Dr Menon · Second Shift · Pulse Beat
One of them took her seriously. Dr Menon was a registrar in medicine, forty, grey at the temples, who had a reputation for being impatient with everyone but patients. He stopped at her desk one night…
One of them took her seriously.
Dr Menon was a registrar in medicine, forty, grey at the temples, who had a reputation for being impatient with everyone but patients. He stopped at her desk one night at two, picked up her notebook without asking, and read a page.
"You wrote that the loop of Henle is a countercurrent multiplier."
"It is."
"Explain it to me as if I were a patient."
She had been asked it before and had never been able to say it well. She thought for a moment. "The kidney wants to make urine that's more concentrated than blood. To do it, it builds up salt in the middle of the kidney, like making a very salty sea, and then lets water leave the tubes into that sea. The loop of Henle is the pump that makes the salty sea."
He looked at her for a long time. "That is better than the textbook," he said. "Have you thought of medical school?"
She felt her face go hot. "Every night for six years, sir."
"Then what's stopping you?"