On Rotation(39)

*

“Yikes,” Michelle said after I’d told her about my meeting with Dr. Wallace. Throughout our first and second years, Michelle had been a pivotal part of the Sanity Circle, the only one who fully understood the endurance course that was medicine. I probably wouldn’t have survived preclinicals* without her by my side, which meant, of course, that the Powers That Be had snatched her away from me for our third year. The only rotation we shared was ob-gyn, which meant that our conversations had to be brief; the residents in Labor and Delivery were allergic to fun.

“Yeah, yikes is right,” I said. Dr. Donoghue, likely at Dr. Wallace’s nudging, had responded to me with a revision to our review, and I’d implemented his changes without flourish. It felt cheap, like getting into residency was a game rather than a goal. “It’s okay, though. I did some digging, and I found an attending who sounds interested. Danny Reed? He’s a hospitalist, so he doesn’t normally work with students, but he’s, get this”—I lifted my hands in scare quotes—“another Black health disparities researcher.”

Michelle grimaced.

“Don’t piss off Dr. Wallace,” she warned. “She’s big leagues.”

“I won’t piss off Dr. Wallace,” I said. It was strange; I was upset with my mentor, but I still thought the world of her. “I’ve still done everything she’s asked me to do. And I still appreciate her. It’s just that—”

“Umm . . . ,” a nasally voice interrupted. “Why are you just sitting there? Don’t you see that patient in antepartum?”

I jolted, then turned to look at Gwen, my assigned ob-gyn resident. She’d somehow gone from hunching over her computer and pretending I didn’t exist to looming over us and scowling like she’d just caught us eating her lunch.

“I’ll go see the patient in a minute,” I said slowly.

“I’m sure you will,” Gwen said. She made a point of rolling her eyes before pivoting and walking back to her computer. Michelle could probably see the murderous intent behind my glare, because she pinched my arm.

“It’s okay,” Michelle said. “Go see that patient. We’ll talk later.”

Grumbling, I walked to room 2, where the patient was boarded. Her eyes snapped to mine the moment I opened the door. She crumpled the bedsheets at her sides in a white-knuckled grip.

“Sorry for the wait, Ms. Herring,” I said.

“What wait? I just got here,” Ms. Herring said. A mechanical hum droned in the background—her blood pressure cuff going off. She looked nervously at the monitor. “What does it say? Is it high?”

I blinked at her. The cuff hadn’t even finished running yet.

“It’ll take a minute,” I said. She’s terrified. And no kidding. The sheet outside her room that summarized her reason for her visit had told me that she was twenty-two years old and twenty-six weeks pregnant. Younger than me. I still forgot that I was now firmly within the age of what was considered socially acceptable for motherhood. Yet most days I could barely take care of myself, let alone a tiny, fragile human.

“My cousin’s blood pressure was really high during her pregnancy. She had preeclampsia. She’s fine now, and the baby too, but . . .” Her eyes glazed over with fear. “I used her cuff at home. The top number was one fifty. That’s high, right?”

“It is, but let’s see what this one says.”

A few seconds later, the monitor produced a number—145/95. I watched Ms. Herring’s heart rate spike before my eyes.

“See,” she said, “that’s high.”

I clicked through her chart. Ironically, she’d only ever come to the doctor for birth control. Her blood pressure at all those visits was always normal.

“You’re right, it is a bit high,” I said. “But it’s okay. You did the right thing. You’re here now. Our job is to make sure nothing dangerous is happening.”

I examined her, clumsily. Somehow, I felt like she’d transmitted her anxiety to me, turned my usually sure movements jerky. I asked her a slew of questions: Any headaches? Blurry vision? Abdominal pain? Nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea? And she nodded every time and looked more and more frazzled with each passing second. I’d just lifted her sheet to check her legs for swelling when the door to her room slid open.

“Hello, Ms. Herring, I’m Dr. Jansen,” Gwen said, an angelic smile on her face. “Thank you for talking to our medical student.” She cut her eyes to me. “Well?”

I rattled off Ms. Herring’s history and listed all the symptoms she endorsed. I could see Gwen getting bored the longer I spoke.

“Hmm,” she said. “Did you do an ultrasound?”

Had my nerves not been already shot to hell, I would have laughed. Do an ultrasound? I could barely tell apart fluid and not-fluid on ultrasounds,* let alone do one. She went to medical school too, she had to know that that wasn’t part of the curriculum. But a moment went by and she added, “Well?”

“I’ll go get a machine,” I said. It took real effort to keep my face neutral. Just three weeks, Angie. You can do this.

Of course the ultrasound machine was just around the corner, where Gwen could have easily grabbed it on the way to the room. I allowed myself a second to fume as I unplugged it from the wall and wheeled it to Ms. Herring’s room.