Page 8 of Rules of the Heart

Ella realized that she was frozen awkwardly with her top half on and half off. She quickly finished pulling it off and put on her own blouse as fast as possible. She could feel herself blushing, wondering if Valerie was watching.

What did Valerie think of her body? Ella snuck another glance at Valerie, but her back was turned. She didn’t seem to be changing. She was simply fiddling with stuff in her bag. After a minute, Valerie shouldered her bag and headed out, still in her scrubs.

“Bye, Dr. Bush.”

Valerie paused, her back to Ella and her shoulders tense. “Goodbye, Dr. Ashton,” she said without turning around. Then she walked away without another word.

Ella frowned. She didn’t have to be so rude. Sure, she may not be happy about having Ella here, but Valerie could at least look at her.

Well, Ella wasn’t going to let that put her off. In all other ways, it had been a fantastic day. Valerie could keep her attitude. Ella didn’t care. She would simply ignore it.

The rest of the week passed in much the same manner. Whenever Valerie and Ella were in the same room together, Valerie left quickly without saying much. Ella didn’t know how long it would take Valerie to get the stick out of her ass, but she was quickly getting tired of this attitude.

However, for the most part, she was having too much fun to worry about Valerie. Working under Dr. Roth was great. The rest of the staff were all very welcoming, which mostly made up for Valerie’s coldness.

The weekend came, and Ella signed up to work in the clinic on Saturday morning. She was both relieved and disappointed to arrive and find no sign of Valerie.

On the one hand, Ella would have liked the forced time together to hash out her differences with Valerie. On the other, perhaps it was better to have her first time in the clinic free of potential conflict and drama.

Dr. Roth was also working, and he took Valerie through the charting system they used.

“Why do you do it this way? You’d see a lot more patients if you used a shorthand system, like we do in the hospital.”

“Patients in the hospital have already filled out extensive health questionnaires and been evaluated by interns or doctors from other departments. These patients have just walked in. Weknow nothing about them, so we need to be cautious in our approach and gather as much information as possible.”

Ella supposed that made sense, but she still thought it would be a very slow system.

As the morning went on, she realized that her initial impression had been wrong. It wasn’t just a slow system. It was a glacial system. By lunch time, she had only seen three patients. There were over thirty in the waiting room.

She took Dr. Roth aside. “Look, I know I’m new here, but you have to realize that this charting system is no good. I mean, look at this! You can’t possibly need all this information about new patients. She’s here for stitches in her arm. Why does the cancer history in her family matter?”

“You never know what might turn up. I know that for individual patients, some of the fields may seem unnecessary, but when you look at the information overall, it saves lives.”

“How many lives are being lost because the people in the waiting room can’t wait any longer? Do you realize that at least ten people have left the waiting room since this place opened because they couldn’t afford to spend any more time here? People need to get to work, or care for children, or do any number of other things. We need to get a more streamlined system.”

“I’m sorry, Ella, but these are the rules, and Valerie doesn’t take well to rule breakers.”

“I’ll talk to Valerie, then. Surely, the rules can be changed.”

Dr. Roth snorted. “You’re welcome to try, but I highly doubt you’ll make any progress trying to paddle up that creek.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Ella repeated. “She wants to help people, just like us. Surely, she can be reasonable.”

Ella knocked on Valerie’s door first thing on Monday morning.

“Come in. Oh, it’s you.”

Ella ignored the suddenly sour expression on Valerie’s face and focused on what she was here to do.

“I’d like to talk to you about the clinic.”

“Oh yes, I heard you had your first shift on Saturday.” Valerie looked slightly more cheerful now. “It’s good of you to volunteer, especially so early on in your new job.”

“Yes, well, I think it’s a great clinic, but the patient intake… well, frankly, it sucks. I’m not sure if you realize how many people simply leave before they can get any care. Look at this.”

Ella pulled out a list of names and reasons. “I asked one of the nurses to chat with anyone leaving before being seen. As you can see, most of them only had a finite amount of time to spend in the clinic before they had to get back to work, or care for children, etc. Some had even come the day before as well and not been seen then either.”

Valerie sighed. “I know we have more patients than we can see. It’s a huge problem, but the clinic is only so big, and we don’t have the funds to make it bigger, nor the resources to run a bigger clinic.”

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