𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔳𝔢

ᴀ/ɴ - ɪ ᴀᴍ sᴏ sᴏʀʀʏ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀɪᴛ. ᴛʜɪs ɪs ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴀ ғɪʟʟᴇʀ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇxᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ ᴜᴘ, ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴊᴜsᴛ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ sᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʙɪᴛ. ɪ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇ ɪ'ᴍ sᴛɪʟʟ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ, ɪ'ᴍ ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴛʀʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴠɪʟs ʀᴇᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ғɪɴɪsʜᴇᴅ. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʟʟ ғᴏʀ ᴡᴀɪᴛɪɴɢ sᴏ ᴘᴀᴛɪᴇɴᴛʟʏ. ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇxᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴡᴏʀᴛʜ ɪᴛ. ɪ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇ.

Oh, Lecture Day.

"Wake up!" I sang, pushing Arizona's apartment door shut with a sigh. "It's lecture day!" I made my way to the bedroom she shared with Callie, to be met with Callie, knees to her chest on their bathroom floor, and Arizona behind her with a brush in her girlfriend's hair.

  I pointed to Callie's running mascara. "What is going on?"

"I can't do it," she gagged.

"Of course you can," Arizona encouraged, running the brush through her black hair as she continued to retch.

The naps,
the studying,
the stuff you actually learn
if you pay attention.

"Oh, my god. I'm gonna hurl again," she gripped the toilet seat."

"Okay, please don't," Arizona soothed. "Cause' I just got the last of the puke out of your hair."

"Why do I have to do this? I'm not a public speaker. It's not my thing," Callie raised her voice before mumbling with a clenched fist. "God, I hate Derek Shepherd."

"All you have to do is talk about being a great surgeon," Arizona set the brush in her lap and set her eyes on Callie's.

"And that's easy," I added. "Because you are...a great surgeon."

"To a giant room full of people...from a giant stage. Oh, god. With a microphone," Callie paused with a lift of the toilet seat.

Oh, Lecture Day. 

"I used to love lecture day," I rested my chin on Arizona's shoulder who sat in the seat in front of me. "No labs. No pages."

"No surgeries," Cristina pointed out, pausing from the stitch she practiced on the string tied to her leg.

"We were interns," I sat back, arms crossed. "We never got surgeries."

"Good morning," the microphone adjusted from the stage in the front of the room. A few returned Derek's greeting before he continued. "Good morning, everybody. Good morning. I'm excited. Are you excited?"

  I nodded rhythmically, earning a laugh from Jackson who sat in the seat beside me. I glared lightly. "It's lecture day!"

"This is a, uh, teaching hospital. We learn a lot by doing. We can also learn—we should also learn from other people's experiences. Their losses will save you losses. Their mistakes will save you mistakes. Their victories will inspire yours. Let's pay close attention. This is gonna' be good...Dr. Miranda Bailey."

  Amateur clapping filled the room as Dr. Bailey made her way to the stage. "Good morning, everyone."

"Good morning."

  Silence filled the audience for a moment before a thud was heard, followed by an "ow", caused by a piece of candy Dr. Bailey whipped at Cristina for focusing on her stitch instead than her.

"Morning, Dr. Yang." The room filled with laughter as she tossed another piece, but this time Cristina had caught it.

"If I have to stand here, you have to listen. Eyes forward. Answer a question right, you get a chocolate. Doze off, you get beaned in the face. Ask Dr. Yang. My aim is exceptional...2003. I'm three days into my intern year."

"So what's the point of this, again?" Jackson leaned into me quietly.

"It's informative," I whispered back. "Shh, she's going to throw candy at you."

  I winced lightly, sliding down in my seat in horror as Callie stood on the stage, shaking her leg nervously.

"Oh, god," I gritted my teeth, the room filling with laughter as a picture of her and Arizona appeared on the projector.

"Oh, no, no, no. That's not the right-"

I sighed in relief as the correct picture of a patient with misshapen legs took the previous picture's place.

"In my third year as a resident, I was-"

"Can't hear you!" Someone singsonged.

"Oh shut it," my remark coming out louder than intended so I sunk a litter farther down in my seat, Jackson and Lexie stifling back laughs.

"In my third year as a resident, I was presented with a patient named Sunder...Atluri, a twenty eight year old grad...student from India."

"Derek didn't say anything?" I leaned forward to Meredith who sat in the row in front of me as we watched Chief Webber make his way to the stage.

"Huh-uh."

"Good-good morning."

"Once upon a time...long before I was chief of surgery, even before I was an attending, I was a resident right here at Seattle Grace, just like you. You learn from everything in your residency—the patients, the nurses, the attendings. But you don't realize how much you learn from each other."

