Chapter 11: Going overboard… and surviving to tell the tale
Jimmy bit his lower lip as he leaned over the outstretched leg before him, carefully ending the sutures on the gash the black athletic teen had done on herself as she fell off her bike during an endurance race a couple of hours earlier.
"I've made that snobbish bitch eat dust. I've had already left three different competitors behind before that branch came out of nowhere and knocked me off the trail."
"Yeah, branches are very dangerous. I remember one time I was maybe nine and I hit my head in one while leaving school. I was running from Jake, he was a huge boy with fists this big," He paused to show how big Jake's fists would have looked like to his child's eyes, making the teen look horrified at him, before continuing his tale, "so I decided that I had enough. I was going to stand up for myself and not suffer his hazing and bullying anymore."
"Really?" The teen fidgeted on the bed, her eyes firmly on the young doctor whose attention was back on the sutures. "What did you do to him?"
"To him? Nothing?" He smiled self-consciously, sending her a glance before lowering his gaze back to the last suture in her upper thigh and finally dosing a cotton ball in a proper cleaning liquid and rubbing it on the newly sutured gash.
"The very next day I saw him I ran like hell in the opposite direction, not even caring about my backpack that I had dropped at the school steps. I was so desperate to get away from him that I kept looking back to check if he was on my tail that I ended up hitting my head on a low laying branch of a tree on my way home. I literally saw stars. And a couple of constellations too."
"Wow. Did it hurt a lot?"
"Oh… not really. I was knocked out cold and had to be rescued by one of my neighbors. I had a mild concussion, a very nasty cut in my hairline and had to stay for two days at home. But at least I didn't get beaten by Jake anymore."
He finished wrapping the leg in gaze, tapping lightly on her knee to signalize he was done. "But since then I have always been very wary… of tree branches." He said in a low tone, making her giggle and forget momentarily of the pain in her leg. He turned to her mother who was watching at the conversation amused.
"I'm prescribing a couple of pain meds, just to dull the pain. The sutures must be protected from water so no baths for you, young lady." The teen giggled again at the mock reproach on his voice. "Just showers, and if by any chance you start to feel warm around the wound, return immediately to the E.R."
"Thanks, Dr. Palmer." The teen said, slowly standing up and leaving the bed, supported by her mother. Jimmy signaled to one orderly, who brought a wheelchair and gently rolled her out of the cubicle. He watched her going away with her mom, just to find Gloria standing right in the middle of the corridor, her hawk-like gaze fixed on him, her stern face showing not even a hint of emotion.
He gulped, aware of the power that woman held in that E.R. She leaned her head to the side and gestured that he should follow her, an order that he had learned right on the first day that should be obeyed straight away. He scurried out of his cubicle and dropped his stethoscope on the tray of a passing nurse. When she looked at him questioningly, he just pointed to Gloria's fading figure at the end of the corridor, immediately receiving a pitying look from the nurse.
He ran after her, doing his best to avoid orderlies, patients and other doctors, finally reaching her as she turned to the left and entered another area, reserved for doctors and interns. She pointed to one of the offices, used for meetings of the board, silently ordering him to get in there and wait for his slaughter like a good little lamb.
He nodded shakily and moved towards the door, opening and entering the room. He gulped as he found three other doctors, whose faces he had seen around the E.R. for the last couple of days, as well as another two people he had not met before.
"Take a seat, Dr. Palmer. This meeting is about to start." One of his colegues, Dr. Mortensen, said in a calming tone.
Shaking a little, he sat at the lonely chair before the board panel, seeing the scrutinizing gazes of his colleagues and the ever serious gaze of Gloria.
"Dr. Palmer," the bald man sitting at the right at the center of the assembly said, "It has come to our attention how hard you have been working in our premises despite the fact you are not officially one of our fulltime residents."
"Ah… ohh… you see… I was…"
The other man in a suit interrupted him, sternly gazing at Jimmy over his white rimmed glasses. "According to our regulations, no doctor should work without a full background check done by our administration, as a valid requirement to avoid law suits in the nearby future."
"Oh… well…"
"Do you have anything to say to the board about your qualifications and how this matter can be properly handled?" the suited man asked, his face not showing a hint of emotion.
"Ah… I'm sorry if I've been a nuisance." He gulped, looking chagrined at Gloria, who was sitting at the very last spot of the board table with an inscrutable expression on her face. "I just wanted to help and there was a job to be done, and I simply couldn't step back and let someone hurt stay untreated. I … Dr. Lee" Jimmy pointed to an oriental looking one, who had ordered him into the E.R and gave him several of his patients to be treated. "Dr. Lee has been invaluable in his sorting out of tasks and …" He pointed to another doctor at the table, whose arms reminded Jimmy of professional football players "… and Dr. Lawrence is aware of my dedication to medicine…"
"You haven't answered our question, Dr. Palmer. How can this matter be properly handled?" The bald man, who Jimmy had just guessed must be the hospital director, asked. He was a stern man with an eagle's eyes and with a shiny bald head completely devoid of any hair.
