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Melbourne in the spring and everything that it offered.

      ‘Noah.’

      The familiar deep voice behind him made him reluctantly slow and he turned to face the distinguished man the nursing staff called the silver fox.

      ‘You got a minute?’ Daniel Serpell asked.

      No. But that wasn’t a word an intern or registrar ever said to the chief of surgery. ‘Sure.’

      The older man nodded slowly. ‘Great job on that lacerated liver on Tuesday. Impressive.’

      The unexpected praise from the hard taskmaster made Noah want to punch the air. ‘Thanks. It was touch and go for a bit and we almost put the blood bank into deficit but we won.’

      ‘No one in this hospital has any doubt about your surgical abilities, Noah.’

      Something about the way his boss hit the word surgical made Noah uneasy. ‘That’s a good thing, right?’

      ‘There are nine areas of competency to satisfy the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.’

      Noah was familiar with every single one of them now that his final surgical exams were only a few months away. ‘Got them all covered, Prof.’

      ‘You might think that, Noah, but others don’t agree.’ He reached inside his jacket and produced a white envelope with Noah’s name printed on it.

      ‘What’s this?’

      ‘Your solution to competency number two.’

      ‘I don’t follow.’

      The prof sighed. ‘Noah, I can’t fault you on technical skills and I’d trust you to operate on me, my wife and my family. You’re talented with your patients when they’re asleep but we’ve had complaints from your dealings with them when they’re awake.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’ve also had complaints from staff.’

      Noah’s gut clenched so tight it burned and the envelope in his hand suddenly developed a crushing weight. ‘Is this an official warning?’

      ‘No, not at all,’ the prof said genially. ‘I’m on your side and this is the solution to your problem.’

      ‘I didn’t know I had a problem,’ he said, not able to hide his defensiveness.

      The professor raised a brow. ‘And after this, I hope you won’t have one either.’

      ‘You’re sending me on a communications course?’ The idea of sitting around in a circle with a group of strangers and talking about feelings appalled him.

      ‘Everything you need to know is in the envelope. Just make sure you’re ready to start at eight o’clock on Monday morning.’ He clapped a hand on Noah’s shoulder. ‘Enjoy your weekend off.’

      As his boss walked away, Noah’s anxiety ramped up ten notches and the pristine, white envelope now ticked like an unexploded bomb. Not wanting to read it in public, he walked quickly to the doctors’ lounge, thankfully finding it empty. He ripped open the envelope and scanned the brief letter.

       Dear Dr Jackson

       Your four-week rotation at the Turraburra Medical Clinic commences on Monday, August 17th at eight a.m. Accommodation, if required, is provided at the doctor’s flat located on Nautalis Parade. Collect the key from the real estate agent in Williams Street before noon, Saturday. See the enclosed map and tourist information, which we hope will be of assistance to you.

       Enjoy your rotation in Turraburra—the sapphire of South Gippsland.

       Nancy Beveridge

       Surgical Trainee Placement Officer.

      No. No way. Noah’s intake of breath was so sharp it made him cough. This could not be happening. They couldn’t do this to him. Not now. Suddenly, the idea of a communications course seemed positively fun.

      Relax. You must have read it wrong. Fighting the red heat of rage that was frantically duelling with disbelief, he slowly reread the letter, desperately hoping he’d misunderstood its message. As his eyes scrolled left to right and he slowed his mind down to read each and every word, it made no difference. The grim message the black and white letters told didn’t change.

      He was being exiled—sent rural—and the timing couldn’t be worse. In fact, it totally sucked. Big time. He had less than six months before he sat his final surgical examinations and now more than ever his place was at the Victoria. He should be here, doing cutting-edge surgery, observing the latest technology, attending tutorials and studying. Always studying. He should not be stuck in a country clinic day in, day out, listening to the ramblings of patients with chronic health issues that surgery couldn’t solve.

      General practice. A shudder ran through him at the thought. There was a reason he’d aimed high and fought for his hard-earned place in the surgical programme, and a large part of it was to avoid the mundane routine of being a GP. He had no desire at all to have a long and ongoing connection with patients or get to know their families or be introduced to their dogs. This was blatantly unfair. Why the hell had he been singled out? Damn it, none of the other surgical registrars had been asked to do this.

      A vague memory of Oliver Evans bawling him out months ago flickered across his mind but surely that had nothing to do with this. Consultants yelled at registrars from time to time—usually during moments of high stress when the odds were stacked against them and everyone was battling to save a patient’s life. Heated words were exchanged, a lot of swearing went down but at the end of the day it was forgotten and all was forgiven. It was all part of the cut and thrust of hospital life.

      Logic immediately penetrated his incredulity. The prof had asked him to teach a workshop to the new interns in less than two weeks so this Turraburra couldn’t be too far away from downtown Melbourne. Maybe he was just being sent to the growth corridor—the far-flung edges of the ever-growing city, the outer, outer ‘burbs. That wouldn’t be too bad. A bit of commuting wouldn’t kill him and he could listen to his training podcasts on the drive there and back each day.

      Feeling more positive, he squinted at the dot on the map.

      His expletive rent the air, staining it blue. He’d been banished to the back of beyond.

      Lilia Cartwright, never Lil and always Lily to her friends, stood on a whitewashed dock in the ever-brightening, early morning light. She stared out towards the horizon, welcoming the sting of salt against her cheeks, the wind in her hair, and she smiled. ‘New day, Chippy,’ she said to her tan and white greyhound who stared up at her with enormous, brown, soulful eyes. ‘Come on, mate, look a bit more excited. After this walk, you’ll have another day ahead of you of lazing about and being cuddled.’

      Chippy tugged on his leash as he did every morning when they stood on the dock, always anxious to get back indoors. Back to safety.

      Lily loved the outdoors but she understood only too well Chippy’s need for safe places. Given his experiences during the first two years of his life, she didn’t begrudge him one little bit, but she was starting to think she might need a second dog to go running with to keep fit. Walking with Chippy hardly constituted exercise because she never broke a sweat.

      Turning away from the aquamarine sea, she walked towards the Turraburra Medical Centre. In the grounds of the small bush nursing hospital and nursing home, the glorious bluestone building had started life a hundred and thirty years ago as the original doctor’s house. Now, fully restored, it was a modern clinic. She particularly loved her annexe—the midwifery clinic and birth centre. Although it was part of the medical centre, it had a separate entrance so her healthy, pregnant clients didn’t have to sit in a waiting room full of coughing and hacking sick people. It had been one of the best days of her career when the Melbourne Midwifery Clinic had responded to her grant application and incorporated Turraburra into their outreach programme for rural and isolated women.

      The clinic

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