"Oh my god, Arizona, I thought Dr. Grey was going to murder me today. It's our first day alone together and she made me rewrite half of my operative notes. Do you know how long one operative note took me? Let me remind you that this did not include the pre-operative notes NOR the consultation notes…" Teddy said, plopping down onto our apartment sofa, beer in hand.
Teddy and I had lived together since sophomore of undergrad. She was easily the best friend I had made in college and, thankfully, we lived together well. We were both pre-medical students too, so that made things easy. We also happened to start this scribe job on the same day. She apparently had a trial run with Dr. Grey today, as I had had one with Dr. Torres.
"Please tell me that your day went as horribly as my day and that I am not a complete idiot," She pleaded.
"Well, you're not an idiot…." I said. She scowled briefly.
"So…did you like Dr. Torres? I hear she is quite the spitfire. I am supposed to work with her tomorrow" She said.
"She can be a spitfire I guess...but she is really cool so far. I like her. A lot. I am really hoping I get placed with her," Teddy raised her eyebrows at me, suspicious. She knew I wasn't one to warm up to anyone quickly, especially authoritative figures. I thought back to my introductory chemistry course, where I cried the second week of classes when my professor asked me to explain a dehalogenation mechanism in front of the class…
"Well, good for you. Looks like I will be living on the streets next month as I will likely be fired tomorrow…" I laughed at her, shaking my head.
"You are not going to get fired, Teddy. Remember her criticism and keep sucking up to her. You're good at that"
"Yeah whatever" She mumbled, taking a large drink of her beer. I dropped the conversation, secretly hoping she DID have a terrible day with Dr. Torres tomorrow. Dr. Torres and I had really clicked today. It was obvious to me that we worked well together. I just hoped she had felt the same way.
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Five days later, I meet with the chief scribe, April Kepner, regarding which surgeon I would be placed with permanently.
"So, Arizona, you had really good reviews from the five surgeons you followed. I know you have a strong interest in pediatrics and general surgery, but I am going to have to place you with Dr. Torres from orthopedics. She by far has the heaviest caseload surgery wise and therefore needs the most help from a scribe. Also, you said you had 100 percent availability this year so really this makes the most sense"
BOOYA, I think to myself.
"More importantly, Dr. Torres called me specifically to ask for you. She said you were excellent and was willing to give you a raise if it meant she could have you as her scribe. No physician has ever called me asking for a specific scribe, ever. Excellent work Arizona, though if I didn't know better, I would think she had a little crush on you"
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I held onto the details of April and I's conversation for the remainder of the week, particularly the word crush. Because my feelings towards Dr. Torres are exactly that. Yes I have to follow her around as a job, but I watch her incessantly, and I know it. Even on days when she is so busy she barely utters a word to me, I watch her. Do I feel creepy sometimes? Absolutely. I have a little crush on a 34 year old, married, straight, beautiful, smart, perfect, woman. I am a 23-year-old aspiring physician, current medical scribe with a very limited sexual experience aside from random college hook ups with both men and women, which, for the record, were hardly more pleasurable than a hug from my aunt Sue. I have less than $2000 to my name. I can hardly afford my apartment even with my roommate, Teddy. I haven't been on a real date in over a year. Hell, if we are being honest, the only person that has ever made me cum was a one-night stand with a woman named Lauren. That was actually more of a success on my part than hers though; who knew dry humping for 15 minutes halfway to black out drunk could produce an orgasm!
I know I am crazy, and I don't expect anything at all. I just, can't stop watching her.
After a particularly early morning a week or so after I had started working with her, (5:00am for Dr. Torres. 4:30am for me, I had gotten used to preparing my first surgical note prior to arrival as well as getting her an iced chai each morning, which always brought a small smile to her face) she invited me to the physician's lounge for lunch. Technically scribes aren't supposed to get in on the free food they offer the surgeons, but Dr. Torres and I both knew no one would question her about it just this time.
After sitting down with food on our plates, I struggle to start a conversation, partially because I was intimidated by both her and my surroundings, but also because I just wanted to know everything about her. I didn't know where to start.
"So, Arizona, what are your plans for the future?" Dr. Torres asks me nonchalantly.
I was surprised by the question. She hadn't asked me anything about myself in the week we had worked together. Though, I guess I hadn't inquired much about her either.
"Well, I applied to medical school a month or so ago" I said.
"Excellent, which schools?"
"University of Washington, Mayo, Johns Hopkins, a few schools in California, a couple safety schools, like Medical College of Wisconsin and Creighton…"
"I went to Johns Hopkins. I loved it there." She says with a smile. "How did you do in undergrad? And on the MCAT?"
"My undergrad GPA was just above 3.9. I scored a 36 on the MCAT" I say more proudly than I should, barely flinches. I wish I could say something, anything to impress her.
"Well, I am sure you will get in somewhere" She says and returns to eating.
