Joan Is Okay(20)

But I still know how to drive. I still know most of the rules. In Shanghai, trains get you anywhere. Trains, buses, 24/7. You can’t go anywhere here without a car. Your public transit system is a disgrace.

Is that what you told the DMV?

I didn’t tell them anything that they didn’t already know.

Then my mother remembered something. My mother remembered that she had a green card.

A green card is not a license, I said.

Why not?

Because a green card says nothing about your driving.

If this country is all about rights, then someone should make it so.

Boredom could breed curiosity and my phone buzzed all the time now, with questions that my mother had about us.

What does Fang do again? I know finance, but what kind?

PM stood for portfolio manager and the first time I heard the term hedge fund, I envisioned garden hedges and my brother pruning them with large, sharp shears. In time I learned a little more, that Fang grew other people’s money, which more or less was pruning someone else’s bushes into even green rows.

My mother seemed content with that explanation. Now, what do you do? I know medicine, but what kind?

I told her.

I hope you’re making some money at least, she pressed on. Because in China, a doctor makes the same salary as a public school teacher. There’s no difference in status or prestige between the two and work-life balance is, of course, much better for the teacher. I just hope you’re not going to be destitute, Joan-na. So many doctors in America go into debt, I hear. So many say it’s not worth it. And the malpractice. What are you going to do about that?

I said I’d just gotten a raise and tried, like most doctors, to avoid malpractice altogether.

I was pacing outside the seminar room where Reese was giving grand rounds. The talk was on how to demystify pulmonary hypertension, a condition with many possible causes or an unknown cause and one in which the arteries of your lungs are carrying blood at way too high of a pressure. Then dizziness, fatigue, chest pains ensue, sometimes blue-tinted skin. Pulmonary hypertension is said to develop gradually, to only worsen with time, but can possibly onset quickly and without warning, like when speaking to one’s mother.



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THE LAST TWO MONTHS of the year were packed with mandatory HR seminars that updated the staff on new behavioral regulations, like how to spot and report sexual harassment, like proper conference speaker etiquette. The latter seminar was yesterday. Studies showed that when men introduced male speakers, they stated full names and titles, but for female speakers, they used only first names, no titles. We were then instructed to introduce all speakers by their first and last names, with titles. We practiced with the person next to us. The room was half full, and mostly with women.

Today’s seminar was a frequently given one on wellness. After the PowerPoint had been set up, the HR woman stood behind the computer podium and started clicking through slides titled What Is Wellness? and why it’s an important quality to seek out. Wellness had been promoted to one of the behavioral competencies that all providers were required to maintain. Others included cultural competence, leadership, and nonviolent crisis intervention. I listened but kept zoning out, and when the seminar ended, I took the elevator down to the atrium café.

Only 4:45 p.m. but already pitch-black out and misty. The daytime shift was leaving, the nighttime shift entering, umbrellas opened and closed, then were sheathed in plastic.

For ten minutes, the coffee line stopped moving and I craned my neck out to see why. A cup had fallen over the counter, spraying black liquid on the floor and over a customer’s shiny leather shoes. The young barista had become hands-to-mouth apologetic. Then the face on this customer, the glare, and the imminent question: You’re going to remake that, aren’t you? It’s a very simple job. I do mine, so why can’t you do yours?

From his badge, I could see that he was an MD, and from his demeanor, I already knew. Older and distinguished-looking, a believer that his special status in the hospital confers special status in the world. There were so many like him. Those who didn’t bother with seminars about wellness or conference introductions, because how many conferences had they gone to already, and no complaints from any woman thus far.

The barista remade the drink. The doctor huffed off.



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I’D NEVER SET OUT to be a gunner but once the label came up, it stuck. That I was considered the new breed of doctor made me feel like a product rolling off an assembly line to displace prior models. Medicine was getting more competitive because it was opening up to all. So by the slow force of natural selection, that doctor from the atrium café would be replaced by someone younger, better, and with knowledge more up-to-date. A question that I used to get asked was whether I was pushed into medicine, like all good Asian kids, and to this, I usually said nothing. How unscientific it was to generalize about any population and I wasn’t even the most reliable source. My parents hadn’t necessarily pushed me, though they also didn’t stand in my way. What they did, out of pure honesty, was to remind me that there was no safety net, so whatever I chose to do, I had to do it well, I couldn’t half-ass it or expect to be bailed out. Follow through, my father’s advice. Stay the course.

When Reese and the director asked about my father, whenever anyone asked about my upbringing, I avoided saying too much so as to not inadvertently reveal that we’d been poor. Admitting to that had its consequences. It meant admitting to having felt less, and thus having too much to prove. A listener might think, Yes, that explains a lot, that explains a lot about you.