“You have to maintain a detachment from your emotions.”The moment you care is the moment you fail.“Emotions compromise your clarity. Distance keeps you sharp.”
“You shell out medical information like a computer, completely detached.”
For a moment, I saw myself in Collins’s determined stance, in the way he was fighting to hold on to his humanity in this brutal profession. But that path led to disaster. I had the scars to prove it.
“And you need to do the same.”
He took a deep breath, his spine straightening. “I respect you, Dr. Morrison. Tremendously. But I believe there’s a better way to be a doctor.”
Offense shot through me like a bolt of lightning. How dare this junior doctor disregard his superior’s advice and have the audacity to suggest he had some for me?
“You have a point, so spit it out, Collins.”
“May I speak freely, Dr. Morrison?”
“If this wasn’t you already speaking freely, I’m quite intrigued by what the hell is about to come out of that mouth of yours.”
His nervous gaze flickered back and forth like a trapped animal. “With respect, sir, I don’t think you understand what it’s like for the rest of us. You’ve probably always been hardwired differently.”
“I learned the hard way, Collins. And this is me, trying to help you, but if you have it all figured out and don’t want to hear it, then by all means, get on with your shift.”
Pivoting, I strode toward the door.
“It’s not easy for normal people!” he snapped.
The hairs on my arms prickled. Did my subordinate just yell at me? I turned, assessing his half-angry, half-panicked face. He was clearly aware that he’d crossed a line, but there were his emotions again, bubbling into tears.
And that’s when all patience I had left finally snapped.
“You think it was easy?” My voice came out harsh. “I started just like you—caring too much, letting myself get invested.” I paused, the memory still sharp enough to draw blood after all these years. “And you want to hear how that worked out for my patient?”
He wiped a tear from his cheek.
“When I was on my surgical rotation …” I stopped, my throat suddenly dry. The memory of that day lived in my muscles, so I turned to the window, using the excuse of checking the ambulance bay to gather myself. “There was this sixteen-year-old girl who presented with broken ribs that punctured her spleen.” The image of her young face crashed over me like a wave of ice water. “Now, I’d seen this sixteen-year-old a week prior, with a different sports injury, so I became particularly invested in her case.”
My pager screamed against my hip.
“When it was time to operate, I was thrilled when they let me scrub in. Thrilled when I was allowed to handle part of the procedure myself, but do you want to hear what happened?”
Based on his swallowing, he could see where I was going with this.
“Emotion clouded my judgment. I wasn’t fully present in that operating room because I was imagining her distraught parents and boyfriend waiting anxiously, imagining what I’d say to them if we couldn’t repair all the damage and salvage her sportsscholarship. So, my hands shook. And before anyone could stop it, I punctured an artery. She bled out.”
The words suspended in time, my fingers curling into fists at my sides, fighting the emotion of that moment. The image and sounds of that girls’ parents in the waiting room, crumbling into shrieks.
The hospital review board investigated the case and found evidence that the artery was supposedly compromised in the same accident that brought her in, so they cleared me, but I knew the truth. My emotional attachment diminished my focus. And from that moment, I vowed to keep an emotional distance from all patients because that detachment made me a better doctor. Empathy was a dangerous vulnerability that could cost lives.
“I … I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do,” I said. “So, come on. We have a fresh patient inbound. You think you can keep your emotions in check long enough to help this one?”
Sometimes, I wondered if the greater forces of life—the ones the patients often talked about—liked to mess with me. Because after that speech I just gave Collins, the alarm that sets every doctor’s soul on edge blasted through the emergency room. That horrible, mechanical screech that meant someone’s world was ending.
“Code blue. Room seven.”
My heart stopped as the room number registered.
Tessa.
