A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

School of Physic. “Medical wards, surgical wards, a fever wing.” He winked at Charlie. “And they have a home for student nurses nearby.”
    “Great,” said Charlie, and lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
    “They don’t do obstetrics. Closed the unit in 1903, but I reckon the Rotunda up on Parnell Square is where we should do our five months of midwifery, but we’ve got to get medicine and surgery out of the way before we can.” He lifted his new pint. “Thanks, Bob.”
    “My pleasure. You’ve really done your homework on this, Fingal.”
    “I have,” said O’Reilly. “Now look. I’ll arrange for us to see the Secretary of the Medical Board at Dun’s and get signed up.”
    Cromie said, “So we’ll stick together, the fearsome four, to do our clinical work at Sir Patrick’s.” His words were a little slurred.
    O’Reilly smiled. Cromie was a tower of strength in many ways, but, unlike Fingal, had a weak head for drink.
    O’Reilly lifted his glass. “To the next two years at Sir Patrick Dun’s, may the work be interesting and the craic continuous”—he fixed Bob with a stare—“for all four of us.” He drank to a chorus of “Hear. Hear.”
    “Damn right, and we’ll start tonight,” said Charlie. “When these are finished, let’s get our tea and then go to the floating ballroom at Butt Bridge.”
    To which Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly had replied, “I’m your man, Charlie Greer.”

5
    The Fleeting Image of a Shade
    O’Reilly looked at his watch and reckoned it was time to leave the cafeteria and see if Mister Gupta had good news. He climbed a flight of stairs and began to walk the length of the busy main corridor of the Royal Victoria Hospital. A couple of uniformed nurses passed him. A few folks in civilian dress, relatives of patients, no doubt. Medical students in bum-freezer short white coats. House staff in long white coats. A cleaner slowly advanced along the corridor pushing an electric floor polisher, known in Belfast as a bumper.
    Once on the ward O’Reilly stopped at the nurses’ desk. The young woman wore, beneath her starched white apron, a navy blue uniform that identified her as a junior sister. He thought she looked tired, with the typical pallor of night nurses, but her blue eyes were lively when she looked up and started to say, “I’m sorry, but visiting hours are—”
    “I’m Doctor O’Reilly,” he said. “Come to see Mister Gupta and my patient Donal Donnelly.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Donnelly. The head injury. They should be back soon. Mister Gupta took the patient back to X-ray.”
    “Back?” In casualty he had understood that Donal would have his X-ray before being admitted.
    “I’m afraid,” she said, “the films weren’t very clear and Mister Gupta thought the ultrasound showed a possibility of bleeding, but he wants to be absolutely certain there is a skull fracture before he calls Mister Greer in from home.” She shrugged. “He did a seven-hour surgery for an astrocytoma today.”
    “Brain tumour surgery’s tough.” O’Reilly could imagine his friend now in his big house on Harberton Park, sitting watching telly with his wife Noreen, probably dozing off in the middle of The Avengers. After an operation like that he’d be knackered. “With a bit of luck, we’ll not have to trouble Charlie tonight,” O’Reilly said.
    Sister’s eyebrow rose. “Charlie?”
    O’Reilly laughed. She thought he was being too familiar with her chief. “Charlie Greer and I were classmates at Trinity. Back in the Stone Age.”
    “Oh,” she said. O’Reilly could imagine the unspoken, “Well, that’s all right then.” Gupta wouldn’t bring in a senior consultant unless there were serious grounds. That he hadn’t done so immediately told O’Reilly that the young man was not unduly concerned, but by repeating the X-ray he was taking no chances. Sensible. The latest imaging techniques had failed to give clear answers. Until they did, the only