I Believe in You

Chastain Park Memorial Hospital

Conrad and I both wore white long sleeved shirts and black slacks for our first day as interns in internal medicine at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital.
I could read Conrad's anxiety as we walked hand in hand through the front door.
A shorter African American woman walked up to us in the lobby of the hospital.
"My name is Claire Thorpe. I'm the hospital's CEO." She smiled shaking my hand.
"I'm Meghan Bishop and this is Conrad Hawkins." I answered.
"Perfect. You two are internists?" She asked.
"That's right." Conrad answered snaking his arm around my waist.
"Here at Chastain all of our intern's are paired together here on the first day and since you two are the first ones here you'll be paired together under Dr. Seth Adams and his partner Dr. Brianna Wolf, who are third year residents here at Chastain." She explained as we walked together towards the lobby of the hospital where a fairly large group of what I assumed were the mentors just waiting for the new interns.
"Every resident in this room is a third year resident. If the two of you make it to your third year you'll be the mentors." She explained as she searched the crowd.
If we make it?
"Ah, there they are." She lead us to a tall, bald African American man and a short caucasian woman with black hair.
"Seth, Brianna this is Conrad Hawkins and Meghan Bishop, they're going to be your interns." Mrs. Thorpe said passing us effectively off to our mentors.
"You both will do fine." She touched my shoulder as she walked away.
"Come this way." Dr. Adams said curtly.
I glanced at Conrad then at Dr. Wolf who nodded gently.
"Seth and I are actually fourth year residents. We like to let you two lead the day. We'll be here for support but it's best if you pretend you're on your own." Dr. Wolf said as we followed him down the hallway to an exam room.
"Go ahead, Dr. Bishop." Dr. Adams said motioning me forward.
"Do you have the chart or am I running blind?" I asked looking at him.
"Ms. Edwards is a thirty year old woman presenting with muscle pain and weakness, fatigue and disorientation. She is not currently on any medications and has no allergies to medications. No remarkable family or social history. No history of smoking or drug use.
"Temp 101, pulse 99, bp 123/89, respiratory rate 27 and O2 Saturation 94" he said with a slight smile.
I walked into the examination room.
"Hello, Ms. Edwards, I'm Dr. Bishop and I hear your having some muscle pain and disorientation. Can you tell me more about that while I do a quick exam?" I asked with a smile after grabbing hand sanitizer off the wall.
"Okay." She said looking at me.
"When did your symptoms start?"
"I started getting headaches, waves of nausea and running a fever about a week ago. I thought it might be the flu."
"And what changed for you to lead you to the hospital today?"
"Last night I started feeling agitated and confused and that concerned me."
"Understandably so. I'd like to get some blood drawn and to send you for an MRI and maybe an EEG which is basically just a brain scan to check your brainwaves because of the sudden confusion. Does that sound alright with you?" I asked gently.
"Of course. Thank you, Dr. Bishop."
"I'll have a nurse come in to draw the blood before sending you up to the MRI and I'll be back once the results come in, okay?"
She nodded with a smile.
"What made you order those tests?" Dr. Wolf asked testing me.
"She has a mosquito bite on her left shoulder. I'd like to rule out a viral infection causing Encephalitis." I answered.
"Very good, Dr. Bishop. I suspected the same." Dr. Adams said nodding at me.
An older man with grey hair and hard blue eyes walked down the hallway towards us.
"Ah. Meghan, Conrad, this is Dr. Randolph Bell. He's Chastain's chief of surgery." Dr. Adams said with a tinge of disdain.
"It's a pleasure, Dr. Bell." I said with a nod but I wasn't certain about him.
Conrad could feel my discomfort but offered the same respectful greeting.
"You both come highly recommended. I look forward to working with you both." He smiled and continued on his way.
I lead the medical examinations for the first five and a half hours of our twelve hour first shift.
After the hour of rest we were allowed Dr. Adams lead us to another room.
"Alright, Dr. Hawkins. Your turn. This is Mr. Lynch. He's a nineteen year old man presenting with swollen lymph nodes in the neck and armpits as well as sore throat and skin rash. No medications or allergies and otherwise healthy."
When Conrad walked into the room Dr. Wolf pulled me aside.
"You and Conrad need to watch out for Bell. He'll try to pit you two against each other. You really are the best to come in with your class. I've never seen two people more highly recommended straight out of medical school. He won't like you two upstaging him." She said quietly.
"Hello, Dr. Wolf, who is this that your whispering to?" A woman with brown curly hair asked as she walked over to us before I could respond to her.
"Ah. Meghan, this is Dr. Lane Hunter, she's the head of the oncology department. Dr. Hunter, this is Dr. Meghan Bishop. She's one of our interns." She introduced us.
"Ah, I see. Dr. Adams, who is your protege?" She asked as Conrad and Dr. Adams came out of the room.
"Dr. Conrad Hawkins, this is Dr. Lane Hunter. You to should go ahead and go off to the next room now." He said placing himself between us and Dr. Hunter almost protectively.
By the end of the work shift Ms. Edwards was diagnosed with and had begun treatment for Encephalitis and Mr. Lynch was diagnosed with Mononucleosis and sent home with some tylenol.
I drove the fifteen minutes to our home lost in thought.
"What's wrong, Meg?" Conrad asked as I parked the car.
"Huh? Oh. Just something Brianna said. She told me we needed to watch out for Bell." I sighed looking at him.
"I found it interesting how Dr. Adams reacted to Dr. Hunter." He said thoughtfully.
I nodded and sighed again.
"We'll just have to see how this goes." I looked at him.
"We have each other. We'll be fine." He assured me taking my hand.
I nodded and smiled at him.
"Yeah, you're right."
I couldn't shake the feeling of dread I felt after our first day in the hospital. It would be important for us to make our own decisions about the other doctors instead of following any one person's lead.