As we continue eating, I notice Dr. Hunt walks into the lounge. He pats Dr. Shepherd on the back and grabs a plate. I wonder if he will sit by us. Oh god, I think, this could get extremely awkward. Maybe I should leave, I think to myself. But then I see him look up. He makes eye contact with me, looks down, puts his plate down, grabs a sandwich and leaves the lounge. He knows I am Dr. Torres's scribe; we have interacted briefly in passing. Once this week, he has dropped by Dr. Torres's office, saying he needed to trade cars so he could get his oil changed, and she had hardly more than nodded before he was already gone. Was he avoiding Dr. Torres? This made me more curious about her than ever.
"I think your husband was just here," I say suddenly, surprising even myself that I had opened my mouth.
She looks over each shoulder, as if he were going to suddenly appear again. When she doesn't see him, she shrugs her shoulders
"I'm sure he is busy," she says simply.
I look at her, trying so hard to read her. But I see nothing, no reaction at all.
"Maybe" I say tentatively. Suddenly I can't control my curiosity.
"So, where did you two meet?"
I can tell my comment takes her off guard, as she stiffens briefly. But she relaxes quickly, looking me in the eye.
"We met in high school actually. I was a freshman; he was a senior. We were always close friends, nothing more than platonic at first. We ended up going to the same college, same medical school. We started dating my first year of medical school. After he graduated that same year, he decided to do his residency through the military to pay off some debt, serve his country," She began twiddling her fork in her fingers, gathering her thoughts, she looked away for a second then back at me, "and I stuck by him. By the time he was back for more than a week at a time, I was doing residency here and he was the lead trauma surgeon. We got married my first year of residency. It all happened...so fast." She looks away again, but I can't stop staring. Every time she hangs on a word, I feel myself lean forward, as if I can extract her words from her myself.
"But here we are! Married for 8 years. He was gone for another 2 years in Iraq a year ago..." again she trails off, and I am left hanging. She starts gathering stuff, wiping her mouth one last time.
"That must have been hard" I say, trying to get just one more piece of information, to feel like I know her just that much more. But she just sighs and nods.
"Sometimes things just make sense, you know?" And without another word, she gets up, throws her food away and walks out the door. I am used to blindly following her around without having to say so. But as she walks by me scrambling to get my stuff together, I swear I can see the tears welled in her eyes.
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About an hour later, I was still waiting at her office to meet her for afternoon surgeries. Had I gone too far? Pushed her to talk about something that was way beyond the scope of our collegial relationship? I thought about having her scrub nurse paging her, but I didn't have a reason to do so. So I paced, back and forth in her office, hoping she wasn't just avoiding me until April came to fire me.
"Stop pacing, Arizona. Follow me," Callie half yelled at me, startling me. She started walking down the hallway towards the OR.
"Do you have a surgery scheduled?" I asked sheepishly.
"No, I am done operating for the day," She said flatly.
"Oh." I said, too afraid to ask where we were going. She stopped dead in front of OR 1, the OR typically reserved for imminent life saving operations or organ transplants. I had never been in there myself.
"April, your boss, told me you had an interest in general surgery and pediatric surgery" Callie stated.
"I…uh…It's hard to say at this point…" I mumbled.
"So you don't want to see the product of a 6 year old's heart transplant? The beating heart of a 6 year old inside of a different 6 year old?" She asked. A smile grew across my face.
"That's what I thought," she said before I could respond, opening the doors to OR 1
"Where have you been Dr. Torres? You have held us up from closing for 10 minutes!"
"Sorry, Dr. Stark. We will only be a minute. I just wanted to show my scribe your beautiful work." Callie said.
"Well, make it quick" he said, stepping away from the OR table.
Callie waved me forward as the scrub nurses hastily gowned, masked and gloved us. I had never stood so close to the OR table before. Usually I am in the back of the room, typing away as Callie dictated certain parts of the surgery she wanted included in her operative note. The bright lights of the OR were shining in my face, the cool, still air of the OR left me slightly chilled but all the while content, as I had no time to focus on how I was feeling. I was completely absorbed in what was right in front of me. Here, now, I was less than a foot from a live, beating, transplanted pediatric heart. Watching that heart beat seamlessly, as if it were in the body it was born into, felt like no less than a miracle.
Absorbed in this incredible moment, I failed to realize that Callie was standing across the OR table watching me. I looked up and saw her there, her eyes beaming at me.
"Incredible isn't it?" She said. Her eyes were lit up so brightly, it was almost as if I could see her smiling through her mask. For a second I didn't think I would be able to form words I was so carried away in this moment. Not only this experience in the OR, but sharing this experience with Callie, was surreal.
"Amazing" I sputtered out.
"Alright, alright, I gotta close this kid up before we put him at further risk for infection" Dr. Stark said shooing us away from the OR table. Callie and I tore our masks, gloves and gowns off and exited the OR in unison. I couldn't wipe the stupid smile off my face; the high had followed me out of the OR.
"Dr. Torres, thank you so much for showing me that. I will never forget it." She nodded, a look of dissonance replacing the joy that had previously overwhelmed her face.
"Don't forget this feeling, Arizona. One day you will wake up and forget you ever felt it at all"