“The patient in room 5 needs her progress checked,” his attending, Kathleen Ferguson, said as she walked by him in the hall. Ammon pocketed his phone, feeling a little chastised. He removed his glasses, which he wore during long shifts at the hospital instead of his contacts, and rubbed his tired eyes. With a deep breath, he replaced his glasses and headed to room 5, occupied by a patient he hadn’t met yet.
As someone for whom most things came easily, Ammon was finding his residency challenging in every single way. He might come off as a confident doctor, especially when arguing with a home birth midwife, but a large part of him wasn’t sure he’d picked the right field of medicine. He viewed every new patient he met as an opportunity to recapture the excitement he’d felt years ago in med school when he’d done his labor and delivery rotation. If he could feel that absolute awe again of bringing a baby into the world, maybe he’d feel like he made the right choice. That he belonged here.
“Get out of my room,” the patient yelled as soon as he entered. “I said no medical students.”
Ammon stepped forward and put on a charming smile that usually put patients at ease. “Good thing I’m not a medical student,” he said as he opened a package of sterile gloves. “I’m working with Dr. Ferguson tonight. I’m Dr. Parker.”
The patient sat up in bed, her round belly smooth and bulbous beneath the white sheet. “I told you to get out.”
Ammon snapped the gloves onto his hands. “I’m just here to check your dilation.”
“I don’t want a pretty-boy medical student touching me.”
Ammon felt a flush moving up his neck. “I understand, ma’am, but I am not a medical student.” He took a deep breath. “I am a colleague of your doctor, and I am here to assess your progress.”
She pointed a finger at him, her teeth clenched. “I said get. Out.”
Confusion and shame heating his face, Ammon offered a polite nod and then left the room, his eyes landing on a bewildered nurse before he disappeared into the hall. He ripped off his gloves as he moved, his face hot and burning bright red. The darkness of an open room caught his attention, and he retreated into it. The motion-activated lights clicked on, and he shut the door behind him.
Ammon took deep breaths. He removed his glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face, willing the embarrassment to leave. He felt like such an impostor. He leaned against the edge of the bed and stayed very still, waiting to see how long it would take for the lights to turn off. He willed his mind to go blank, to not think of this last interaction or the hundreds of small missteps he’d made since his residency started two years ago. Being a doctor was hard. He had known theoretically that it would be, but living it day-to-day was something different.
Just as the lights clicked off, he heard a knock at the door. Shoot. He’d been found.
Dr. Ferguson poked her head into the room. “You in here, Ammon?”
He pushed himself off the edge of the bed and put his glasses back on. “Yeah.”
She was the only attending who called residents by their first names, like they were her real colleagues. Usually he was Dr. Parker or, more often, just a clipped Parker.
She stepped into the room, the lights flickering on.
“Sorry about that patient,” she said. “I knew she didn’t want any medical students. I didn’t know that also meant residents.”
“It’s fine.” Ammon raised his head, his face cooling. “Most people don’t know the difference.”
She leaned against the bed near him. “I shouldn’t have sent you in there without introducing you first. This one is my bad.”
“Okay.”
Dr. Ferguson was a rare doctor, he was discovering. Most of his attendings had egos, even the nice ones, and wouldn’t admit fault or apologize. Even Ammon had to pretend he was confident and competent, even if internally he questioned himself. Part of the show of ego was to instill confidence in his patients. No one wanted a doctor who clearly had no idea what they were doing. But another part of it was culture.
Dr. Ferguson pushed a handful of her black-and-purple braids over her shoulder. “Everyone gets fired by a patient at least once,” she said. “You know Dr. Callister?”
Ammon nodded. Callister was Ammon’s least-favorite attending. Talk about ego and posturing. “He’s been fired multiple times, even while the patient was crowning.”
An amused smile pulled at Ammon’s lips. He could believe it.
“You’re not at that level,” she said. “But I’ve been fired before. And Sandoval’s been fired before, too, if you can believe that one.” She smiled and Ammon did too.
“I can’t,” Ammon replied, the last of his embarrassment gone. “Sandoval is the best doctor on the floor.”
“Hey,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Ammon laughed.
“You’re going to be fine,” she continued. “This work is hard. As obstetricians, we are taking care of women at their most vulnerable time. It takes practice and time to figure out how to navigate it all.”
Ammon had studied how his various attendings interacted with their patients. Dr. Ferguson was unflappable, the stress or exhaustion never seeming to get to her. And because she was a woman, her patients seemed to naturally trust her. It reminded him that, as a male, he had to do more to earn his patients’ trust, and he was still trying to figure out the best way to do that. Dr. Sandoval had a cheerful and endearing father-like bedside manner, and Callister was confident and more than a little boorish. Neither of those felt right to Ammon. He didn’t know what type of doctor he was yet.
“Why don’t you take your lunch break now,” Dr. Ferguson said, pushing herself off the edge of the bed. “And then we’ll see if Dr. Sandoval has a patient you can help with.”
“Okay.” Ammon nodded.
She gave one last small smile before exiting. Ammon stayed very still until the room went dark again.
***
Monday morning, as he unlocked his car door, his phone beeped. He got in the car and checked his phone, expecting to see a new message on the family group Marco Polo, but it was a notification from the Mountain Collective. At some point during the night, he’d forgotten he’d sent Bellinghamster a message. I’ll play your game, she had written. But I will tell you up front you are wasting my time and yours with this. I’m 100% trustworthy.
Ammon smiled and started his car. What could he have this woman do to prove she deserved the coordinates? This could be a nice distraction. Usually he left the hospital trying to remember why he’d wanted to be a doctor in the first place.
When he got back to his apartment, instead of heading straight to bed, he changed into workout clothes and exchanged his glasses for contact lenses. He hadn’t worked out much in the last week because he’d been too tired, but today he decided to push through his exhaustion. He’d hit the apartment complex’s gym for a half hour, then eat and head to bed. He’d become a bit of a gym rat in the last few years. He used to hike, mountain bike, or climb to get exercise, but he didn’t have hours of free time to do those activities anymore. Instead, he’d put in a hard thirty minutes to an hour at the gym—lifting and running, mostly—to help burn off his stress. He preferred being outdoors, but at this phase of his life, he had to take what he could get.