Resisting Her English Doc
Page 19
Liz’s great-grandfather had been one of the founding fathers of Hepplewhite General, which eventually had been named after him. When she’d completed her residency and applied there she hadn’t revealed her connection to the hospital, which had made winning the position that much more satisfying.
She was sure that somewhere, in the afterlife, her great-aunts had chuckled.
Her Great-Aunt Honoria had wanted to study medicine, but her father had refused to allow it. And when Liz’s father had expressed reservations about his daughter going into what he’d described as “a grueling, heartbreaking profession” Honoria and her sister, Eliza, had paid for her schooling.
“Do what you want in life,” Aunt Honoria had said. “Be useful, and don’t allow your father, or any man, to dictate to you. Eliza and I wish we’d had the courage to do that ourselves.”
The advice had been sound, and in line with what her nursemaid, Nanny Hardy, had taught her as a child. Heeding their collective guidance had led to her success, while the one time she’d not followed it had led to disaster and heartbreak.
No, she loved her work and Hepplewhite, with its associations with the past, and had made it the main focus of her life. Never had she been more grateful for how busy the ER kept her than now.
There was nothing like a full workload to keep the chaotic thoughts at bay. This winter had seen a particularly active flu season, still in full swing, and with the waves of snowstorms hitting New York City had come an uptick of heart attacks, slip-and-fall injuries and the like. The hospital staff wasn’t immune to the flu either, and there were a few out sick, which increased everyone’s workload.
As she swiped her badge to open the door, Liz’s stomach rumbled. She’d been heading for the cafeteria a couple hours ago when a commotion in the ER waiting area had caught her attention. Four clearly frightened young men had been at the intake desk, supporting a fifth who’d appeared to be unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. They had all been talking at once.
“He fell—”
“Momma’s gonna kill us—”
“He won’t wake up—”
Lunch forgotten, Liz had grabbed a nearby gurney and hit the electronic door opener, not waiting for an orderly. Even from a distance she had been able to see the youngster had needed immediate treatment.
As it turned out, the teens had cut school and somehow found their way past the protective fencing surrounding the hospital’s ongoing construction project. Once there, her patient decided to use the equipment and building rubble to practice his parkour skills. Probably not the best of ideas, given the slick of ice that still covered some surfaces. It had cost him a broken jaw, a concussion and the kind of laceration that, without plastic surgery, would leave a disfiguring scar.
By the time she’d examined him, made sure he was stable and sent for the oral and plastic surgeons, she’d only had another two and a half hours before her twelve-hour shift would be finished. Rather than bother with a break, and cognizant of the full waiting room, she’d only taken enough time to call her mother.
Striding down the corridor toward the ER, Liz put her family drama, and its attendant pain, aside. There was no place for it here in the hospital, where all her attention had to be on her patients’ well-being.
That was what was truly important.
On the way home she’d stop at her favorite diner and treat herself to an everything omelet with home fries. Just the thought made her mouth water and her stomach rumble again.
Copyright © 2018 by Ann McIntosh
ISBN-13: 9781488047756
Resisting Her English Doc
First North American Publication 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Annie Claydon
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