‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice high and tight. She cleared her throat again but knew the tightening wouldn’t fade, not whilst He was here. ‘I don’t know whi –’
Mr Martakis let out an annoyed huff and crossed his arms over his chest. More negative vibes filled the room and Millie shrank back into her chair.
‘I’m not surprised you don’t remember the request, seeing as you didn’t even spare the medical student in question a single fu –’ he looked away and took a deep breath in an obvious attempt to reign in his temper, ‘a single glance to acknowledge her existence.’
Millie managed to stop herself flinching at the near-use of the f-word, but only just. It wasn’t that she was offended by swearing itself: only that the words were so harsh, so confrontational. Millie was not good with confrontation. Not at all.
‘I … Are you talking about the IVU that was requested?’
Where was Don? Millie thought to herself. He should be back by now; she knew Irene had packed his lunch today. How long could picking up a bag of Wotsits (something Irene’s strict food rules did not allow) take?
‘Yes,’ he bit out, and it was clear from his tone that his patience was fraying. ‘And you know what: yes, okay, it’s not always appropriate for a medical student to request a scan but … Jesus, you could at least have the courtesy to look at her when you dismiss her from your exulted presence. Maybe explain why you won’t do the scan for us. They do have to learn somehow you know. I presume you were a medical student once?’
Yes, Millie had been a medical student once, but she’d been nothing likethatgirl. Kira was full Technicolor high-definition, to Millie’s dull, black and white persona. She always intimidated Millie and put her on the defensive. But this time Kira had changed tactics, being so friendly it was almost unreal: she smiled and chattered andsaton Millie’sdesk, apologizing for the ‘coffee incident’ when that wasn’t even her fault; the strange girl had even offered Millie a custard crème in order to ‘butter you up, you cheeky badger’.
Millie dreaded her on-calls more than anything. If you were the starred consultant for the day you had to be available to discuss scans and investigations for patients. Thankfully most of this could be achieved over the phone, but sometimes junior doctors (rarely medical students) would venture down into the bowels of the radiology department to actually discuss a scan face to face.
Dr Morrison’s a.k.a. Nuclear Winter’s reputation as a stuck-up bitch was now firmly ingrained, mostly because Millie had a tough time making eye contact with the doctors that sought her out, and she often communicated non-verbally with just a curt nod if the request was reasonable. However, if the request was unreasonable or another investigation was indicated, she had to speak, and her anxiety normally made her voice tight, coming across as if she was angry and not terrified. Millie was good at her job, her suggestions were always correct; had they come with an encouraging smile, a bit of banter or a glimmer of friendliness, then the doctors she corrected would have thanked her. As it was, the fact she often changed requests and couldn’t manage casual niceties had earned her a pretty unsavoury reputation.
Millie had certainly not known what to do with Kira’s rampant friendliness, so she had withdrawn into her shell. The warmer Kira was, the colder Millie became. She barely spoke to her. Eventually, as was normally the case with Millie’s social interactions, the other woman’s smile had faltered and she had started to look uncomfortable. This was all the more excruciating as Millie would put money on the fact that it was very rare indeed for this particular girl to be uncomfortable in any situation. It had to take a really socially inept total bitch to make her appear so.
That’s what Millie had been.
She’d been a bitch.
And whether intentional or not, she still took that on as her fault. She was the one who had insisted that medicine was what she wanted. It would have been easy to bury herself in the safe world of quantum physics or mathematics, but she’d known that if she went down that route, if she allowed herself to hide away in the backroom of some university or major company with them just being happy that she was producing results and supporting her hermit ways in order for her to continue doing so, sheknewthat she would lose her chance to be normal. She would lose her chance to really be a part of something.
The patient interactions Millie could handle: those followed set lines, set protocols, she knew the boundaries, the rules, and could work well within them. She could even communicate effectively with patients – not that that was always an essential part of radiology, but when it was required Millie could take a history, break bad news, reassure patients. It was interactions like this one now that she fell down on. She simply didn’t understand the rules. And like it or not they were an essential part of being a doctor: you had to be able to interact with your colleagues.
Millie hated the fact that she’d made Kira feel uncomfortable. That she’d dimmed that girl’s light for even a short time. Not for the first time it made her reconsider her decision. Maybe she should be festering away in some lab somewhere? At least then she wouldn’t be able to upset anyone.
*****
This bloody woman is not to be believed, Pav thought as he tapped his foot with impatience. Kira –Kirafor Christ’s sake – had come back to the ward with a blank expression after her run-in with Nuclear Winter. He knew that she felt bad about what had happened in the canteen and wanted to give Dr Morrison a chance; hell, Pav had been the one to encourage her to do so. When Kira explained what had happened earlier, she’d clearly been embarrassed.
Kira,embarrassed.
And she hadn’t smiled since. Kira was always smiling; it was like some sort of disease with her. Okay, Pav knew she could be annoying, but the way Miss High and Mighty Reader of Scans treated her was totally out of order. And worse, it made Pav feel guilty – not an emotion he was particularly familiar with, or one he enjoyed overmuch. Kira was still low on confidence clinically since failing her anatomy viva, and he was the one who had suggested she go down to discuss the scan with the on-call radiologist. The fact he was scrubbed in theatre and they were a junior doctor down on the team was a big factor in his decision, butcome on. Couldn’t this bloody woman even discuss the options with Kira? Instead of point-blank ignoring her? Add in the fact that Dr Morrison had been avoiding him for weeks now, and the time she’d cut him dead in the MDT meeting, giving that smug twat Lucas the chance to smirk behind his back, and Pav was furious.
‘Right, well,’ he said, gritting his teeth as he noticed she still hadn’t bothered to actually maintain eye contact with him for more than a few seconds. She was sitting there in her perfect pencil skirt and pristine white blouse, with immaculate hair (not a mousy strand out of place) and expertly applied make-up, lording it over his medical student. For fuck’s sake, she was lording it overhim.He hadn’t worked all this time to become a consultant surgeon just so snooty know-it-all radiologists could look down their noses at him. ‘I’m here now and hopefully you can discuss the options withme.’
‘The best investigation would be a CT urogram as the patient has a history of atopy and is taking beta blockers, giving him an increased risk of allergic reaction to the dye we use in the IVU ...’
All this information was imparted in an almost bored monotone and directed straight at his right upper arm.
‘How did you even know the patient’s medical history? You can’t –’
‘Instead of looking at Miss Conway I was looking at the screen and had drawn up his details after she said his name. We are now linked to System One GP records. He had a reaction to shellfish recorded on the 12thof May 2003 whilst he was a patient in Derbyshire.’
‘But …’ Pav scratched the back of his head. ‘But there aren’t any allergies in his –’
‘It wasn’t recorded as an allergy by either the hospital or the GP. It was mentioned in a pre-assessment for an appendicectomy.’
‘But Kira was only down here for a few minutes. How could you have gone through all the notes in that amount of –’
‘I read … um … fast … Very fast.’
‘Well, okay but that still means –’
