Page 7 of Doc Hollywood

“Hi, I’m Clara.” Clara dropped the bag she was squeezing and lifted her hand at him.

When Taylor made no move to step into the theatre and only stood in the doorway staring at everything, she waved at him. “You need to come a bit closer.” She gestured for him to come over to the operating table.

Taylor hesitated, then took one step closer, but no further.

Clara rolled her eyes before speaking again, trying to make a joke of his reluctance to enter. “Whatever Sadie has told you about me is a damn lie. And if you want to see what we do, you need to come closer.”

Picking up the bag, she continued to squeeze it, ventilating her now unconscious patient.

“Yes. You should come closer,” Lauren murmured, and stared at Taylor until Clara took her hand off the bag and waved it in front of her nurse’s face.

“She didn’t tell me anything.” Taylor’s gravelly voice was so low it was barely audible. “It’s just, well, it’s all a bit, um, I’ve never been in an operating theatre before.” His wide blue eyes darted around, taking everything in; he winced when he saw the trolley laid out with surgical instruments, his gaze snagging on a shiny scalpel blade.

“That’s okay. Not many people have.” Clara carried on ventilating her patient as she spoke.

Sadie grabbed hold of Taylor’s elbow and propelled him over to the operating table. “You’ll see things better from here.” Shedeposited him right next to the bed, and Clara was sure she heard her best friend giggle as she let go of the actor’s arm.

“Great,” Clara said sarcastically, still sulking a bit that she had been burdened with Taylor when all she wanted to do was her job with minimal fuss. She was so tired.

Sadie glared at her, then gave her a swift kick on the ankle.

“Hey.” Clara protested before she took in Sadie’s glaring face and realised she should probably minimise the sarcasm and do as she had promised and teach. “Okay, so I’m about to intubate the patient. Which is where I take a laryngoscope,” she gestured at the metal instrument in Lauren’s hand, “and use it to see the vocal cords, so I can put a breathing tube, often called an endotracheal tube or ETT, through the vocal cords. Then, I’ll breathe for the patient using a ventilator for the duration of the surgery.

“I’ve waited a couple of minutes since I gave them drugs, Which were an anaesthetic drug called propofol, which is the top infusion you can see running, the next one down is an opiate called remifentanil, and I’ve injected a drug called rocuronium, which is a muscle relaxant. This paralyses all their muscles, including their vocal cords, and I can get the tube in. Make sense?”

She glanced across and up at him and was slightly startled at the intensity of the blue eyes staring back at her. Clara wasn’t convinced he had understood a word she said, but he nodded anyway.

Then, she demonstrated intubation as he studied her, explaining every step in detail. She gave a few more drugs into the drip. Checked everything on the monitor and the patient’s positioning before she was satisfied and turned to face him, finally giving him her full attention.

“And then we sit and hope the surgeons don’t stuff up, so we don’t have to do anything else until it’s time to wake the patient up,” she said loudly enough for Ron, the surgeon, to hear.

“Hey, I heard that!” Ron shouted across the operating theatre.

“You were meant to. Go and scrub and get on with your job.” There was laughter in her voice as she made a shooing gesture at Ron to hustle him out of the door to the scrub bay.

She turned back to Taylor, dropping her voice. “Are they punishing you?”

He looked at her blankly. “What?”

“I’m trying to figure out why they’ve sent an actor to an operating theatre, even if you are playing an anaesthetist in a movie.”

“I’m playing an anaesthesiologist, not an anaesthetist,” he corrected her quietly.

Clara shrugged. “Same, same. One is international, and the other is just you Americans. We’re all doctors who make people unconscious and provide a non-moving target for the surgeons. Then we make sure the patient wakes up at the end.”

“Oh, right. Okay. Anaesthetists everywhere else, and Anesthesiologists in America. Got it.” Taylor stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar words.

“Then why are they making you do this? Did you piss the director off?” Clara nudged him.

“No. My director, Mr Atrosky, wants me to look as natural as possible in the role.” He looked down at her.

“So you get the joy of hanging out with me?” she questioned.

Taylor nodded. “Yeah, he thought that me meeting a real doctor and watching some surgery would help me get in touch with my role.”

“In touch with your role?” Clara struggled to keep a straight face, she knew it was serious to him, but it was so alien to her and sounded like a load of crap.

“Yes. To make it more believable, he wants us to inhabit our roles—live them, breathe them,” he said with conviction.

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