Everett Ramos is a resident surgeon at Mercy West Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She's on the uphill climb to becoming one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world, studying alongside her best friends and hoping one day to make a difference...
the journey of changing one's heart, self, or way of mind
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SESSION ONE
FIVE YEARS and it has all come down to this moment.
There's a certain buzz in the air, like nobody can quite understand that this is the moment that decides the rest of their future. All they have to do is make it through the next few hours without a hitch and their journey to great hood will be one step closer. If they haven't been striving for perfection before, they certainly are now, every single one of them shifting around in their uncomfortable chairs, tugging on their clothes, bouncing their knees at a quickening tempo.
Everett smooths out the charcoal grey pencil skirt she'd bought specifically for the boards. She's the only one without a suit jacket, left only in a black turtleneck she thought would be enough, looking probably like the least classiest person in this entire hallway. Her heels pinch her toes as she watches examiners call out their names one by one.
Five years, and it's all down to this. No. Even longer. Four years of high school, four years of college, four years of med school, and five years of residency, all of it has come down to this exact moment. This moment when an examiner calls out your name and you are plunged into the deep end of the swimming pool, chlorine filling your nose, stinging your eyes, flapping about your hands as if that'll save you from drowning.
At this point, it's sink or swim.
"Everett Ramos!"
She looks up from the way her sweaty palms have stuck together. Was she praying? She doesn't even remember, all she can think about is the way the examiner is looking at her. He's a middle-aged, dark-skinned man with a little bit of black hair on the top of his head and shades of silvery grey running through his neatly trimmed beard. He wears a navy blue suit, recently ironed, with a plain tie fitted perfectly around his neck and a clean handkerchief pushed into the breast pocket.
There are wrinkles at the sides of his eyes, she realises when she gets close enough to shake his outstretched hand. And a little scar near his eyebrow. And his ear is pierced, but he's not got an earring in.
He smiles and his face crinkles just slightly.
When she enters the room, there's a woman sitting beside a table. There's a pitcher of water on the table and three glasses, two of which are full. The third must be for Everett. She takes a seat when she's waved to do so, shaking the woman's hand and letting herself get a good look. She must be just a bit younger than the male examiner, much paler than he is, and with her grey-streaked blonde hair tucked up into a chignon at the back of her head. There's no kindness in those hazel eyes of hers, and her nude lipstick has been a little smudged near the corner.
