Do you really want one of us to fill you in on what goes on here, or was that just something to get her out of here?"
"Just to get her out. Let me just think of what to talk about until she gets back and we will be set to go. Busy yourselves while I think."
Shortly after he began thinking the teacher, we will call her Ms. K from now on, returned with a pitcher of water. The class was busy writing in their journals, another Ms. K annoyance while House was staring at the wall trying to think.
"How's it going?" She broke the silence.
"It was fine until you came back."
She gave him a look that said, 'you didn't just say that' and House read her like a book.
"Yeah I did just say that, and meant it."
He finally had something that he was going to talk about. Hopefully the class would get a kick out of it.
"Now in our theme of being honest, you missed that part, I'm not going to come up here and tell you all about how great my profession is and how much I love working in the hospital, yada yada yada. I do love my job, I am a diagnostician, head of the department by the way, and I love the puzzle. The mystery of what the illness and the diagnosis, is the only reason I come to work everyday." With that the teacher interrupted him.
"Could you explain briefly what a diagnostician does?"
"Look it up, you have several medical texts, they will tell you." He dry swallowed a few Vicodin and continued.
"Like I said I work for the puzzle. Medicine is all I've got. Some people don't like that, but they have to deal. The medical field is tough and grueling. If you like having friends and a social life you can say goodbye to that or goodbye to medicine. It's demanding, you screw up and someone dies. It takes forever to get where I am and it's no fun getting to where I am. Where I am is the best part, and it took me 20 years to get here."
He stopped at this point because he couldn't stand the nodding and yes, right, uh-huh comments coming from Ms. K. This pause allowed room for her to respond yet again to his one sided discussion.
"Where did you go to school? How did you get this job?"
With a sigh he responded. "Michigan then Hopkins for a little while. I got this job because I knew Cuddy."
A class member decided to ask a question by timidly raising a hand. He nodded in their direction. "I don't mean to interrupt but what is your Vicodin for? Are you annoyed, in pain or both? And why did you only go to Hopkins for a little while?"
"The Vicodin is both for pain and annoyance. See my cane is because of my leg. I had an infarction, don't ask me what that is, you can look it up. I don't walk well and when I do my leg hurts ergo the Vicodin. As for Hopkins I left after a disagreement."
"Thank you."
"Sure."
Ms. K decided to butt in again. "Dr. House our class has been creating our philosophies of caring as you can see on our bulletin board here. May I ask what your philosophy is?"
"My philosophy is that I don't really care about the patient, just the puzzle. As for the patients, everybody lies. I say why talk to them if they are just going to lie to me. I look at their symptoms as well as their medical history and only talk to them if I absolutely have to. My lackeys do what I tell them so they deal with the patient relations."
"Oh, that's very…interesting."
Finally he couldn't take it and decided to lay into her and her fake crap.
"Not all doctors care about the patients. I do my job and go home. When my work is done, I go home. I don't stop until the puzzle is solved, if the patient won't accept my diagnosis or treatment that's there problem. Sure I don't sleep well at night when things aren't solved but I'm not going to go all zealous and caring about how they feel or what they want, other people can do that. I have a job to do and once I do it I leave."
She was quiet after that.
"I'll leave you with this final piece of advice. Don't let people take away the real you. Don't change for anyone. Be the individual that you are. Look at me. I wear jeans and Nikes to work with a t-shirt. Sure it's not professional but it's what I want. Professional looking isn't me, so I don't do it. Yes I see patients like this and no I don't wear my nametag. Once people have your trust your appearance doesn't matter. Your knowledge is your power. Be confident in what you think even if it's wrong. Stick with your ideas no matter what, you will go far and you will be recognized."
His beeper went off. "How long have I been here?"
"Uh, an hour and a half."
"Wow, well…I must go."
Instead of the teacher doing the exit piece, Jessi did it.
"Thanks for coming and telling us your truthful opinion. I guess honesty really is the best policy. Thanks for teaching us that. Would you be willing to come back and talk with us again? Maybe more of a question and answer piece?"
At first he was going to say no, but then he decided that he could get him out of clinic duty.
"Sure I can, here's my beeper number. Call anytime."
"Thanks, will do."
House left and met Wilson in the hall on his way back.
"So, how'd it go?"
"Well, after I told the teacher off it went fine. What's the page?"
"I wanted to get you out of the hell you could have gotten trapped in."
"They want me back."
"What? What did you say?"
"Yes and gave one my pager number."
"Why?"
"It will get me out of clinic duty and could be fun if that teacher isn't there."
"Fun?"
"Yeah I can have some, the kids are ambitious maybe I can sway them my way."
"Only you would think like that."
The both laughed and went their separate ways.