Elizabeth stepped out of the elevator and wandered through to the admit desk in the ER. The ORs were taken up with normal, scheduled surgeries. Nothing interesting happening at all. Since nothing was coming into the ER, nothing unusual was coming upstairs either. The ‘highlight’ of the day so far had been an unexpected ruptured bowel from Geriatrics. So she had quickly scheduled herself a lunch break and decided to go and find Mark, since he was unlikely to be up to much as well. She found him sitting at the admit desk, glasses on the counter, staring at the computer screen, chin resting on one hand. As he squinted at the screen, she crept up behind him, and put her hands over his eyes.

“Guess who?”

“The OR’s boring too, huh?!”

“How did you know?”

“I have a sixth sense for these things…”

She grinned at him, and bent down to rest her elbows on the desktop.

“What are you looking at?”

“The AMA site.”

“Oh dear. Are things that bad?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I might just have to do something about that!”

“Hmm”

He continued scrolling down the page.

“Come on Mark, let’s go and get some lunch. I have to get out of here.”

“Okay. Even Doc’s is preferable to this place.” He stretched and yawned, put his glasses back on, then got up and followed Elizabeth towards the lounge. She pushed the door open as he caught up behind her, holding the door open above her head as he went in.

“Hey Elizabeth, Mark.”

“Carol. Why are all you guys hiding out in here?!”

“Is there a party going on that we don’t know about?” asked Elizabeth.

“No. Just spending some quality time.”

“We were just talking about why we became doctors, do you have a story Dr. Greene?”

“Pardon?”

“Yeah, come on Greeney! You must have your reasons!”

Elizabeth stifled a laugh.

“Malucci, call me what you want. But ‘Greeney’ I will not accept!”

“Ah, I think Mark’s dodging the issue here.” Carol smiled at him evilly.

“I think I do too…” said Elizabeth, obviously enjoying this, looking at him patiently. He looked back at her, in desperation, but knowing full well that she was likely to stand like that for how ever long it took him to finally spit it out.

“Look, I’d love to tell the story I don’t have, but we were just on our way over to Doc’s for some lunch,” he grabbed his coat out of his locker and put it on, “can we get you guys anything?”

“No, thanks.”

“I could really do with a steak sandwich.”

“Got the money for that?”

“Um, no.”

“No money, no sandwich.”

As they moved out of the door together, Carol called after them, “Don’t think you’re getting out of this so easily Mark! I know where you live!”

Mark put his arm around a smiling Elizabeth, and they walked out into the ambulance bay and across to Doc Magoo’s.

“So, why won’t you say, Mark?”

“What?”

“Do you have some deep dark secret you haven’t told me?”

“About being a doctor? No.”

“Why didn’t you want to say then? I know you’re hiding something…!” she said playfully, elbowing him as he ordered two coffees and got them a table.

“It’s not that I’m hiding anything. I just don’t think there is any real reason for me being a doctor.”

“You mean, other than being caring, compassionate, wonderful person?”

“Well, of course, other than that!”

They sat there smiling, and the waitress brought the coffee over.

“There must be something though, Mark. You know why I became a doctor – family tradition, probably something Oedipal as well. But I don’t know about you…your father was in the navy, your mother was a housewife…”

“Yeah. Maybe that was it.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, maybe I wanted to get away from all that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up in this enclosed environment, all safe and secure, living on Navy bases. I had such a boring childhood – I went to school, I played for the baseball team, I got a job at the local market. And my future went that I’d go to college, then go into the Navy. It was all planned, just like that, and I accepted it. Not in a harsh way, not like my parents laid down the law, “You will go to college, you will go into the Navy”, but more like it was there in their minds, and I knew it. But by the time I got to senior year at high school, I was really sick of it all, I wanted to get out and do something different, break the mold y’know? I played some Junior Varsity basketball, but I didn’t go on to Varsity. I was a bit of a nerd – I wanted to study in the last year. But what I did do was first aid for the football team, and I really enjoyed that. Probably because I couldn’t get on the football team, which was what my dad would have loved me to do, and that was the closest I’d ever get. But I liked being on the spot helping people right there and then. And I sort of began to feel like I could really make a difference. If I was there, the players could carry on, and we could win the game. If I wasn’t, we’d have to lose a player, sub someone else, and maybe loose the match. Wow, that sounds arrogant. But you know what I mean? For the first time in my life, I wasn’t following everyone else and I was making something out of myself and helping other people. My dad came to see a couple of games, and he always grumbled about why I was being a nurse and why wasn’t I playing? So you can imagine, I was pretty angry by the time I sat them both down before I went to college and told them I wanted to be a doctor. Inner anger, that is.

I think Mom must have talked Dad around to the idea of me being a doctor. He didn’t really react when I told them what I wanted to do. My mom was okay about it, she gave my dad a look, like this was some impulse, but she didn’t seem to object when I applied to med school after college. I figure she told Dad that I could be a Naval doctor. I think I knew that that’s why they agreed to let me carry on and go to med school, because they thought I’d return to the Navy when I was qualified. Anyway, I filled in all the applications, and I got into University of Chicago Medical School, which was my first choice. Simply because it was miles away from San Diego! Well, and its reputation, of course. So, I moved up here, went through med school without too many hitches, unless of course you count Jen – I met her since she was around campus quite a bit, she had a job there in Admin while I was at med school, and when we realised we were going to be serious about our relationship, we decided that she’d continue to work and get money while I got through the first years of med school, then she could get her law degree when I was earning. Then when we got married and had Rachel a year later, it wasn’t too hard on us, economically speaking.

I decided I wanted to go into Emergency medicine after I did my rotation at County in the fourth year, it was like being out on the football field again, except much more complicated. It’s such an incredible feeling working in the ER even now. We’re the first port of call for the people we treat, and more often than not you can solve their problems there and then. And you can save lives, which is just amazing, that I can make that difference to someone else’s life and see that I’ve made that difference as well. I think it’s an honour to be in that position, so why should I do anything else?”

©Triggersaurus 2000