  Our eyes wandered to our peers as he spoke. "1982–you were all in diapers."

"Dr. Ellis Grey—two time Harper Avery award winner and my colleague on this case—a case that changed my life...look around."

  My eyes went from one person to the next, Alex, to Arizona, Meredith, Cristina, Lexie, Dr. Bailey, Derek, Mark, Callie, Jackson.

"The biggest influences in your life are sitting next to you." My eyes went to Lexie again, who sat beside my, then to the other side, where my eyes met with Jackson's for a moment before I focused back on Dr. Webber.

"The late Dr. Ellis Grey was known as a groundbreaker, a lion. She was the best this hospital, or most hospitals had ever seen. But back then, she was known as "sugar" or "nurse" or nothing at all."

"Oh crap," Callie fumbled with the note cards at her feet as the laughter grew, along with my anger.

I sighed lightly, a sudden weight falling on my shoulder. I scoffed, glaring at the buzzed hair that scratched my face.

"Wake...up," I snapped quietly with a slap to the forehead, jolting Jackson from my personal space.

"Ow," he grumbled.

"Pay attention," I pointed, my eyes sympathetic as Callie continued to struggle with her cards.

"Just talk!" Arizona blurted.

"Hmm?" Callie paused.

"Just...tell us what happened."

"Okay," Callie nodded, pulling herself and her cards off the floor.

"Um....there was, uh, this patient. He wanted to get his club foot fixed. But I had a different idea."

"Single most important step in the treatment process—anyone?" Dr. Bailey pointed her finger around the room and I held up my hand.

"Physical exam," Jackson answered quickly.

  Dr. Bailey gasped with a chocolate in her hand, getting ready to throw. "No, no chocolate for you."

"Lab and radiology evaluation," Cristina answered.

"Uh, oh. Come on, people. Now you're embarrassing me." Dr. Bailey gestured to me.

"Patient history."

"Thank you!" She sighed with a smile, tossing the chocolate past the rows of seats and into my small hands. "Catch."

  I watched Jackson with a coy grin as I unwrapped the sweets, taking a a bite into the caramel filled chocolate before reaching forward for Arizona to take the other half.

"Thank you," she dragged, popping it in her mouth as I pushed myself back into my seat.

"We're not allowed to beat you with sticks...so we punish you with scut," Webber said simply, earning a laugh from the room.

"We do it today, and they did it back in my day. Dr. Grey and I did mountains of scut. Testing tissue samples was boring. But it's how we found out our patient had a fungus called cryptococcus."

  He continued. "We asked his girlfriend to step out. Because we knew we were gonna' have to ask some pretty uncomfortable questions...we suspected he might have G.R.I.D."

"Does anyone know what G.R.I.D. is?"

  The room fell silent but Lexie lifted her hand. "A.I.D.S."

"That's right. But I'm 1982, it was known as gay-related immune deficiency...this was early 1982. We hadn't seen a case in Washington state, ever. San Francisco only had five cases. We didn't know what it was, and because it was isolated to the gay community, the government wasn't funding research."

"Does anyone know when the H.I.V. retrovirus was finally discovered?"

"Uh, 1983, but there wasn't a test until '85," Cristina answered quickly.

"That's right. It was so new that even our attending didn't know how to handle it."

"Successes or failures. Which teaches you more?" Dr. Bailey held up a piece of candy.

"Failures," Jackson called out.

"Yeah, but that was a gimmie. Don't get too cocky," she tossed the candy, it falling into his hands effortlessly with a coy grin.

I narrowed my eyes at Jackson. "You have to raise your hand." He shrugged.

"The patient was discharged, and a month later, she was back in the E.R. in the middle of the night. She had right lower quadrant pain, fever, vomiting—symptoms consistent with?"

"Appendicitis."

"Aha! You get a chocolate, cause' that's what I thought. But don't eat it yet. Pay attention. I diagnosed Alicia with appendicitis. And Dr. Webber decided that, that appy was going to be my first solo surgery."

"I didn't want to close," Callie spoke with her hand in her hair, her voice quiet but louder than it had been. "But we had to."

"So...we took the...patient to surgery again, and...wait, no. Hang on," she shook her head, turning to the computer beside her.

"You were there. Help her," Arizona whispered to Alex who was a few seats down from her.

  Alex sat forward immediately with a sigh. "That's when we saw the dude do the thing with his foot," Alex reminded her with a nod. "You know."

"No surgeon likes giving up on a patient. Dr. Grey liked it even less than most. But when a patient refuses treatment, you're done. I mean, we were done."

