my father.”
“I know him from the Encinitas location. Tell him I said hello.”
There didn’t seem to be a reply that wouldn’t turn into a discussion, so she smiled at him and let the others have their turn.
“Our patient has arrived in the holding area,” Kendra said. “We’ll begin opening the sterile supplies, and you go with Rich to interview the patient.”
The residents left single file, Alison bringing up the rear. The milieu of the OR was her comfort zone. In medical school when they started clinical, it was the place she was drawn to, where she felt she could do the most good. But she knew even before that, in premed doing lab dissections, the scalpel felt right in her hand.
During her freshmen year of medical school, she was offered a job in the morgue at the medical center. During college, she’d made good money researching for grad students. The morgue job would mean fewer study opportunities. Uncertain about the demands the job would make on her time, she went to her advisor, Carole Barnes.
“Girl, grab that bad boy. Are you kidding me? There is one student position open in the entire morgue, and they are offering it to you. Run, don’t walk, and say yes.” When Alison hesitated, she shooed her away. “There won’t be a problem with scheduling your clinical, got it? Go!”
So for four years, in addition to the anatomy dissections she did in lab, she performed tissue dissections in the medical examiner’s office.
From her anatomy instructor, along with an A in anatomy, the note, You know your way around a scalpel. Time would tell.
In the holding area, the residents read the patient’s chart and then joined Rich during the interview. “You’ll all scrub in today,” Rich said when they were back in the OR.
During the surgery, the residents held retractors as Rich and the attending surgeon performed the surgery, explaining what they were doing with each step, quizzing the residents.
The attending surgeon, Mack Bushnell, looked at Alison out of the corner of his eye. “You were the medical examiner’s assistant back in Chi Town?”
A wave of heat flooded over her. He had read her CV. “Yes, sir.”
“How are your knots?”
“So far, so good, sir.”
“Wanna try one on a living patient?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
For the next twenty minutes as they dissected, she tied off bleeders and only had one incident where the surgeon yelled, and she nodded in acknowledgment. When the case was over, the first-year residents took turns sewing the incision closed while Rich sat on a stool, charting. He observed, approving the job they did, and the nurse applied the dressing, teaching as she went along.
Shockingly, when Alison looked at the clock, she’d been scrubbed for six hours. Time had flown.
“See you tomorrow at 6 a.m.,” Rich said. “We’ll do rounds before we come to the OR.”
When he left, he gave Alison an extra, familiar nod, sending chills up her spine. That did it; it was all she needed. She made the decision, due to his attention and obvious approval, that she was going to finally do something she’d considered doing for the past four years but, not wanting to make waves in medical school, had delayed it.
She was going to shave her head and start dressing as a man.
Sorry she hadn’t done it before her first day, she’d get it cut off tonight and start living as a man tomorrow if need be. The unwanted, although innocent attention from Dr. Mortimer was the last straw.
After honestly telling the barber her dilemma, he talked her into doing it in stages.
“Your head will sting if you shave it all off. Cut it short first and then give your scalp a chance to adapt, and in a couple of weeks, come back, and we make you bald.”
True to his word, he clipped it short. “Military short,” he said in his thick accent. “High and tight. This is called a fade.”
“Oh god, I love it! Why didn’t I do this a long time ago?” she cried, turning from side to side before the mirror.
“Baby steps, miss,” he said. “You startin’ late.”
“I guess so, but look at Caitlin Jenner. She was sixty-five.”
“That’s true. And people was still shocked at what she did.”
“Her family didn’t have a clue.” It was true, and Alison’s probably didn’t either. “I might just wear it like this, shaved on the sides, longer on top.”
“So are you mister now?” the barber asked.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’m doctor, and that is easy enough.”
The next