Page 2 of Doc Hollywood

Clara froze and muttered to herself, “Stupid bloody doors, load of crap automatic system. That’s why you shouldn’t get the cheapest bidder to build the hospital.”

Then she dutifully pressed the button and waited for the automatic doors to open before she stomped inside.

“I’ve sent for the first patient,” her anaesthetic nurse, Lauren, greeted her cheerfully.

“Thanks. What’s the list looking like?” Clara shook herself out of her bad mood. She didn’t want to take it out on her nurse, as it wasn’t her fault.

“Feral,” Lauren said, pushing the list of patients currently booked in the emergency theatre towards Clara. “Four appendices.”

“Four?!” What the hell have the surgeons been doing? Advertising on the street?” Clara glared down at the list of work that would take at least sixteen hours. Why did this always happen when she was on call? And knowing her luck, a stack more cases would get booked as the day progressed.

She hated days like this. It was bad enough anaesthetising the ever-changing and never-ending emergency list when you knew you were going to leave at six. When you were on call, it meant it was your problem until six, but unfortunately, not six pm; it was your responsibility until six the next morning.

“Yeah, and three lap choles.” Lauren’s finger moved down the list.

“For fuck’s sake. Nope, they can go on the ASU list this arvo. Can you let the nurse in charge know I said to move them.” Clara carried on scanning the list, breaking into laughter when she saw a note by one of the patients. “Surgeon requests a one o’clock start? Really?”

“Yeah. they’re arriving in the hospital at one and would like to get it done before they start their afternoon clinic,” Lauren chuckled.

“I’ll take that under advisement and tell the people with appendicitis that some moron got punched in the nose, so they’ll have to wait with their bursting appendix while the ENT surgeons straighten out the moron’s nose and make them beautiful again,” Clara said sarcastically.

“They claimed they’d be quick, twenty minutes tops,” Lauren offered.

“Of course they did. But is that surgical time or real-time?” Clara quirked an eyebrow.

The surgeons always amused her with their woefully inaccurate estimations of time. Well, if she didn’t choose to find them amusing, she would be tempted to throw some punches herself.

“Always surgical time. What’s the equation again?” Lauren chortled, as it was a conversation they’d had many, many times before.

“Right. It’s the time the surgeon tells you they’ll take to do the operation, multiplied by two, plus a fudge factor of thirty minutes if they let the most junior doctor suture,” Clara supplied.

“That’s the one. Scientifically proven?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking of getting it published.” They both cracked up at Clara’s straight-faced proclamation about publishing it.

So much of medicine was devoted to ‘trying to get a publication‘; however pointless it was, so you got some extra points on your CV and were more likely to get your next job. There were so many hoops for the Junior Doctors to jump through that Clara thanked the stars every day that she was a consultant and done with all that crap.

“Speaking of time,” Clara checked her phone. “Have you seen the anaesthetic reg? It’s seven forty-five; they should be here by now.” The on call phone she was clutching rang, an unknown number lighting up the screen. “Yup, that’ll be the sick call now.” She answered the phone. “Hi, this is Clara; I’m the anaesthetic consultant for emergencies.”

“Hi Clara, it’s Betty.”

Clara nodded to Lauren as soon as she heard their department secretary’s voice. She knew what was about to be said. “Hi, Betty. How are you going? What’s up?”

“Yeah, I’ve had about a million sick calls.”

“Yeah. I’m guessing I don’t have a registrar today?” Clara rolled her eyes. The junior doctors were flogged, so she was never surprised they got sick more frequently than she did.

“No. Sorry.”

“What about after hours? I’m on call tonight and don’t fancy working on my own for fifteen hours until the night shift arrives.” Clara shook her head at Lauren, indicating that they were it for the day.

“I’m working on it. Leave it with me, and I’ll get back to you.” Betty was incredibly competent and kept the whole department running. If she couldn’t sort out the staffing problem, it couldn’t be sorted.

“Thanks, Betty. How was your weekend? Did you go away in the caravan?”

They always talked about camping; it was something they both loved.

“Yeah. It was brilliant. The weather was perfect, and the campsite was right next to the beach.”

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