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Ben tossed the paper to one side. ‘So Daddy’s little girl is trying her hand at neurosurgery, is she?’ he asked with a little curl of his lip.
‘Looks like it,’ David answered as he poured himself a coffee. ‘You’d better behave yourself, Ben. I know you don’t like the man but his only child is on the training scheme and you have a responsibility to train her just as you would any other registrar.’
Ben got to his feet and gave his workmate a confident smile. ‘You know me, Davo, I will remain professional at all times,’ he said, pushing in his chair. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard. I bet she’s short and dumpy and wears thick glasses, just like her pompous, overbearing father.’
David turned from the coffee-machine with a twinkling smile. ‘She must take after her mother, then,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard she’s a bit of a stunner.’
Ben rolled his eyes. ‘Please, God, spare me from another female registrar who is more interested in how they look than how they learn. That girl before Matthew Chan was hopeless. I caught her checking her reflection in a bedpan, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Don’t tell me the notoriously easygoing Ben Blackwood is starting to get a little tough on his registrars,’ David said with a speculative smile. ‘Or is it just female registrars you have a problem with?’
Ben gave him a quelling glance. ‘Look, I couldn’t help it if Phoebe Tatterton developed a ridiculous crush on me. God knows, I did nothing whatsoever to encourage it. She followed me around like a lovesick puppy. It was embarrassing.’
David gave a chuckle of laughter. ‘What you need is another steady girlfriend, mate. What happened to what’s-her-name?’
Ben frowned as he refolded the newspaper. ‘Leila Ingham.’ He brought his nearly empty coffee-cup up to his mouth and added, ‘She decided it was time to find a nine-to-five playmate. I think she’s seeing a schoolteacher now.’
‘Oh, well, you know how it goes—one door shuts and another one opens.’
Ben looked back down at the headlines. ‘Maybe….’
‘Go easy on the registrars, Ben,’ David said into the little silence. ‘They’re still learning. You were the same. Heaven knows, I was.’
‘Yeah, well, my learning experience wasn’t the same, actually,’ Ben said in a weighted tone. ‘I had to work hard to get where I’ve got. I hate it when these young people come in here and expect to be hand-fed all the time and get positive feedback on everything they do, including their stuff-ups. We’re dealing with real people, not computer simulations you can reboot if you knock them off. Why the hell can’t I get someone dedicated working beside me, instead of someone trying to prove something to her father?’
‘You think that’s what this is about?’ David asked.
Ben ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘I don’t know … probably,’ he said. ‘Bevis Willoughby always had it in for me. He was a bastard from the word go. He used to single me out in tutorials, criticise me in front of patients and nurses—he even rejected my thesis research proposal. It was as if he was just hanging out for the boy from the bush to make a mistake.’
‘Yeah, well, we all know what he was like around here,’ David said. ‘Thank God he’s retired. I hated working with him, even though he was a damned good neurosurgeon, technically at least. But you really shouldn’t judge the daughter on his track record. She might be completely different.’
Ben gave a little snort as he picked up his mobile phone from the table. ‘Let’s wait and see,’ he said. Attaching it to his belt, he asked, ‘Are we still on for a cycle in the morning?’
David shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate. I promised I’d get the kids ready for school so Kate can go to her aqua-aerobics class. Do another twenty kilometres for me.’
Ben shouldered open the door with a grin. ‘I’ll do that.’
Georgie rushed back to her car from her early morning gym session, her hair swinging from its high ponytail as she threw her gym bag on the back seat. She glanced at her watch—if the traffic was kind to her she had forty-five minutes to grab a low-fat protein shake and get to the hospital in time for her first list with Mr Blackwood at Sydney Metropolitan Hospital. She was excited and nervous at the same time about her neurological term. It was a busy public hospital but she had heard nothing but positive comments about the staff and cutting-edge facilities.
She drove out of the car park and then realised she had left her mobile phone with the gym receptionist due to the new regulation restricting camera phones in the change rooms.
She parked again in the nearest space on the street and, turning off the engine, flung open the car door. But before she could even swing her legs out there was a loud Thwack and a very rude swear word cut through the air as a cyclist went sprawling from his bike right in front of her.
‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped, and jumped out to his aid. ‘Are you all right?’
The man looked dazed and his arms and legs were bleeding from the scratches he’d received from his fall onto the rough bitumen.
Georgie mentally rehearsed the techniques learnt at the Emergency Management of Severe Trauma course she’d completed the month before. ‘ABCDE—Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure.’ She mouthed the words as she mentally ran through her priorities. ‘First establish his airway with cervical spine control, then check his respiratory movements, then pulse and BP and stop external haemorrhage, then AVPU neuro assessment, then undress him …’
Yep, airway clear, and he was breathing, she quickly assured herself. She unbuckled and pulled his helmet off and began inspecting the rest of him for injuries.
Ben opened his eyes wide as a touch as light as a feather skated over him. ‘What the hell—?’
‘Remain calm,’ Georgie said reassuringly. ‘I’m a doctor. Don’t you dare move. I’m calling an ambulance.’
‘I don’t need a bloody ambulance, I’m a—’ He frowned even harder. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
Georgie had already spied the mobile phone on his water-bottle belt, so she quickly took it off, dialled 000 and gave the operator exact instructions as to their location as she went to the boot of her car.
