Medical College · Second Shift · Pulse Beat
In July, she walked into a lecture hall of two hundred students and sat in the back row. She was thirty. They were eighteen, nineteen, scrubbed and nervous, with new white coats too long in the…
In July, she walked into a lecture hall of two hundred students and sat in the back row.
She was thirty. They were eighteen, nineteen, scrubbed and nervous, with new white coats too long in the sleeve. Beside her sat a boy with braces and an extremely expensive bag, who looked at her with open curiosity. "Are you a lecturer?" he said.
"I'm a first-year."
"Oh." He considered. "You look... experienced."
"I've done a lot of nights," said Fatima. She took out her notebook, a new one, with a rubber band round it, and wrote ANATOMY. DAY 1. The professor strode in, a famously terrifying man with a bow tie. "Good morning," he said. "Look to your left, and to your right. One in ten of you will not finish. Some of you will discover you do not care for blood." He stared across the hall. "Some of you will discover you are exactly where you should be."
She was twenty-nine years and eleven months old, and she had never been so tired or so awake.