"Well, that's what we though anyhow."

"A healthy appendix! The third surgery for this patient with unrelenting abdominal pain, fatigue and muscle pain. Now what?"

"Test for zebras. Uh, uncommon diseases."

"Do an A.N.A. For lupus."

"Lupus, yes."

"Whoa, what about lead? You test for lead?" Jackson raised his hand.

"Good, good. See?" She tossed him a candy that he waved in my face with pride. "Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes you have to be the patient's advocate and push to get things done."

"We'd hit a wall. And, um..."

"We planned a number of procedures," Alex finished for her.

"But um...but then."

"Then I gave you that rousing pep talk."

Callie smiled for the first time today. "You know what? You totally did."

"So what was the result?" I pressed. "Did she test positive for hemochromatosis?"

"Nope."

"What about lime disease?" Cristina was tossed a chocolate.

"Lime disease. No."

"Celiac disease—negative. Every test I could think of. Negative. So I did what I've told you all to do when you get stuck. I went to the library and I hit the books. I hit em' hard."

"Hell, we weren't noble. We were just more arrogant than the rest and had more to prove."

"So we did it. He came in, he asked for help...we did the surgery. And our attending watched from the gallery...every second of it."

"We knew what we were doing was risky. These days we know that A.I.D.S. transmission requires exchanges of bodily fluids. But back then we had no idea. Can you get it from casual contact, from the air, from surgery? No idea."

"We spent days trying to make things right, trying to figure out the best strategy."

  With a smile on my face, I watched Callie comfortably talk to the crowd, her legs swinging off the stage as she sat at the edge, content as if she hadn't lost her lunch over it hours before.

"So we, uh, researched and, uh, practiced and...eventually we were ready."

"All my research didn't help. Dr. Baylow sent the patient home. So I thought she'd won. I thought, you know, maybe I wasn't cut out for this game. But a couple of months later...she was back."

"Baylow wanted to operate again...possible obstruction from the other surgeries."

"But you see, Dr. Baylow couldn't see past the abdominal pain. Weakness, palpitations, numbness, skin changes...her urine was intermittently dark."

"So you canceled your resident's surgery? Isn't that a little bold?" Lexie grinned.

"Well, she was worried about adhesions, right?" Cristina jumped up from her seat, arms open. "Give me candy."

  Dr. Bailey scoffed with a laugh. "No adhesions, no candy."

"And it wasn't bold, Grey. It was stupid...but in this case, it was also necessary."

"We did a series of shorter surgeries so his lungs and heart could withstand the anesthesia. It was grueling for the patient but worth it in the end."

"Show em' the x-rays," Alex reminded.

"Oh, yeah. So cool," Callie pushed herself off the floor and made her way to the computer. "Okay, um. These are the before."

  The projected screen displayed the x-rays of the mangled legs and feet. "And these are the after."

"See," I nudged Jackson who nodded in approval. "Lecture day."

  Clapping filled the room, earning a wide smile from Callie. "Yeah, it was—it was amazing...I mean, after the final surgery, we were just...and, uh, we celebrated that night. Man, did we ever celebrate."

  I let out a small gasp, my eyes flicking between Arizona, Callie and Alex. "Oh no."

  Cheering filled the room and you could see Callie finally exhale.

"Well, the patient survived the surgery, but eight months later he came back with P.C.P. pneumonia...he died a week later. Dr. Grey and I—well...I won't speak for her. But I lost the sense that I was a superhero. And I really started to think of how dangerous it all was. It changes you...this work. Your patients, your colleagues...you change each other. You don't ever think you'll lose your way. But what happens in this hospital...just remember why you came here."

"You said it the day you graduated med school. You took the physician's oath. Remember it. Tape it to your locker. To your bathroom mirror. Cause' it is too easy to lose your way," Dr. Webber held up his hand.

"I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health of my patients will be my number one consideration. I will respect the secrets that are confided in me even after my patient has died. I will maintain, by all the means in my power...the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession. My colleagues will be my sisters and brothers."

I exchanged a look with Lexie.

"I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability...creed, ethnic origin, gender, race, political affiliation, nationality, sexual orientation, social standing, or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient. I will maintain the upmost respect for human life. I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat, I make these promises solemnly...freely...and upon my honor."

A single clap from Jackson started the standing applause. I pulled myself out of my seat, blinking rapidly to hold back the despondence in my eyes.

"Are you crying?" Jackson leaned downward, talking over the commotion of cheering.

"No...I'm just," I struggled, avoiding the question by letting out a cheer that was directed at our former chief.

"WHOO!"

I love Lecture Day.