ONE
CALLUM HAN
The corridor hums with the shuffle of interns, their murmurs blending into the beeping monitors behind drawn curtains. I keep my pace even, hands tucked into my scrubs. Efficient. Composed. In control. At least on the surface.
Keep it together, Callum. A lot is riding on this.
We stop at bed fourteen. I pause, flipping through the physical chart. Because apparently, in the great, technologically advanced year of our Lord, we’re still using paper records instead of an online electronic system.
I sift through a wad of notes from 1997, fingers thumbing dog-eared pages and handwriting that looks like it was scribbled mid-cardiac arrest.
Fuck’s sake. Even my parents’ hole-in-the-wall dumpling restaurant in Sydney digitized six years ago.
Sydney feels like ancient history now. I was one step away from a surefire promotion, set to become the youngest Director of Anesthetics at Westmead, one of Australia’s top teaching hospital.
Now I’m here. Townsville. A regional hospital with heart, but only a few hands. The highest I can aim for? Associate Director.
And I still have to apply for it.
I moved here for Claudia. For the life we were supposed to build.
Except she’s never here. It’s the third Friday this month she’s flown off to Brisbane for a conference. Or was it Melbourne? Perth? It’s been difficult to keep track.
“Dr. Han?” Trevor prompts.
I blink down at the chart.
Right. Focus, Callum.
“Patient in bed fourteen. Post-thoracotomy. Ropivacaine infusion.” I glance at the junior doctors. “Reported seizure-like activity last night. What’s the most likely explanation?”
I scan the notes. The nurse went beyond documenting, “witnessed seizure, doctor notified.” She recorded pre-ictal signs, ictal activity, post-ictal state. Timestamps. Vitals.
Signed: Jordie Mitchell, RN.
Huh. Not bad. But still inconclusive.
“Differential?” I ask the group again.
The interns hesitate. One ventures, “Could be metabolic—electrolyte imbalance?”
Another. “Or rigors. Fever spiked to 38.9 Celsius. Symptoms only happened at peak temps. Maybe the nurse got it wrong.”
A nurse, setting down fresh linens, doesn’t hide her snort.
I tap my pen against the chart. My bandwidth for attitude is currently sitting at zero.
Turning to the nurse, I say, “Any more seizure-like activity besides the two from yesterday?”
“No, Doctor,” she replies, tone clipped. Then, pointedly: “But the nurse looking after this patient last night is extremely competent. You can talk to her. She starts in ten minutes.”
I let out a breath. Competent or not, I don’t have time to wait.
I document in the notes:
Clarify with Nurse Mitchell if patient exhibited true seizure activity or mistaken for rigors from febrile episodes.
Snapping the chart shut, I move the group to the nurse’s station, grabbing a blue referral form for the next patient we’re about to review. “Patient in bed eighteen had a difficult airway during surgery last night. What are the discharge considerations?”
Silence. I scan the group like I’m hosting a particularly painful round of medical Jeopardy. Pause. Sweat. A visible gulp.
I call on a random contestant. “Dr. Patel?”
He jolts as if he’s just been tased. “Uh . . . pre-op assessment for future airway concerns?”
“Obviously. What else?”
Another intern pipes up. “Awake fiberoptic evaluation.”
“Yes. Future you will thank you. Current you, however, still hasn’t told me what to look out for before discharge.”
The silence stretches again. I sigh.
“Think,” I prompt. “What happens when you’ve had three goes with a hyper-angulated laryngoscope and a Hail Mary with a bougie?”
“Airway edema?” Patel says tentatively. “Observe longer. Steroids, if needed.”
Ding, ding, ding. Finally.
Trevor nods. Approval. Subtle, but I see it.
“Bingo.” I nod.
Another nurse—short, scrub-clad, chestnut-brown hair skimming her shoulders, face exuding a level of irritation that could curdle milk—steps into the station, a takeaway coffee in one hand, a patient chart in the other.
She halts in the entrance, eyeing the sea of doctors clogging up the workspace like a traffic jam of misplaced egos.
She steps further inside the station.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.” All polite, saccharine smiles while maneuvering past an intern who scrambles out of her way like a frightened meerkat.
I move to get the next chart, mentally calculating how much longer this round will take, when—
The sharp slam of a chart against the desk. An angry swish of papers. A disbelieving voice: “WHAT?! Who the hell wrote this?”
The linen nurse from earlier wheels her desk chair over to the entrance, like a courtroom witness taking the stand. She lifts a finger and points directly at me. “That one.”
Then, the short nurse emerges from the chart room. Her eyebrow lifts—a deliberate arch that signals an impending verbal execution.
Her name tag catches the light.
Oh. So, this is Jordie Mitchell, RN.
Jordie storms up, chart in her hand like it’s a weapon she’s seriously considering using. She stops just short of ramming it into my chest, flipping it open instead, pages rustling in agitation.
Her honey-brown eyes blaze with I-will-strangle-you-with-my-lanyard indignation. “You want to clarify if I thought the patient was seizing or just shaking? You don’t think a nurse knows the difference?”
I keep my tone level. Clinical. Boring by design. “Hence the word clarify.”
She steps in closer, planting a finger on the chart, tapping once. Hard. “If you’d read my notes instead of skimming them like a BuzzFeed listicle, you’d see I documented the full episode. Lactate’s up too. I also recommended drawing up bloods—”
“Not definitive,” I cut in, barely able to suppress my irritation. “Post-op patients have elevated lactate. Stress response.”
