“I’ve been coughing and wheezing ever since the other girl left,” Mr. Henderson tells me. As if to demonstrate his point, Mr. Henderson gives a loud, wet, hacking cough. I’d love to get a chest x-ray, but the technician isn’t here today, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

The staffing here is terrible. One day into the job, and that much is painfully obvious. Before I came aboard, Dr. Wittenburg was stopping by occasionally, and other than that, they were sending inmates to the ER or urgent care for basic medical care—at enormous cost to the prison. No wonder they seemed so desperate to hire me.

Desperate enough to overlook my intimate connection to one of the inmates.

“What about Dorothy?” I ask. “Did you tell her about your breathing problems?”

He waves a hand. “She just says stop being such a baby.”

While the men are polite enough, I’ve heard my fair share of whining about Dorothy today. None of them seem to like her much.

“You’re great though, Doc,” Mr. Henderson says.

“Thank you.” I smile at him. “Do you have any other questions or concerns?”

“Yeah, I got a question.” He scratches at the rat’s nest of gray hair on his head. “Are you married?”

Dorothy’s warning about not giving out personal information to any of the patients is still ringing in my ears. But this seems like a rather harmless question. And he can clearly see that I’m not wearing a wedding band.

“No,” I say. “Not married.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find somebody soon, Doc,” he says. “You’re real young and pretty. You don’t need to worry.”

Great.

Mr. Henderson hops off the examining table and I lead him out of the room, making a few last-minute quick notes on his paper chart. The documentation requirements here are pretty limited, from what I’ve seen. The last nurse practitioner, Elise, just made a few notes in her large loopy handwriting for each of her visits. Whatever else Elise is guilty of, I’m grateful she had good handwriting.

Correctional officer Marcus Hunt is waiting outside the exam room. Hunt is the officer assigned to the medical unit, which means he brings the patients to the waiting area (i.e., the plastic chairs lined up outside the examining room), and he stands at attention right outside the room while I’m with the patients.