Prologue

      I stare down at the female body lying in an expanding pool of  blood. Her eyes are closed and there is a tragic, fixed expression on her face.

     She fought hard  to  survive.

     Her lips are outlined in a cyanotic blue  and they are  slightly parted  as though poised for one final kiss  goodnight. 

My stomach constricts. My bladder is ready to release the content it has been holding for several hours while a slow hysteria invades my body and provokes me to react, to scream, to cry.

     But I cannot.

     I already have one strike against me.  I am a female treading the blue waters of a man's world.  I must overcome his practices and his prejudices.

     Despite the rising number of XX-physicians, the operating room is pretty much off-limits to women. 

     I see the glass blue ceiling and therefore, I refuse to show vulnerability. There is no place for weakness here. 

     Tears will not bring her back.  

     I know that and wrap my emotions around the fact.  I instead cling to logic, to efficiency and to the knowledge that the next patient is depending on my surgical skills.

     This is simply the beginning of my career as an intern.  I am a rookie blue-- a novice in scrubs with four years of medical school behind me and   countless hours of training ahead of me.

     I am entering the unofficial fifth year of med school.  This is the year where I fight my way through rotating specialties.  Each has its own inbuilt set of challenges and failures.

     Medicine I, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Surgery I, Surgery II, Surgery III, Medicine II, Oncology, and Pediatrics.

     Gone are the simulated patient classrooms and the human-like mannequin dolls. Gone are the donated cadavers.  Gone are the hand-holding professors and the safety net which separates us from the real world.

     I am now a doctor. This is my amphitheater.  Here lies my patient.

     I   watch the dark red liquid drip, and trail from the gurney and create a scene similar to that found in a slaughter house. 

     I am suddenly overwhelmed with an inescapable pain. All kinds of emotions rage at my nervous system-- fear, dread, shock...

     Dr. Linden Murphy, the Emergency Room attending, opens his mouth to speak.  He announces in an empathetic, calm voice what I already suspect.

     “She's beyond our reach. There is nothing else medically possible for us to do here.  Time of death—20:15.”

     I groan.

     The clinical declaration hits my ears and dulls the sound of an alarming pulse-ox machine, a beeping I.V. monitor, and the flat line of a heart monitor.

     The labored breathing of the other Rapid Response Team members remind me of our commitment to preserve life as I glance at my bloodied, gloved fingers still deep in the thigh wound of the victim.

     Should I stop searching for the bullet?  Do I prepare the body for the morgue?  Who will alert the hospital statistics office of the death?  

     I continue to probe for the bullet and retrieve a hard, misshapen object from the penetrating injury with my slick digits as the background noise dissipates all around me.

     Is Jane Unknown an organ donor?  Where is the telephone number to the Medical Examiner's office?  Who notifies the Gift of Life people?

     I drop the bullet in a plastic resealable bag and hand it off to a nurse to tag with the patient’s info.  The evidence will accompany the body to the city morgue.

     Then I proceed to close the thigh wound with a staple gun and a thin row of metal teeth appear after each puncturing sound.

     This is my first death since stepping   into the pale blue scrubs of the O.R. and donning a white lab coat.  This is also my first homicide victim...