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Back Going Under Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

‘Are you all right, Kitty?’ Lawrence interrupts my tawdry thoughts and jolts me back to the present, and the decidedly unsexy scene of the stairwell to ward seven. ‘You look a bit … flushed.’

‘I’m just pleased they’re going to operate on Mr Wilde,’ I answer, mostly truthfully.

I open the door to the ward and vow to leave my unsavoury thoughts where they belong, locked in the operating theatre with all the other bodily fluids so they can be removed by the cleaners after hours.

ELEVEN

eleven

Every week on a Thursday afternoon we have a junior doctor meeting, run by medical admin. Most of the time my pager interrupts me so I don’t get to stay, but I try to drop in for at least five minutes to scoff down some of the free lunch.

‘I can’t believe you’ve been an intern for nearly two months!’ says Lawrence in awe as we walk into the conference room. ‘I think you’re doing super well,’ he adds loyally.

Lawrence knows better than anyone how painful neurosurgery can be, especially with my good friends the Joker and the Smiling Assassin constantly breathing down my neck, so I appreciate the support.

On theme, the subject of today’s meeting is Resilience. This is a deliberate move by medical admin. The results of a survey examining the experience of junior doctors in hospitals around the state has just been leaked to the media and most have scored extremely badly, including Holy Innocents.

‘Resilience’ is a word that has been shoved down our throats since medical school. I’ve lost track of the number of graphs I’ve seen demonstrating that medical students and doctors have higher levels of resilience in harder times than the general population. Hospital administrators seem to think that if they keep telling us how resilient we are, and draw up pie charts to show us this, that it’ll somehow make us even more resilient. We all must be walking around in a perpetual state of resilience overload. I’m borderline going to require resilience chelation therapy, if the pie charts are to be believed. The resilience must be just dripping off every wall of the place, in between the crucifixes. Overcoming suffering—a theme which adorns every spare inch of the hospital corridors.

Maybe I should start going to mass, I suddenly think. Lord knows my soul could use some soothing.

Lost in these existential thoughts I tail behind Lawrence into the meeting room. Max and Estelle have already arrived and are bearing plates loaded sky high with free nibblies. At least it’s a break from the ward.

What is RESILIENCE? screams the PowerPoint slide on the screen, while members of the HR department hand out pamphlets to us detailing which hotline to call if our apparently boundless reserves of resilience should inexplicably dry up.