Page 1 of Sinful in Scrubs

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EMMA

Iwas too focused to let the commotion on the other side of the room bother me. Everyone was methodically moving around, on task. To the untrained eye, I knew it looked like chaos. It certainly had my first time in the emergency department as a med student.

I had my patient to focus on, and I trusted the staff to take care of the tasks as I barked them out. I didn’t look up and a fresh hemostat was placed in my hands. Squinting, I shifted the tissue around until I saw what I needed.

“Gotcha,” I said under my breath as the clamps snicked into place and locked down.

I held out my hand, and a second pair was in my palm.

There was a deep voice, unrecognizable to me, barking out instructions. The tone and the choice of words tripped a bad memory, and a cold sweat broke out on my brow. I wasn’t going to let bad memories of Kevin interfere with my focus. I couldn’t help it if my body decided to launch into anxiety mode with an elevated heart rate and panic sweat. At least my mind was mine and was focused on the patient in front of me.

“Damn it, where is that blood coming from?” I may have snapped, my emotions from the unwanted Kevin reminder seeping into my professionalism.

I had two clamps on the femoral artery, and the patient was still bleeding.

“Let’s get a unit on standby just in case,” I said to the nurses at my side. “I don’t like how much bleeding there is.”

“You need to apply pressure,” that deep voice that had set all my alarm bells ringing barked at me.

A shiver shook my spine. I cricked my neck from side to side, rolled my shoulders, and straightened my posture. The voice was all wrong for Kevin, but the macho ‘I’m a man, therefore I know better’ attitude was the same.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” I looked up, daggers in my eyes.

“Pardon, Doctor?” the nurse asked.

I swallowed my words when I realized the man wasn’t talking to me, but rather instructing one of the other patients. I didn’t let my gaze linger. I had other priorities at the moment. But the quick glance I got burned the man’s image into the backs of my retinas.

My vision was full of the situation in front of me, but in my mind I could still ‘see’ the chiseled features and silvery fineness of a thick head of salt and pepper hair of the man I practically snapped at. It wasn’t Kevin. Kevin had dark blond hair and always insisted on wearing the white coat over his scrubs, even when it wasn’t practical. Tonight’s work was messy. The white coat would have been ruined.

“Sorry, sorry, reacting to other conversations. Got to keep my head in the game here.”

Pressure. He said pressure. There had to be micro fissures causing the bleeding. Wrapping my hand around the wound, I leaned my weight on it.

“Doctor?” the nurse asked.

“Just trying something out.”

“Is there time?”

“I have a hunch this will give us the time we need.” I needed to get sutures into this kid ASAP, but with all the blood, I couldn’t see where to start. If we were in an operating theater, with the proper equipment, this wouldn’t be an issue. But we didn’t have the time, and we didn’t have an available surgery suite.

I lay across the kid and counted in my head and hoped my body weight and grip would be enough pressure to close up the invisible tears causing my problems.

I eased up, lifting my torso away. “Take a look,” I directed the nurse.

“Looks like the bleeding stopped,” she said.

I stood and immediately, we started the sewing.

My grandmother had taught me to hand mend when I was a child. She taught me patience and to take precise, even stitches. That handicraft skill had followed me into my profession. While others might throw in sloppy stitches—technically, stitches did not need to be pretty—I made sure if my grandmother ever saw my work, she would have nothing to criticize.

The impromptu surgery was a success, and my patient stabilized. She was moved into recovery for observation, and I moved on to the next case.

“Dr. Chen!”

I paused when Rosa Hernandez’s stern voice grabbed my attention. I turned to see our head nurse’s wide-eyed expression. “Yes?”

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