Molly's summer internship – a medical mission in Africa – has been a learning experience, and not just academically. The young woman has done her best to live up to everyone's expectations, but she's perpetually flubbing patient interaction. If it isn't the nervous laughter, it's the stammering or the clumsiness. The senior doctor on the mission has pulled Molly aside to discuss the improvements she needs to make.
"And try to smile more, Molly," the senior doctor counsels her. "You look so serious all the time and people find it a bit intimidating."
"Yes, Doctor MacBeth."
Molly does her best to head the older woman's words. As Dr. MacBeth suggested, taking a deep breath and thinking it out before she speaks prevents her from stammering, and she does her best to smile more. All seems to be going well until she smiles a little too broadly and says, "Have a nice day" to a mother whose child has just been diagnosed with malaria.
Doctor MacBeth drags Molly into a side room and reads her the riot act. Molly's greatest fear is that she isn't really cut out to be a doctor.
A/N: No, Molly doesn't take a gap year after her A-levels. In the UK, medical school is 5 years and pathology requires 6 more years after that (1 year of general medicine, then 5 years of pathology). According to Molly's blog, she is 31 when she meets Jim, thus it's not possible for her to have taken a gap year and still be a pathologist at Bart's at the time of ASiP. Artistic license: I am claiming it. ;)