Field Day

The last day of training is actually the hardest. Most people would expect it would be the first day, with all the new information and procedures to absorb, not to mention the graphic pictures. I still remember my first day, when Forani rushed out of the room when the slide of the necrotic gangrene came up on the view screen -- I saw her run for the sanctuaria because I was thinking of doing that myself. Even after three years of teaching, the pictures make me cringe inside -- all those mortal sufferings captured on a static image, far removed from the mortal itself, with no relief to be provided. The child lying in the rain with the flies forever walking on her eyelids, the asthma patient always in midgasp, the woman in labor pushing pushing pushing with no baby to come of her efforts...

But the last day is the hardest -- field day when you put everything you learned into practice. It's not just diagrams and theories and rules in the classroom where your errors are insulated, but real people in the real world where your actions and decisions change their lives. It's frighteningly like playing God -- because you don't have the omniscience or the surety to back you up.

Reena's field day was going to be a rough one. She drew the blue chit -- ER duty. I saw her face blanch and her lips tighten when she realized what color she had. Lots of pain and suffering, lots of anxiety, lots of distractions, lots of decisions to make.

"Listen," I said. "The good thing about ER duty is that you start out in the triage area and if you muck up anything too bad for me to fix, the medical staff is there to intervene."

Then her chin went up and I saw that kick-ass glint in her eye -- good girl -- she wasn't going to be defeated before she started. Still, it's a scary start for a novice angel of death.

She grabbed her bag of tricks, I opened a hole in the ether, and we stepped through to the hospital waiting room.