Aadvika’s articles

Chapter 2:

Dr. Kalani waits for all of the interns to line up next to each other, like an army in front of their sergeant. Her dark, bold, brown eyes skim past each of us, hands behind her back, examining how we look. Her eyebrow flinches up, her wrinkled white skin folding up, she drops it back down with a small polite smile that’s as rare as diamond. 

“This week,” she says all of a sudden, “is your last week of training before your medical exams come up,” she emphasizes as she starts walking to her left, slowly looking through each of our eyes, “Please start studying and work hard, we wouldn’t want to waste one year of training just to see you didnt pass.” She stops for a second and her eyes make her way to mine. She doesn’t blink, I lift my hand to slide my bangs away from my eyes, making hard rock eye contact. “After the exam this Friday, you all are allowed to return home for the weekend.” Still maintaining her eye contact she forms a little smile on her face as my mind recognizes what she means. She knows my joy at returning home. Subconsciously, I smiled back, home was one of the only things that made me feel safe. She moves her body left and starts walking again as she speaks again, “Let’s make this week our best. Time to get to training ladies!” She clapped cheerfully. 

We all start walking to where we meet up, waiting for our resident to find us. My pace picks up, walking through the hospital’s lobby with patients everywhere, closing near my destination. Zooming past everyone, I reach my designated area which is a brown bench in the lobby. On each side, stood 2 tall pillars with torn paint. My feet shifted to the pillar as my shoulder and head found its place leaned on it. My eyes scan the hospital, observing every detail. In one week, this place I worked so hard to get into is in the hospital. There’s a section of  freshly painted white walls, replacing the torn paint that kept on gradually falling onto the vinyl floor. There were barely any rooms, only used for ICU purposes. Patients were in this open area separated by curtains on hospital beds which lined up in one row. Other doctors made their way to their patients, opening rusty red boxes with knobs and buttons, and a stethoscope they proceeded to take out, placing it in their ears and picking up the chest piece and placing it on their body. The bodies rise and fall like a wave, just to get hearts checked. This is what it was… this is what my future was going to look like… as soon as I passed this test. My head turns over to my group, cluttered together, talking, smiling, laughing. While I’m just a few feet away, it feels like I’m worlds away, because there was never a place for me. I snap out of that cloud of thought, as a recognizable voice startles me, stepping back, about to trip. Our resident Dr. Ambrose walks towards my group with her hair up in a tidy bun, and smiles looking at us with her sea color eyes. “Congratulations on your last week, I hope the best to all, but now it’s time to work.” She expresses cheerfully. She waves her hand towards her gesturing for us to follow her. She takes our group to a patient near the end of the many rows in this hospital. My group crowds the patient, which leaves me in the back, unable to see him. As she closes the curtains around them,  she reads off a clipboard in hand, and continues to read out the patient’s details. 

“Everyone, this is Mr. Clifton, and he came in with pain in the…,” Dr. Ambrose pulled her glasses out of her coat and placed them on her nose. “Joints- the joints, especially in his fingers, knees, hips, neck, and lower back. He can’t move as much as he used to, and experiences stiffness and swelling. Now, Mr Clifton doesn’t know what’s wrong. Someone tell me what common condition Mr. Clifton could possibly have. Starting in,” Dr. Ambrose grabs her stopwatch, her nimble finger ready to start, “3…2…1.” 

My mind races for answers, pain in joints… neck, fingers, back, along with limited movements and stiffness means… Aha! The answer popped into my head, but before I shouted it out loud I slowly made my way to the front, politely while everyone else was thinking. 

I shifted into a comfortable position, as one girl said, “It’s Arthritis!”

“Excellent Kathy! Do you know what type?”

She falls silent, unable to answer. Doctor sighs and looks at the rest of us, hoping for an answer. This was my chance, my hand shooting up into the air eager to answer. Dr. Ambrose catches my arm up in the air and points at me, giving me permission to answer. My mouth opened and read to answer, but before I said anything… I hesitated. What if I get judged? But we were timed so would it matter? My voice came out a bit dry, but I proceeded to answer.

“It’s Osteoarthritis.” I say aloud.

“How do you know?” She asks me.

“The symptoms match precisely, and another factor is that the appearance of Mr. Clifton is around 60 and above. OA occurs typically in older people.” Informing everyone how it fits the profile. 

“New record! 42 seconds. Now, looking at his family history, it seems like arthritis is common, but,” She turns back to Mr. Clifton smiles, “to be accurate, we will take a blood test and we’ll take a look at a few of your joints.”

“Sounds great,” He says smiling. He looks at me, and nods, acknowledging his condition. 

“Naomi, please take a simple blood test and examine his joints. Take the blood sample to the lab.” Dr. Ambrose directs, and turns over to me asking, “You know how to do that, correct?”

I reply with a simple, “Yes Dr. Ambrose.” 

She smiles back and talks to the rest of the group, “Each of you will get assigned a patient today, based on how you answer and how well you know this information. If we get any surgeries, you might be able to scrub in! Naomi, we’ll leave you to it, and he’ll be yours for the rest of the week.” She looks over at me to make sure I comprehended. I gave a simple nod and the group made their way past me, some looking back and eyeing me. The looks were filled with anger, jealousy, and hatred. I took a deep breath and looked towards Mr. Clifton. He had grey hair, wrinkles all around his face and brown eyes. His gaze meets mine and he looks happy, not disgusted that an Asian is treating him. Maybe this won’t be as bad. 

To be continued

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