"Oh…" Jimmy's gaze went from Gloria, to Lee and to Lawrence, finding no clue of what to answer to him. "I don't know. I really don't."
Gloria decided that it was time to stop playing with their food. It was time to make the final blow and just sit back and watch the fireworks. She stood up, calling up everyone's eyes to her tiny figure at the end of the meeting's table.
"I do."
"Oh… So… what are you going to do?"
"Well, Dr. Palmer, our only chance to redeem the situation at hand is to correct your status at the hospital. If anything goes wrong in your hands the hospital is liable to be charged by unbecoming medical practices or dereliction of duty, as you're not even in our employees' list."
Jimmy blanched, thinking of lawsuits and endless years in prison, lawyers and the possibility of losing his license for a tiny mistake, and still having to pay for the court bills on top of his current financial situation.
"But ma'am… ahh…"
"So, we will hire you as one of our trauma doctors, backlogging your admission date to the date of the accident. You will be paid for the normal working hours as well as the extra hours you've clocked since you've arrived. Oh, and we you will not be charged for sleeping at the doctor's lounge but I suggest you talk to your work colleagues to help you find a place for yourself with no delay. Dr. Lawrence has an empty room in his apartment complex as his previous flatmate decided to give up practicing Medicine to go hike the Himalayas. "
Jimmy was blinking shocked at her, his mouth opening and closing as a gaping fish out of water as he tried to comprehend what was happening with him. He looked at Lawrence, who was trying very hard to keep a smirk off his face.
"He decided to broaden his horizons. Who am I to blame him?"
"Would you have gone with him if given the chance?" Lee asked, showing a saucy smile as he tried to imagine that prissy looking doctor in winter clothes hiking in the snow and hail.
"No, man. Orange is not my color. Couldn't let the ladies grieve my absence for too long while I was trying to find my inner peace in a Monastery. Do I look like a monk to you? " Lawrence gave him a smirk, eliciting chuckles of the board members who finally left the serious faces drop now that their intentions had come to air.
"Not a monk. A monkey perhaps. A Chimp." Gloria said earning laughter from the two doctors.
"Oh… you're saying…" Jimmy was still trying to find words but none came.
The hospital director stood up, a hand distractedly checking the buttons of his four hundred dollar suit. "You're one of us now, kid. Now go to HR, give them your personal info and they will give you your own hospital ID in less than an hour. Then get your ass back to my E.R. and work your ass off to prove that we haven't made a mistake in trusting our patients in your hands."
"No sir, it wasn't a mistake."
"I want you to prove that to me, kid."
"I won't disappoint you, sir."
"Good. This meeting is dismissed." The director nodded to Gloria, who was smirking at the director with an I-told-you-so glint in her eyes. He chuckled and gestured to the other board members to leave. Jimmy stood up and had his hand shaken by each board member before they've left, leaving only the doctors behind with the hyperventilating young man.
"Hey, Palmer, we're clocking out in two hours. Wanna check the room in my place?" Lawrence offered, tapping him on his shoulder and receiving a still glazed look from Jimmy, who was nervously running shaking fingers through his messy brown hair.
"Ah… oh… sure, where is it?"
"Lawrence has a super house six blocks from here. It's almost like a train station/sideroad motel as most of the interns or residents as some point in their lives have lived, visited or attended a function in the house." Lee said, nodding to Jimmy.
"Really?"
"Yeah, my dad owned the place. I just refurbished it to have independent bathrooms and stuff so I could sublet it. It has eight small apartments fully independent."
"Wow…"
"Enough of chit chat, boys." Gloria interfered, making all three young doctors look at her. "I'm glad you are all getting cozy with my newest toy, but I was under the impression we're running a hospital here, not a dating service. Lee, I want you to take a look at the diaphragm fix they've done at the patient in room 430 and Lawrence, you'd better give me a definite diagnosis on that chronic pain patient on 338. Dr. Palmer, just got a text from the front desk, there's a GSW coming in five. I want to see your skinny ass scrubbed down and in position for the bus arrival in five."
Jimmy was feeling still dazed with all that had happened, smiling loopy to Grace. "Can you repeat that?"
She squinted her eyes at him, her patience getting thinner by the second. "You'd better move that skinny ass of yours and get your butt into clean scrubs, we have a GSW coming in five."
"Not that. I've got that. The part you've called me doctor."
Gloria smiled, shaking her head at his puppy face. "Well, Dr. Palmer, move your skinny ass and scrub up, we have patients to see, lives to save, sutures to make. GO!"