Page 67 of Sinful in Scrubs

“We’re maxed out on patients, but there are still more coming in,” a different intake nurse said.

“Can’t we send them downtown? How about City General, or New York Medical?” I asked.

“We’re getting their overflow. Plus it’s just a chaotic night. Half our patients aren’t even from the incident,” Rosa commented.

I wasn’t needed in triage. I was there for surgery, so I suited up and scrubbed down.

31

EMMA

With the roster of patient needs in hand, I pushed my way into the ER to check on the status of the surgical procedure and that particular patient. I needed surgical suites. I had doctors and patients stacked up and waiting. And I didn’t know what was happening or have an estimated time of completion.

“How’s everything going in here?” I asked the room in general.

“Get out of here,” was all I heard the surgeon bark. I honestly hadn’t even realized it was Marcus until I heard his voice.

“No offense, Dr. Walker,” I called out. “I just need to make sure of scheduling. I know you are aware of what we’re dealing with out here.”

He grumbled some more. I was clearly not going to get a cooperative answer from him.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Chen, we’re just not going to be able to rush through this,” one of the nurses finally said.

“Okay, fine,” I said. Honestly, I had been hoping for a more favorable answer. I had a patient that needed to get into surgery immediately, and the last thing anybody wanted was any kind of emergency surgery on the ER floor. But if that’s what needed to happen, that’s what would happen.

It was my job, in the midst of this chaos, to get the more severe patients into treatment first. Shaking my head, I started to leave. There was absolutely nothing positive about this entire situation, and yet, for some reason, James Collins thought I was the right person to be thrust into the middle of everything going on. At least James saw the need for someone to be coordinating our triage process, especially on a night like tonight. And that’s why I had been called in.

I had only been back in New York for a little over a week, and while I didn’t officially have a job again at Manhattan Memorial or anywhere, I understood the importance of my role here tonight. This was exactly the kind of situation where we needed protocols in place. It’s what Marcus had been wanting to do, and it’s what I thought I had moved to L.A. to implement.

Part of me struggled not being a surgeon at the moment. Those patients needed my help, but I understood the importance of keeping everything running as smoothly as we possibly could. And I was perfectly ready and willing to be that person. I was a traffic controller, only instead of vehicles, I was managing surgeons and patients.

That’s what James had called me in for, even after what he thought was a disastrous presentation—even though I had since had the opportunity to explain to him from my perspective what really had gone wrong. James was not unfamiliar with Kevin or how he liked to make things difficult for me, so I was fairly certain I had James’s sympathy, and he was on my side in this situation.

“Dr. Chen?” Marcus sounded confused as he said my name.

I caught the door from closing all the way behind me. “Yes, Dr. Walker?”

“I thought you were in LA.”

“I was,” I said, “but now I’m back.”

“Why? What happened?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “L.A. didn’t work out, but now’s not the time to go into those details. You have something that demands your attention at the moment, and I need to find this patient a surgical suite. If you’ll excuse me.”

I finally ducked out of the room. My heart was hammering in my throat. I hadn’t anticipated running into Marcus. I certainly didn’t think that running into him would affect me like this. It’s not as if I didn’t know he would be here. It was just as if I had somehow managed to forget everything.

That night dragged on interminably. We had patients from the subway accident, and it was as if drivers picked tonight’s rain as an excuse to forget how to drive. The ER department was busier than I could ever remember it being.

Because I was in the very unique position as a liaison between emergency crews arriving at our door, the nurses, and the trauma surgeons, everything moved smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. I didn’t see Marcus again until I was with the team bringing a new patient into the surgical suite, practically simultaneously to his last patient being rolled out. He peeled off his surgical gloves as he looked at me.

“What’s this one in for?” he asked.

I looked down at my chart, but Dr. Morgan came crashing through the doors, her arms bent at the elbow and her clean hands held up in the air so she didn’t touch anything.

“Is this the kid who was impaled?” she asked.

“Yes. We have a bowel laceration, and part of the rebar is still in position.”

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