Watching him made me realize why everyone put up with his constant bad attitude.
The man was incredible. It was a simple surgery, but without a doubt the most precise thing I’d ever seen. By the end, I didn’t even realize that I’d been standing for a couple hours, watching with my neck craned. He put the finishing touches on Mr. Short, they made sure he was stable, then wheeled him off to post-op recovery.
Piers looked back at me as the nurses bustled around the room, closing things up. “What did you learn?” he asked.
I stared at him, then blinked rapidly. “I don’t know,” I said stupidly, because I couldn’t choose one thing. There was so much I saw in that surgery, so many tiny things he did just perfect, and I knew that no matter what I did in my entire life, I’d never quite live up to what I just saw.
He seemed disappointed. “Come on then,” he said, and we went into the prep room together. He scrubbed down and got changed and I joined him in the hall.
Outside, he leaned up against the wall and I joined him, still buzzing from the experience of watching him work.
“What did you see in there?” he asked, pressing me again.
I opened my mouth to say something stupid, but then shut it again. The way he looked at me seemed to suggest that there was some correct answer—or maybe he was testing me somehow.
“It was a stent procedure. You placed the—”
“Not what I did,” he said, shaking his head. “What did you see?”
I chewed on my lip, not sure how to answer that. It was like some Zen riddle or something, where I was supposed to find meaning in an otherwise meaningless statement. I saw a lot of things in there, and I wasn’t sure which was important.
As I looked away, I saw the nurses bustling down the hall, and the way the younger girl moved made something click. I didn’t know why, but I thought of the way he’d opened Mr. Short up initially, that very first cut.
“Economy of motion,” I said. “You’re precise. You never go too far.”
He nodded, looking relieved, like somehow, I’d gotten it right. “Never too much, and never too little. That’s the trick in surgery. Anyone can learn the motions of a procedure and be able to get through it, but to do it perfectly, to only take as much as you need and never a bit more, that’s the trick. Too little is as bad as too much, but too much, that’s worse.”
“How do you manage it though? Memorization? Practice?”
“Practice,” he said. “Memorization doesn’t work. Every patient’s different, their bodies are slightly different, their skin thinner, or thicker, or more malleable. Every body’s the same, but every body has its own quirks, and it’s my job to assess those quirks on the spot.”
“So you’re sort of like spot reading them.”
“Right, if you want to use a musical metaphor. But metaphor only gets you so far. They don’t teach you this in med school because they don’t want to scare a bunch of perfectly passable surgeons away, but the fact is, learning the procedure is never enough. You need to learn to understand the variations between people, and how much you can take, before you can be good.”
He pushed off the wall and began to walk away.
I stood there, feeling dumbfounded and overwhelmed. It was like my first day of school again, except I was in the real world with real lives at stake, and I suddenly knew for certain that I was so far from ready.
That man was a genius. An asshole, and a bastard, but holy hells. He was a genius.
I hurried after him and trailed after in his wake. I almost wished I hadn’t seen that surgery back there—before it, he was just another asshole doctor. But now I understood that he was an asshole who could back it up.
And maybe, just maybe, I could learn a lot from him.
I knew I was smart. I knew I was skilled. I had good hands and good instincts, and I’d proved that to myself over and over in school. Now though, it was time to kick off the training wheels—and I was terrified I’d fall on my face.
Nothing else I could do but try.
4
Piers
I had to admit, I liked the way she looked at me.
I knew what she thought: I was just another asshole doctor with an enormous ego and nothing to back it up. She heard the rumors that I was good, but she hadn’t sat in on one of my procedures and hadn’t seen what I could do. Afterward, the way she stared, shit, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t like it.
There was admiration in her eyes.
She was a smart girl. Her answer to my vague question afterward was impressive, and based on some of what I’d heard about her, maybe she wasn’t just some rich guy’s cousin after all. She might have potential, and though I’d never trained someone before, I felt like I was up to the task. And so, when I left her that day to do whatever it was she did when I didn’t bother giving her instructions, I sat in my office and decided I was going to do this for real.
I’d train her, no bullshit. I’d teach her what I knew and make her the best surgeon in the place, or at least make her the best version of herself possible. There was only so much I could do at the end of the day.
The next morning, I sent her down to do my laundry again while I prepped for my next surgery. After five minutes of going over my notes, there was a knock at the door. I swiveled around.
“Are
