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A change is gonna come,
Like the beat of a distant drum,Through trials faces, battles won,In the journey, under the sun.
When Amory arrived at the hospital in the morning, she put her stuff in her new cubby, in the resident's lounge. Finding a list of her interns on it, she rushed to memorize the names she knew she'd be calling frequently that year. Dancing through the crowds that were forming in the hallways, she mumbled the new names un her breath, a small smile on her face.
Smiling, she pulled her hair back as she arrived at the nurses' station outside the intern's locker room. She could see some motion inside, already somewhat missing the excitement of her first day. If there was one thing she liked about interns, was their ever-present fascination and excitement.
As she waited, charting, she felt a group approach her, turning to find a nervous-looking group of three. "Rue Lennon, Lily Blair and Ollie Peterson?" She asked for confirmation that she had the right interns, once they nodded she continued. "Okay, welcome to Seattle Grace Hospital. I have five rules and memorize them. The first rule, don't bother sucking up. I don't know you, which means I don't trust you. As interns, you will make mistakes. It's up to me to teach you how to reduce them." The interns watched her with awe, seemingly absorbing her every word.
The resident waved towards some material on the counter. "Those are trauma protocols, phone lists, and pagers." The interns hurried to grab them, Amory still speaking. "Keep the binder in your locker just in case, but I expect you to know them by heart for your next shift."
Amory started walking down the hall with a smile, as she motioned for her interns to follow her. "That leads me to rule number two. The nurses will page you. You answer every page at a run. Not a walk or jog, a run. People's lives are at stake here. This leads me to rule number three: you respect the nurses, you listen to the nurses. You may think you know more than them, but you don't. they have more experience than all of you combined."
Hearing her interns scurry behind her, she kept going. "Your shift started..." She glanced at her watch. "Three minutes ago and lasts a total of forty-eight hours. You are interns: grunts, nobodies, the bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, and give it your all, all of the tile. It sucks, but we've all been there, it's how you learn."
As she opened a door, her interns walked inside to look at the room. "On-call rooms. Attending's hog them, so sleep when you can, where you can. So, rule number four: if I'm sleeping, you avoid waking me up. Unless you absolutely have to, don't be dumb and wake me when a patient is in need or either almost dead. You'd rather get yelled at than have a patient dying on your watch. In any other circumstance, you ask me your questions. Better to ask stupid questions than to make stupid mistakes."
The girl stopped for a moment, letting out a breath and looking with pride at her new interns.
As the resident had hoped, one of them cautiously raised his hand, his voice nervous. "Um... you said five rules? That was only four..."
