Log 1.
I fear I may have started this job off on the wrong foot. Right off the bat, when I stumbled into the reception of URMC, I committed the critical silly of asking where to go. The once-emergency room fell into silence: A baby being born stopped crying, and some guy just kinda stuck his arm back on and left. “FIRST MISTAKE,” boomed a voice emerging from below the desk. “I TELL YOU WHERE TO GO. Try the watch store … but something tells me you’re more of a calendar guy.” I was told that I replied along the lines of ‘nosir, yessir, I will get a calendwatch sir.’ Then I was forcibly concussed and came to in the clinic 20 hours later with five years worth of charting on my desk. I think I’m not fired?
Log 2.
A building where I am and have been has yet to be left. Underneath the starchy burlap of the couch I have been de-gumming, there is exactly one US dollar and 73 cents. Not anymore! The coppery coins were licked clean and taken with care to the hospital cafeteria, where they were exchanged for two hot dogs at pre-housing market collapse prices. When I strutted back with wind blowing in my white coat and three patients going into cardiac arrest in my wake, the booming American man (with a couple funny syllables) glared at me for still being here, and let me air chair by the table while the real doctors discussed the case. The patient had strokes and bad breath, which the one very attractive woman doctor diagnosed as lupus after the patient died from antibiotics. My boss looked at him, said “BOO!” and thumped a walking stick, and then the expired patient stood up and got discharged. Still not fired!
Log 3.
My seat at the table has been upgraded to a chair! Soon I will make it to board, where the markers will infect me with their wisdom fumes and I will gain five degrees of attractiveness, and negative five degrees of negligence. The boss was nowhere to be found for most of the day because the Chinese government flew out him and Wilson in a fighter jet to solve what turned out to be the second coming of malaria. He cured it by giving them polio and curing it with rabies: The New England Journal of Medicine has been burning up our telephone lines to publish the first medicinal application of mouse bites. I pretended to go to the restroom and called my mom, who told me I’m moving up in the world. But then the door was kicked in and they wrestled my phone from my hands: Apparently, I’m not allowed to experience emotion without a periodic remark sexualizing our administrator’s choice of clothing. “I swear I’ll do better next time!!” I yelled as they dragged me away into the sterile room, but I got extra sequestration time for plot-unrelated character growth. Tomorrow will be better another day.
Log 4.
Patient: 34-year-old female, admitted with symptoms of coughing and uncontrolled internal bleeding. Family: overanxious husband, no kids. Living room: spotless except for the dusty, padlocked, mysterious cabinet, the sand tracks I left on the windowsill and carpet, and also the broken window from when I broke it. Treatment: 50cc aspirin, 100cc liquid LSD to test for rheumatoid arthritis. Patient: started levitating, had to be chained to her bed until vitamin C titration started working. Consequences: none. Cuddy’s bra: cream. Treatment: long walks on the beach and radiation therapy. Boss problematic index: 87.
Log 5.
My coworker/hookup-in-the-janitor’s-closet told me she’s secretly the daughter of a Russian mob boss, and that the mail we’ve been getting that knocks people out upon envelope opening is a sign of goodwill. In the clinic, three patients spontaneously combust, which we deduce were entirely separate incidents owed to mitochondrial uncoupling, meth inhalation, and loser syndrome, respectively. I find myself at the deathbed of a kindly old woman who appeared mid-opening montage to deepen my moral duty to patient-first diagnostics. “Arr naur, Cleaurr,” I say, sprinkling tears across her ancient hands. House downs five Vicodin in front of me, then cures cancer. Pretty boring day. I go home, get my mail from the Dr. Chase box, then go into my holding box until next episode.
