Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
I do a quick calculation and almost squeal when the figure means I can pay off my grandfather’s latest medical insurance excess bill and some of my credit card debt. There isn’t enough to put toward my student loans, but it far exceeds the internship hourly wage I was earning only hours ago.
“Are you sure this is allowed?” I ask, confident I’m dreaming. “I’m not yet a qualified surgeon.”
Again, he nods. “Things are different in the private sector.” His eyes gleam with excitement. “And if you continue to encourage endorsements like the one you secured this morning, this is just the beginning of an illustrious medical career with Myasnikov Private.”
I almost fall over backward when the check Mr. Ivanov donated is exposed. Even with my new salary giving me indigestion, it would still take me working two jobs for over three decades to earn the figure cited on the handwritten check.
Doubt creeps in when Dr. Sidorov hands me his favorite pen out of the breast pocket of his jacket. He’s been behind the scenes at this hospital for so long that he no longer wears a doctor’s coat or scrubs.
“Would you mind if I take the contract home and read it before signing it? My mother always said you should never sign anything without reading it twice.” My wet eyes are back, but more from fond memories than fear of unemployment. I loved my mother dearly, and I miss her every day.
Dr. Sidorov seems put off by my request, but he still obliges. “I guess that won’t be a problem.” He removes the document from his desk and places it into an envelope. “If you have any questions, you know where to reach me.”
I nod until the possible inconvenience of his offer smacks into me. “Is there someone else I should call if I have any questions? I won’t have time to review the offer until after my shifts tonight.” I overexert the “s” at the end of shifts to ensure he knows I won’t be heading home anytime within the next seventeen hours.
I’m tempted to pinch myself when he replies, “Why don’t you take the day off so you can look over it… twice.”
The humor at the end of his statement doesn’t match his pinched expression.
He looks as uneasy as I feel.
“And draft your resignation to the sterilization contractor you’ve been working for the past four months while you’re there.”
His lips raise at the bewilderment on my face.
I wasn’t aware he knew about my secondary employment.
“I’ve known for some time but figured you’d give it up when awarded a full-pay contract.” He sees something I didn’t mean to express. “Was I wrong?”
“No. I… ah…” I roll my shoulders before saying with more certainty, “No. You are correct. I just don’t want to leave them short.”
“They’ll be fine.” He sits in his big, bulky chair before raising his eyes to mine. “I’m sure you won’t be hard to replace.”
Ouch. There’s a sting my ego never anticipated after being praised so highly.
“Still, I would like to finish my assigned shifts.” When anger hardens his features, I add, “If that’s okay with you?”
He breathes out his nose before finally giving in with the faintest head bob.
“Thank you.” I gesture to the envelope in my hand. “For both. It is nice to have the belief of someone who doesn’t share your blood.”
He smiles at my praise before shifting his focus to a pile of documents in front of him. They’re not patient records, more the calculated-to-the-penny reports of the mammoth debt most patients leave with once they’re discharged.
With his focus elsewhere, I show myself out before immediately starting what I hope will be one of my last sixteen-hour-plus workdays.
With the ER overrun with another foodborne illness outbreak, this is the first five minutes I’ve had to myself in ages, and I use it by scrolling through patient records. I prefer a one-on-one approach, but there are too many overflowing vomit buckets to sneak a visit to the surgical ward, so I log into HIS (Myasnikov’s health information system) and type my patients’ names into the search bar.
Every name on my rounds roster shows a result except for Mrs. Ivanov.
“Is there an issue with HIS?” I ask a colleague, conscious it could be a software issue and not solely user error. I’m great with bedside manner, but I hate the computer side of my profession. Technology and I aren’t friends.
A nurse whose name is skipping my mind joins me at the nurses’ station. “I don’t think so. Who are you looking for?”
“Irina Ivanov.”
“Ivanov?” she asks, her tone as peaked as her manicured brow.
I nod. “She’s a patient on the surgical ward. I wanted to check her current blood workup.”
“Oh… umm…” She sounds more worried than daft. “Perhaps the report hasn’t been added to her file yet.” She clicks me out of the patient screen and logs me into the pathology mainframe we use when we’re too impatient to wait for the pathology department to upload the results to the patient’s record. “There you go.”