Page 9 of Dr. Grump's Surprise Baby

“Dr. Nash again,” Sara said. “How about you?”

“I’m with Dr. Berger,” Emily said.

“Oh, whoa,” Sara whistled. “That’s practically a promotion.”

Emily laughed. “That or he wants to watch me closely so he can see if he has a reason to cut me from the program.”

“I’m sure it isn’t that!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emily said firmly. “If that’s what he’s trying to do, it’s not going to work. All he’s going to get from watching me closely is evidence of why I belong here.”

“Cheers to that,” Sara said. “Well, good luck to you. I hope he doesn’t give you too much hell today.”

“He won’t,” Emily said, though she didn’t feel confident about that at all.

“The emergency department is one of the most stressful parts of any hospital,” Dr. Berger said as the group walked down the corridor past the nurses’ station. “That’s part of the reason why we end up cutting so many people here, and why you’re all doing rotations with doctors who don’t work in emergency. Not everyone is cut out for this.”

Emily noticed expressions of nervousness and anxiety crossing the faces of a few of her fellow interns, but she didn’t allow herself to show any insecurity or doubt at all. If Dr. Berger thought he was going to provoke that kind of reaction from her so easily, he was in for a big surprise.

“One of the most significant differentiators in the emergency department is that we never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next,” Dr. Berger said. “Right now, it seems calm and quiet, but we’re sure to get an alert from the paramedics at any moment letting us know that someone is being brought in. The biggest case we face each day will be one we didn’t expect to see. So as you face your first day in the emergency department, I want all of you to keep that in mind. The best thing you can do here is to be braced for anything.”

Emily nodded. She recognized how good that advice was. She had never worked in an emergency department before. She didn’t know what to expect — but then, according to Dr. Berger, knowing what to expect was a near impossibility, and there was definitely something reassuring about that.

The interns were tasked to review the charts from yesterday’s cases while they awaited some action. “I don’t see why this is necessary,” one of the men grumbled. “We know there are patients in some of these beds. Why can’t we start seeing them instead of just reading up on people who have already been released?”

“Dr. Berger must think it’s not to those patients’ benefit to have us nosing around right now,” Emily said.

“This is a teaching hospital,” the guy said. “People shouldn’t come to this hospital if they’re not prepared to deal with interns.

Emily stared at him. “What’s your name?”

“Chad.”

“Chad, are you suggesting that people who are in an emergency situation should be taking into consideration whether there will be interns at a hospital when they’re deciding where to go?” Emily asked him. “What if you needed emergency care? Would you be checking online to see if the nearest hospital to you was a teaching hospital, or would you just be driving in as fast as you could?”

Chad rolled his eyes at her. “If you’re going to be all sensitive, maybe you should be a nurse instead of a doctor,” he said. “Women make better nurses than doctors, everybody knows that.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s just a fact,” Chad said. “Don’t get your feelings hurt about it. I’m giving you good advice.”

“If you have to resort to tactics like that, you’re only revealing how pathetic you really are,” Emily said. “Do you think I don’tget what you’re doing? You know that half the interns are going to be cut, and you’d love it if some of us decided being doctors wasn’t for us and self-eliminated so you have fewer competitors to worry about.”

“Do you think I’m worried about you?” Chad snorted. “I’m not. There’s no chance I’d be cut over someone like you.”

“Well, then, it shouldn’t matter to you what I do,” Emily said. She picked up the file she’d been given to study and ignored Chad.

It wasn’t until then that she became aware of the fact that Dr. Berger was standing nearby, watching the two of them and listening to their every word. He had heard the whole conversation.

What had he made of it?

Emily knew Dr. Berger didn’t think Chad was right. He had worked with plenty of prominent women. He’d co-authored papers with several of them.

But what would he make of the fact that she had stood up for herself? Would he admire her for it, or would he think she had gotten bogged down in something petty?

As she watched, he turned away from her, giving no sign as to what he thought of everything he had overheard.

Well, she couldn’t do anything about it now. Emily opened the file and began to read.

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