“Stress responses don’t come with tongue biting, a blank stare, and post-episode confusion.”
A shift in the group. An intern clears his throat. I feel Trevor watching me.
I hold her gaze. “And your official medical diagnosis is?”
She leans in, voice flat. “I don’t diagnose. But I know a seizure when I see one.”
Then, a shrill alarm splits the air.
My eyes snap to the monitor above the nurse’s station.
Bed 14. Code Blue.
Jordie doesn’t hesitate. She’s already moving, sprinting down the hall like the floor’s on fire.
I follow.
By the time I push through the curtain, she’s already at the bed, rolling the patient onto his side, securing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and telling an intern holding a Y-sucker, “Don’t jam the suction into his mouth unless you’re keen to crack a tooth.”
I grit my teeth. Heat prickles at the back of my neck. I order, “IV midazolam 5mg.”
The interns scramble. One nearly drops the syringe. Another almost clotheslines himself on the IV pole. Jordie mutters something under her breath that sounds an awful lot like “future malpractice suits.”
A few agonizing seconds later, the seizure resolves. The group fires off differentials, tests, and theories like we’ve dropped into a goddamn pop quiz.
“CT scan for possible brain inflammation.”
“How about an EEG for a seizure study?”
“Lumbar puncture for infection?”
Jordie rolls her eyes so hard it’s a miracle she doesn’t detach a retina.
She strips off her gloves with a quick, precise tug. “Or—and stay with me here—you could finally draw up bloods for ropivacaine levels, like I recommended last night.”
My jaw locks. “Nurse, it’s—”
“Why do you think we need ropivacaine levels?”
Trevor Wallis. His voice cuts through the space. Not directed at me.
Directed at her.
Jordie doesn’t hesitate. “Patient has a T3 paravertebral catheter. Ropivacaine infusion. Seizures, perioral numbness, agitation. Textbook Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity.”
Trevor nods once. Then, to me: “She’s right.”
I don’t flinch. I don’t let it show. I turn to the interns and say, “Order the blood draw. Start intralipid therapy.”
Trevor watches the interns fumble, almost amused. “This should’ve been an easy call. Dr. Han taught you about LAST syndrome yesterday. Nothing stuck?”
I find Jordie at the nurses’ station, typing like she’s single-handedly rewriting the hospital’s protocols. Or maybe just filing a formal complaint against my existence. Hard to say.
Interns are scattered and instructed to “go forth and make present-day referrals so future clinicians don’t have to MacGyver an airway at 2 a.m.” Rounds are finished. Patients are stable. Trevor’s gone. Chaos has passed. And yet, the irritation still burns under my skin.
I plant a hand on the desk beside her, lowering my voice. “Did you really have to flay me alive in front of my boss?”
Jordie doesn’t even look up. “Did you really have to write that condescending bullshit in a legal document? Tit for tat, Dr. Han.”
“I wasn’t questioning your competence—”
Her laugh is sharp, humorless. “Then maybe next time, try not to sound like you are.”
I grit my teeth. “We don’t diagnose based on overnight nursing notes. And with all due respect, I know my credentials, but I don’t know yours.”
“Ohhh,” she drawls, voice syrupy and thick with sarcasm. “So, you do have credentials.”
At that, she finally turns to face me, swiveling the monitor around. The Hospital Network page is open. My name. My photo. My entire medical background laid out for her amusement.
I narrow my eyes at her. “You looked me up?”
She shrugs, all faux innocence. “I just typed ‘is my doctor an arrogant jerk,’ and there you were. Let’s see,” she muses, scrolling. “Senior Anesthetic Consultant, Westmead. Aeromedical retrieval doctor with CareFlight. Clinical Lecturer, University of Sydney. Trauma and—”
“Are you done?”
“With all those accolades, why aren’t you running the show in Sydney?”
Translation: Why are you here in Townsville, fucking up my life?
Because I moved for my girlfriend. Because I need this promotion to prove it wasn’t a mistake. Because my parents are still breaking their backs running a restaurant when they should be slowing down.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I give her a tight-lipped smile. “Maybe I like the sunshine.”
She stands, and I get the very distinct impression that she’d love nothing more than to throw her coffee in my face. “Maybe I like my doctors a little less god-complex-y and a lot more open to the radical concept that nurses aren’t idiots. But hey, all due respect, right?”
A muscle ticks in my jaw. I give her a slow once-over—this tiny, irritating firecracker of a nurse has no idea what kind of day I’ve had, or what’s at stake for me, or how much I hate losing.
“Well, nurse—”
She gives me one last unimpressed look and brushes past me as if I’m not worth another second of her time and disappears down the hall. No eye roll. No goodbye.
Just five-foot-three of disdain in scrubs.
I stare after her.
Tit for tat, huh?
I sit in front of the computer and refresh the page for a new search.
It’s not spite. It’s . . . curiosity. Due diligence. I should know who I’m working with.
I type her name.
Right there on the first page are entire write-ups of journal articles written by Jordie Mitchell, RN, GradCert (PeriAnes), GradDip (Critical Care), PGDip (Pain Mgmt):
“Enhancing Gynecological Pain Management: Nurse-Led Multimodal Strategies”
“Numerical Pain Scale and its Efficacy in the Immediate Post-operative Setting”
“Beyond the Tremors: A Nurse’s Critical Role in Differential Assessment Between Seizures and Rigors”
. . . well, shit.