LITMIR.BIZ

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the cubical and the EMTs were squeezed out to make way for the R.N.s who rushed in.

      “Okay ladies, I want splash guards, gowns, goggles, the whole space suit. Quickly, please,” Fuller snapped, shrugging off his blood-smeared white coat.

      I knew I should do something to help, but I could only stare at the mess on the table in front of me. I had no idea where to start.

      Blood might be the one thing I’m not afraid of. In the case of John Doe, it was not the blood that made working on him, touching him, even approaching him unthinkable. It was the fact that he looked like my dissection cadaver on the last day of Gross Anatomy.

      Puncture wounds peppered his chest. Some were small, but four or five were large enough to fit a baseball in.

      “Gunshot wounds? What the hell was he shot with, a goddamned cannon?” Dr. Fuller muttered as he probed one of the bloody holes with his gloved finger.

      It didn’t take a forensic-science degree to tell that what had caused the wounds in John Doe’s torso had not caused the wounds in his face. His jaw, or what was left of it, hung skinned from the front teeth to the splintered end, where it had been ripped from the joint to dangle uselessly from the other side of his skull. Above the gaping hole in his cheek, one eye socket stood empty and crushed, the eye itself and optical nerve completely missing.

      “I’d say someone used an axe on his head, if I thought it were possible to swing one with enough force to do this,” Dr. Fuller said. “We’re not going to get a tube down this way, his trachea’s crushed all to hell.”

      I couldn’t breathe. John Doe’s remaining eye, clear and bright blue, fixed on mine as if he were totally alert.

      It had to be a trick of the light. No one could endure this kind of trauma and remain conscious. No one could survive injuries of this magnitude. He didn’t cry out or writhe in pain. His body was limp and completely void of any reaction as the attending staff made an incision in his windpipe to intubate him.

      He never looked away.

      How can he be alive? my mind screamed. The concept destroyed the carefully constructed logic I’d built over three years of medical school. People did not live through something like this. It wasn’t in the textbooks. Yet, there he was, staring at me calmly, focused on me despite the flurry of action around us.

      For a sickening moment, I thought I heard my name from the mangled hole of his mouth. Then I realized it was Dr. Fuller’s frantic voice cutting through the haze of my paralyzed revulsion.

      “Carrie, I need you to wake up and join us! Come on, now, we’re losing this guy!”

      I could continue to stare at John Doe or turn my face to Dr. Fuller, to see him silently lose his faith in me. I don’t know what would have been more distressing, but I didn’t get to make a decision.

      I mumbled a feeble apology, turned swiftly and ran. I had barely escaped the grisly scene before I noticed the sticky splotches on the floor that stained the pristine tile a deep, glossy red. I was going to be sick. I fell to my knees in the congealing blood and closed my eyes as the bile rose in my throat. I rocked back and forth on my knees, my vomit mixing with the blood on the tiles.

      A sudden hush came from the cubicle behind me, followed by the insistent whine of the heart monitor protesting the cessation of pulse.

      “All right, he’s gone. Pack him up and get him to the morgue,” I heard Dr. Fuller say. His cool, Texan confidence crept back into his voice, though it was tainted with weariness and resignation.

      I scrambled to my feet and ran to the staff locker room, unable to face my failure.

      I was still in the locker room an hour later. Fresh from a shower, dressed in clean scrubs from central processing, I stood before the mirror and tried to smooth my wet, blond hair into something resembling a ponytail. My mascara had run in the shower and I wiped at it with my sleeve. It only served to darken the circles under my eyes. My bone-pale skin stretched sharply over my cheekbones, my blue eyes were cold and hollow. I’d never seen myself look so defeated.

      When did I become so pathetic? So cowardly? Cruelly, I taunted myself with memories I couldn’t push aside. The way I’d snickered with the other students when the skinny foreign guy had tossed his cookies on the first day of Gross Anatomy. Or the time I’d chased Amy Anderson, the queen bee of the eighth grade, from the bus stop by sticking earthworms in her hair.

      It appeared that I’d become one of those people I’d despised. To the entire E.R. medical staff at St. Mary’s Hospital, I had become the squeamish nerd, the shrieking girl. It cut so deeply, I’d need emotional sutures to heal.

      A knock at the door pulled me from my self-pity. “Ames, you still in there?”

      The door swung open. Steady footsteps carried Dr. Fuller to the end of my narrow bench.

      For a moment, he didn’t say anything at all. Without looking, I knew that he stood with his head hanging down. His hands would be in the pockets of his crisp white coat, his elbows tucked in at his sides, giving him the appearance of a tall, gray stork.

      “So, hangin’ in there?” he asked suddenly.

      I shrugged. Anything I said would have been a lame excuse for my poor performance, one akin to those uttered by countless med students who stopped showing up for class soon after.

      “You know,” he began, “I’ve seen a lot of doctors, good physicians, crack under pressure. You get tired. You get stressed, maybe you’re having personal problems. Those things happen to all of us. But some of us leave it in here—” he pointed to the lockers behind me “—instead of taking it out there. It’s what makes us capable doctors.”

      He waited for me to respond. I only nodded.

      “I know you’ve gone through a lot this year, losing your parents—”

      “This isn’t about my parents.” I hadn’t meant to cut him off, but the words were spoken before I had a chance to think about them. “I’m sorry. But really, I’m over that.”

      He sighed deeply as he sat next to me on the bench. “Why do you want to be a doctor?”

      We sat there for a long time, like a coach and a star player who had fumbled the ball, before I answered.

      “Because I want to help people.” I was lying. Badly. But even I didn’t know the reason, and he didn’t want a real answer, anyway. Real doctors lose the capacity for humanity and understanding before they grab their diplomas. “And because I love it.”

      “Well, I love golf, but that doesn’t make me Tiger Woods, does it?” He laughed at his own joke before he became thoughtful again. “You know, there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to carefully examine the goals they’ve set for themselves. When they have to admit their limitations and look at their capabilities in a more realistic way.”

      “You’re saying I should be a dentist?” I asked, forcing a laugh.

      “I’m saying you shouldn’t be a doctor.” Fuller actually patted me on the back, as though it would take the edge off his harsh words. He stood and walked toward the door, stopping suddenly as if he’d just thought of something.

      “You know,” he began, but he didn’t finish his thought. Instead he shook his head and walked out the door.

      My fists balled with anger and my breath came in noisy gasps as I struggled to regain my composure. I’d failed the Great One’s test. I should have told him I liked the money. It was considerably better than a stick in the eye. Though they were both reasons people entered the field, neither financial security nor desire to help others were my true motivation for becoming a doctor.

      It was the power that drew me to it. The power of holding a human life in my hands. The power of looking Death in the face and knowing I could defeat him. It was a power reserved for doctors and God.

      I’d pictured myself a modern-day Merlin, a scalpel

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