Page 40 of Dr. Off Limits

Only another few months and she’d be moving on to a different specialty. Lucky them. It was only a few weeks in, but I was pretty sure she would be the star of her year just like I’d been the star of mine.

I moved onto the second activity, which was a game where everyone sat in a line about a meter apart. The first person in the line was given step-by-step written instructions on how to make a simple Lego house. The last person in the line was given the Lego bricks. The written instructions couldn’t be passed through the line. Instead, the instructions had to be communicated down the line of five people and finally given to the person responsible for building the house. They were about halfway through the build. It at least looked a little like a house, but the colors were wrong and they were missing important elements.

I glanced back at the haystacks activity and as I did, Sutton looked over her shoulder and right in my direction. She had her sunglasses on so I couldn’t be sure she was looking at me, but something told me this undeniable pull I felt wasn’t a one-way street. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. To some extent, it was comforting to know it wasn’t just an unrequited feeling, but on the other hand, believing she felt the same made it all the more difficult to resist her.

But I had to resist. My next career move couldn’t happen if I was dating an FY1. Even if I thought it was a good idea to pursue things between us, she’d pushed me away when we’d last kissed. She didn’t want things to go any further either.

So here we were, stuck in our respective purgatories.

After forty-five minutes, everyone changed stations and I went on to an activity which was all about body language and empathy. One by one each participant had a private consultation with a “patient” with an easily identifiable disease. After the consultation was over, the doctor would be asked what they thought the disease was and why. And then they were asked how the patient was feeling. Identifying the emotion of the patient, rather than the disease, was the point of the exercise. They had to remember that communication wasn’t just about words.

This was going to stump many of the doctors. Medicine attracted bright, focused people, which was a double-edged sword. Many of those who possessed those skills were exactly the wrong people to be doctors. Empathy was a key component in medicine and often one that went particularly overlooked in a hospital setting.

There was also a river-crossing game, with a time critical element that tried to foster good communication while under pressure. Lastly there was a treasure hunt that involved all the teams.

Just before the treasure hunt, I headed to the loo. I’d spent most of the afternoon observing the groups that didn’t include Sutton so when I looked up to find her coming toward me, I was a little caught off guard. Over the course of the afternoon, I’d gotten used to not seeing her and now, as she approached, it was like being struck around the head with a frying pan. Her perfect hourglass shape, emphasized by her t-shirt tucked into her jeans, set off electrical impulses in my fingertips. My body buzzed with the need to touch her. As she came closer, my heart began to constrict and seemed to lift. I tried to suck in a breath, to calm down the physiological response I had to Sutton so I didn’t end up passing out before we came face-to-face.

As she neared, she gave me a small smile and headed back to the others without even uttering a word.

Just the sight of her had me dissolving into a physical mess.

What was this woman doing to me?

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