I have so many questions. As the upperclassmen file out of the room, I tap Stuart on the shoulder. “Why do they call him Fancy Forks? And who’s Jake-O?”
Stuart shrugs and turns back to his pocket-size copy of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. A young woman with lustrous waist-length brown hair, perfect eye makeup, and an Italian accent leans over from her seat behind me. “And why can’t we wear open-toed shoes?”
Clark looks over his shoulder at her, does a double take, spins around in his chair, and grins toothily. “I have no idea, but . . . hello.” He extends his hand. “I’m Clark.” His usual gruff demeanor has evaporated, replaced by a leering intensity that, I think, he believes is charming.
The young woman is unaffected. “I’m Bianca. And I’m married.”
Clark retracts his hand, nods in acknowledgment, and wordlessly turns back around in his seat.
“J-C-H-O, not Jake-O. It’s the Joint Commission of Hospitals.” A twitchy young woman with red-rimmed glasses is sitting next to Bianca. She speaks at nearly three times the average rate of words per minute. “They inspect hospitals to make sure they’re following the rules. Hospitals are terrified of JCHO. Open-toed shoes mean that a needle or something could fall on your toe and injure you and then—watch out! Lawsuit. I’m Imani, by the way. I’m from Wisconsin. Yup, the land of cheese. I’m going to Mass General for an ophthalmology residency next year. I’m just here for my intern year. I had no idea it gets so hot in Philadelphia!” She turns to me, wide-eyed with admiration. “Is it true you shocked a patient on your first day? That’s amazing!”
Taken off guard, I stare at her blankly for a moment before replying, “Thanks. I guess.”
“Diltiazem would have worked just as well,” Stuart, without looking up from his book, mutters resentfully.
Clark leans in to interrupt. “So, fellow interns, where are we drinking tonight?”
Before anyone can reply, Ethan and Francesca approach our group. We straighten in our seats.
“Okay, newbies,” Ethan says. “You five are the few, the proud, the bottom of the totem pole. Your job is to admit patients from the Emergency Department, round on them every day, attend to their every need, and keep the nurses from bothering us.”
Francesca nods. “Your pager should never, ever leave your side, even when you’re not on duty.”
“Call is every third night, give or take. The schedule is in the residents’ lounge,” Ethan says. “No, you don’t get to choose when you’re on call. Also, you’ll be assigned to a different service every two and a half months. No, you don’t get to choose where you’re assigned.”
“You’ll round with your assigned attending every morning,” Francesca says. “You’ll be either on time or early to rounds. Those are the two choices.”
“Don’t trust the ED attendings.”
“Don’t trust the nurses.”
“Double-check everything yourself.”
“Don’t take shortcuts.”
“Don’t kill anyone. That’s an important one. And stay hydrated.”
“Coffee is not a good replenishment fluid.”
“And try not to defibrillate anyone unnecessarily.” Ethan winks at me, and my face burns with humiliation again. “Any questions?”
My head is spinning. My fellow interns are silent and subdued.
Francesca makes aggressive eye contact with each of us in turn. “Most important, remember that your work reflects on me and Ethan, on our attendings, and on the reputation of this hospital. You’re all members of the Team now. The Team saves lives. The Team has each other’s backs. The Team rises and falls together and is only as strong as its weakest link. And right now, you guys are all the weakest links.” She pauses, and for a moment it seems as though she might finish her thought with an encouraging word or a bit of motivational wisdom. Instead, abruptly cheerful, she says, “Okay. Don’t just sit there! Let’s get to work!”
We stand in unison, causing a cacophony of screeching desks. Clark leans over to Stuart, his eyes sunken and bewildered. “Seriously, dude. Where are we drinking?”
* * *
* * *
At 12:00 p.m., I step out of the hospital lobby and into the midday sunshine, blinking. The scent of Philadelphia in the summertime—something not unlike the scent inside a portable toilet—envelops me in a steamy fog. I dodge lunch trucks and idling taxis to cross the street, then turn back and look up at the dual soaring, sand-colored hospital towers. A circular drive leads to the sleek sliding doors of the Emergency Department. Overhead, a glass-enclosed walkway connects the parking garage to the second floor of the hospital. On the side of the building, the words Philadelphia General Hospital, est. 1875 are carved into the limestone facade in stately script.
Standing on the sidewalk amid the ebb and flow of wheelchairs and white coats, sweat drenching my collar, I sigh. If I didn’t come back here tomorrow, I doubt anyone would miss me. Just another intern who couldn’t handle the grind, a frightening, cautionary tale for future classes of interns: Look to your left, look to your right. Do you see Norah Kapadia? No. Because she was a terrible doctor and shocked a man for no reason and stuck herself and contracted hepatitis C and quit. Don’t be like her.
I reach into my pocket for my phone. Seven missed calls. Crap.
I set off toward home, the phone pressed to my ear.
“I’ve been trying to call you since last night.” Her tone is vexed and resentful. How dare I worry her.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was my first night on call, and it was really busy—”
“Whole night, Norah. I didn’t sleep whole night.” Articles don’t factor strongly into my mother’s speech pattern. In her native Gujarati, there’s no grammatical equivalent of “the” or “a.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t pick up. But I didn’t sleep the whole night either.”
“One text! You couldn’t send one text? Did you know—I saw it on Dateline—criminals are more likely to attack woman with glasses and ponytail? And what do you have? Glasses and ponytail! I was so worried about you. I tried calling hospital, but they wouldn’t page you, and then I called Paul, and he came over at two a.m. to sit with me because I couldn’t sleep and my blood sugar was 345. It was terrible!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You called Paul? Why didn’t he text me?”
“He didn’t want to bother you, of course,” she says impatiently. “I was going to send him to hospital to look for you, but then Nimisha said—”