You had befriended Cristina when you both started on the same surgical internship. It was an odd friendship as you didn't have too much in common other than your job but as you spent more time with each other you realised how well you complimented each other. Even though she was one of the smartest people you had ever met, she lacked any social knowledge, unable to function in a social situation without doing something that would offend someone.

Most of the time she wasn't malicious but seen as she didn't see why manners were so important nor why she should care about people's feelings when she was meant to be focusing on their physical wellbeing. You knew it was futile to argue with her or try to explain why it mattered, rather you needed to teach her ways to act like she cared about her patients as more than something to cut open.

It was easier said than done though. You decided to roleplay, with you pretending to be a patient and getting her to show her bedside manner but when you insisted on her compassion and kindness it only became weirder. She acted as though she was an alien who knew nothing about human interaction, awkwardly hugging you and talking about how death was a normal part of life and sadness about it wouldn't stop it.

If anything it made you lose hope in everything to do with her ever learning about having a caring bedside manner but for someone so smart, you hoped desperately that she would learn something.

"That wasn't like anything that I explained to you," you sighed, running a hand through your hair. "Did you listen to anything I said?"

"You told me to be kind, to show compassion. Isn't that what I'm doing right now?" She frowned, clearly tired of you compassion classes and even if she had taken anything out of it, she would go back to not caring rather quickly.

"That couldn't be considered anything like compassion or kindness," you stated. "It was robotic and had no heart in it. It really doesn't have to be from your heart, you just need to make the patient feel like you care about them and not just because they need a cool surgery that you want to do."

She let out a sigh. "Fine, shall we try again?"

Her words lacked any enthusiasm as did any compassion for patients but the only condolence to such a thing was that she was one of the best surgeons around and she would do everything in her power to save someone's life even if it was only in a clinical and cold way.

~*~

Written by Charlotte.

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