The Devil Wears Scrubs by Freida McFadden Read Free Book Online

it’s blood. Anyway, best to let her do her job.
    My eyes finally settle on a familiar face: Sexy Surgeon! He’s talking to a young woman in scrubs. As I approach them, I notice the woman is cowering a bit, and I can tell why: Sexy Surgeon is screaming at her.
    “You’re completely wasting my time, you realize that?” he snaps at her , his blue eyes flashing. “This is obviously a non-surgical abdomen. If you’d bothered to get a CT before you called me, you’d have been able to figure that out on your own. I mean, is everyone who works down here completely incapable of practicing basic medicine?”
    Holy crap. Sexy Surgeon is a complete asshole. Well, I guess that isn’t too huge a surprise.
    I try to slink away, but it’s too late. He’s spotted me. I freeze, but apparently he’s not a T-Rex whose vision is based on movement.
    “Medicine Intern!” he cries out. He actually looks pleased. The woman in scrubs takes this opportunity to slip away from him. She owes me big time. “What are you doing here?”
    “An admission,” I mumble.
    “Is this your first ER admission?” He grins at me. “That is really cute.”
    “Thanks.” I roll my eyes. “Listen, you don’t… know where Room 6 is, do you?”
    “Ah,” he says. “The elusive Room 6. Oh, yes.”
    I can see a glint in his blue eyes. He’s enjoying toying with me like this. I wonder if he finds one medicine intern to pick on every year.
    “You see that crash cart over there?” he says, pointing to the cart stocked with supplies in case of the inevitable ER Code Blue.
    “Yes…”
    As he extends his arm, I can see the muscles popping out. Sexy Surgeon’s got himself some nice biceps. But I’m not going to think about that. “Make a left at the crash cart, then it’s at the end of that hallway.”
    “Thank you,” I say.
    “My pleasure, Medicine Intern,” he says.
    He may be cute, but if he calls me that one more tim e, I swear I’ll punch him in the face.
    _____
     
    Nearly half an hour later, I am no closer to getting a history on Mr. Petrovich. Mr. Petrovich is a disheveled man in his sixties, with tufts of gray hair protruding from his skull and his chest. He keeps moaning and clutching his chest. Whenever I try to ask him a question, hoping he’s magically become proficient in English, he always answers the same way: “ Nyet !”
    I hate County Hospital.
    I’m on the verge of tears when a man comes in with a big ID badge that says “Russian Interpreter” and declares his name to be Boris.
    “Thank God you’re here ,” I say.
    “ You may begin, Miss,” Boris says in heavily accented English.
    I don’t bother to correct him by telling him that I’m Doctor McGill. Instead, I say, “Can you ask him where he feels pain?”
    There’s an exchange of Russian between Boris and my patient. I thought I asked a pretty simple question, but I swear they go back and forth like five times. “ Nyet !” I hear Mr. Petrovich say.
    “What did he say?” I ask.
    “He said it’s on the left side of his chest.”
    Five minutes of discussion for that answer? “And does it radiate into his arm?”
    Another long exchange in Russian follows. At this rate, it’s going to take me five hours to get a history on this man.
    Boris hesitates. “To be honest, it’s a little hard to understand him. I think he’s speaking an unusual dialect. Also, he’s mumbling a lot.”
    Mr. Petrovich is probably difficult to understand because he’s edentulous , which means he has little to no teeth—where his teeth used to be, there are only gaping red holes. In medicine, we’ve got all sorts of fancy words for things that aren’t very pleasant to say in plain English:
     
    Emesis: Puke
    Epistaxis: Nosebleed
    Stool: Poop
    Dyschezia : Hurts to poop
    Hematochezia : Blood in poop
     
    Boris and Mr. Petrovich converse for another few minutes while I stand there on the brink of tears. “ Nyet !” I hear Mr. Petrovich say.
    “What did he say?” I ask.
    Boris