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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE HOSPITAL walls are sickeningly white, squeaky mint floors making Everett Ramos' throat build with vile nausea, walls getting closer and closer until she's stuck in a claustrophobic elevator with the other surgical interns. They talk around her, jabbering on excitedly about the start of their careers, but Everett stays quiet, clutching her handbag tightly to her shoulder. She knows they won't all make it. At least eight of them will switch to an easier speciality than surgery, five of them will crack under the pressure of the job, and two of them will be asked to leave the program at Mercy West Hospital.
Everett Ramos will make it. She has to. This is the day she's been working towards since she's started middle school.
In the locker room, she pulls orange scrubs over her light grey henley, mentally preparing for her first 48-hour-shift in this hospital. Orange might be the worst colour she's ever seen, but she'll endure it to make it to the top of the surgical food chain. She'll endure it for her best friend who's late to her first day of their surgical internship.
"I made it," comes a panting voice from beside her. Everett sends Alina Atwall - her best friend at medical school - a sharp look as she pulls her dark curls into a ponytail using one of the hair ties that has a permanent spot on her wrist.
"You missed the tour," she points out, slamming her locker door shut. Alina rolls her eyes as she quickly swaps her outfit for a pair of orange scrubs which look just as bad against her brown skin as they do against Everett's tanned complexion. Why couldn't they just be blue?
"Well, I've got you to show me 'round right?" Everett shrugs, eyes darting around the locker room full of surgical interns in orange scrubs that wash them all out. She only remembers three places from the hospital tour that morning that isn't where she currently is and that's the cafeteria, an on-call room and Operating Room 1. What more does she need to know?
"Adamson, Atwall, Avery, Kepner, Ramos, with me!" calls out the resident at the door of the locker room. Everett and Alina perk up, this is the start of their surgical residency and neither of them is getting cut. Not when they've worked this hard to get here.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
