A quote: “Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” ~~ Salvador Dali
I’m back! Let me start with a story …
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She stepped out the back porch to see her son James coming in early from the fields and, oh lord, no, Councilman Jack? Did that man ever take “No” for an answer?
They stopped short of the porch, dismounted and secured the horses within reach of the water trough.
She crossed her arms across her chest, glaring at Jack.
“Come on, mom. Listen to him.”
Jack stood quietly, didn’t seem anxious at all even as the last time he was here he had ended up on his keister in the dirt with a bloody lip. James Sr., Big Jim, had done that two years ago and now …
She felt all the spit and vinegar drain out of her, “Please, Jack. You can’t. We could hardly make it before and now with himself dead, if my son leaves …”
James slipped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him.
Jack stepped forward, “Nothing much has changed these past few years. Jimmy here is heads and shoulders above all the youngsters in The Territory and we’re so very short of doctors. What few we have need people like Jimmy to train up. We lose too many good men and women to accidents and disease – things being in The City were simple to fix but here.”
She knew he was talking about Big Jim … how bitter the taste knowing his own son could’ve saved him if he had been right trained back then. Jimmy yearned to be a doctor like his dad had yearned to farm.
“But we’ll lose this place …”
Jack shook his head, “Not now. I am arranging hired hands – Council’s expense – to help while he’s away.”
She looked up into James’ face, then glanced past his shoulder, towards the distant oak tree when Big Jim was buried. She had to do what he couldn’t and let her son go.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: The man broke the case open and I looked over the old instruments.
“Not bad,” I said. “Kids would call this vintage but I assume you aren’t a collector?”
“Correct,” he replied. “Aren’t you going to lecture me about not using an AI driven computer that guides a medkit to treat people?”
“You’ve probably heard all the jokes by now. But I thought this was an interview for med school?”
“It is but not the kind you’re thinking about. We’re looking for people who don’t shy away from using these kinds of instruments, who think that talking to patients is how you figure out what’s wrong and is willing to ignore a computer prompt because they know what to do.”
“And the catch?”
“We’re a newer institution so we’re not treated as being real by doctors from the famous schools. Your residency is limited to just three fields but in a few years, we expect to overcome that problem.”
“By doing what?”
“Healing people that others gave up on. But to borrow the feedback from previous students, you’ll be in Hell.”
“Hell is my comfort zone,” I said with a grin.
“I knew you’d say that. See you in the Fall.”
I still remember when I saw that toy doctor kit and I knew I wanted it. But it was a rough year, and Mom and Dad’s “we’ll see” was clearly a polite version of “no.”
Except Grandpa had his own way of handling the problem of “greatly desired but financially out of reach.” He found a little suitcase, a bit bigger than a briefcase, and put together a “doctor kit” from bits and pieces. Most of the parts were cobbled together with random bits and pieces from Grandpa’s shop to look like something a doctor might use, but the stethoscope really worked. I found that out when the cat crawled up beside me while I was “listening” to my kid sister’s dollies chests. I was startled to hear Empress’s little heart beating inside her chest — and realize the rhythm had a catch in it that wasn’t her purring.
I’d expected to be blown off when I told my folks, but they took me serious enough to actually take Empress to the vet, who said it was a good thing because she did have a heart murmur. Because I’d caught it early and my folks brought her in right away, the vet was able to give her medicine that would help strengthen her heart, so she lived another seven years. It also got me a part-time job as a kennel operator for Dr. Heffernan, and a lot of advice for getting into vet school.
I got through my undergrad work with flying colors, but when I actually got into vet school, I found that having to put down animals, especially healthy ones that were just unwanted, was tearing me up inside. That’s when one of my mentors took me aside and suggested that maybe I’d be better suited to pursue an MD than a DVM.
The transfer was actually easier than I’d expected. It took an extra year because a lot of the specifically veterinary courses weren’t applicable to human medicine, but in my internship and residency, my supervisors commented on how well I observed patients. I didn’t point out that where I’d started, your patients don’t talk.
With First Contact, everything’s changed. Now I’m getting sworn in as a medical officer in the Imperial Fleet. Sure, I’ll be restricted to human patients until I’ve gotten the training on all the species in the Chongu Empire, so I’ll probably be sent to work at a base or one of the really big ships where I can treat human patients while training for the rest.
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