Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Oh, before we do, I’ve had an idea about the foundation program,” Nathan said. “An idea that will raise your profile among the candidates to take over from Wanda.”
He’d caught my attention. I hoped this wasn’t a joke. “Go on,” I said.
“You need an offsite,” he said. “It boosts morale. It helps teambuilding. You can do some hard-skills training in there. I even thought you might do a survey of the staff and ask if they could change one thing in the hospital, what would it be. Then you take that to the offsite and workshop the thing staff mention most.”
“That’s not really a doctor issue, though. More of an admin thing to figure out.”
“Maybe you invite admin staff along to workshop it with you.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But maybe a medical issue is raised and even if it’s not—if the doctors are united in wanting things changed, I’m sure we could make it happen.”
“Right,” Nathan said.
“Sounds good. Except the cost. Funding is always a problem for these kinds of things. But we could put on a coach and do something in Hertfordshire.”
“Or even go into central London.”
I nodded. It was a really good idea. “People could stay if they were prepared to foot the bill themselves. Or they could head home.” Ideas started spinning in my head. This could be the exact thing I was looking for to position me to run the program and actually do something good to help the hospital run more efficiently. “Taking all the foundation doctors away would show I was ready for the job.”
For once, one of my brothers had actually come up with a good idea.
The only problem was, one of doctors on the offsite would be Sutton.
Thirteen
Sutton
Gilly and I turned up just before nine at ward six, ready for rounds as we’d been instructed to do. We’d been warned that things would start off very similarly to med school—we’d have a tight leash at first, despite our change of status to doctor.
“Is it just the two of us?” she asked.
I nodded. “I believe so.” I knew so. I’d checked the rota carefully to see who would be working. Jacob wasn’t on there at all. None of the consultants were.
“Robert and Jean are on nights.” Each group of year one foundation doctors had been split between night and day shift. I’d finally caught a break and got days.
“Urgh, I’m not looking forward to the night shifts,” Gilly said. “Apparently it’s really quiet most of the time and impossible to stay awake.”
The second week of orientation had passed by in a blur. I’d only seen Jacob twice and then it was from a distance. I was conscious that he could turn up at any minute and I avoided the doctor’s dining room like it was a tropical disease, but I survived. Just like I always did. Now I was ready to start on the wards. Hopefully Jacob had been able to influence my shifts so we weren’t on together.
“You think Dr. McDreamy will be the consultant in charge today?” Gilly asked.
I shook my head. “There’s no Dr. McDreamy. It’s either McDreamy without the Doctor part or it’s Dr. Off Limits.”
She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and I shook my head. “Sorry, it’s just I was a big Grey’s fan. Back in the day. I like to get things right.” I was more than a little on edge. I was hoping against hope that Jacob and I could maneuver around this department without having too much to do with each other.
“Me too,” she said. “Although I never did understand what he saw in Meredith.”
“Dr. Scott and Dr. Peters,” Jacob called from behind us. “Follow me.” My stomach dove to the floor and kept falling through the linoleum heading straight to the center of the earth.
He wasn’t supposed to be here today.
He rushed past us and we had to scurry to keep up. “Let’s recap, make sure you haven’t forgotten anything from med school. Tell me what acronym we use when handing over patients.”
“SBAR,” I said from behind him and then immediately wished I hadn’t. My plan had been to stay under the radar—to coast along out of sight. Maybe it was instinct or maybe I just wanted Jacob to know I was capable, but the words just kept coming out. I might be older than all the other foundation doctors. I might be able to cut hair on the side, but I had studied hard and I knew what I was talking about. “Situation—a concise statement of the problem. Background—pertinent and brief information related to the situation. Assessment—analysis and consideration of options.”
We stopped and Jacob breezed into a small room just behind the nurses’ station. Two people sat around the small table.
“Continue, Dr. Scott,” Jacob said. I took a seat so I didn’t fall down at him addressing me as doctor.