Finish the Story Contest - WEEK #31 | What goes around, comes around

What goes around, comes around
by @f3nix

Barnard Hall, in the heart of the west wing of the medical school, the Asclepius sancta sanctorum. The light of the sunset dripped from the dusty double-glazed windows and mixed with the cedar scent of the wooden stalls, arranged in steep theatre. A visitor who had passed the heavy double door would have undoubtedly caught the note of animal musk mixing with the wood essence. Smell of anxiety. Smell of hunted prey. Smell of university student exhausted during a long, endless session of exams.
"I strongly advise you to think carefully about your next words," Prof. Angelus said to the student.

Spread over several rows, set in the narrow space between the back and the table top, the remaining students were crossed by the icy scalpel blade of that voice.

"Here we are," Luke thought in a flash of conscious resignation.

It was the sixth time he had to repeat that exam: after five fails in a row his whole life have been interrupted and swallowed up in that black hole. By now he knew every detail of "At Heart of Cardiology", the three volumes treatise written by Prof. Angelus, a widely recognised eminence of cardiology.

For an eternal moment his thoughts dissociated from the scene and flew to that day three years earlier when, at the head of a handful of fifteen other students, Luke had decided to protest the decisions of the seventy-year-old professor.
"Do you mind if I ask you.. do you really intend to graduate in this university?" A stunned secretary had told him at some point, after the insistent protests of the student committee showed no sign of blurring.
And at what levels could the power of an old ordinary professor, close to retirement, ever come? The answer did not wait and, just two months later, Prof. Angelus was acclaimed by the unanimous council as dean of the faculty. Luke was instantly fire-branded and he would never graduate from that university.

"Well?" The assistant, the professor's guard dog, broke the silence.

"The... the... commissurotomy can only be performed if the flaps are not calcified and the subvalvular apparatus is preserved. With a left anterior thoracotomy, the chest is accessed through the resection space of rib 5. Once the pericardium is opened through the left auricle, a diverter is introduced into the mitral ostium which, opening, forces the valvular flaps to separate the merged commissures." Luke answered almost without breathing, tense like a Vietcong in his tunnel paved of sleepless study nights.

The professor's nose had disgusting bright red veins, Luke did not know if he was breathing - or alive at all. He looked down at the white, protruding knuckles of his left hand, clinging to the arm of his chair, and waited for his fate.

"Twenty-six, do you accept?". A note of irony in that electric scalpel voice.
"Yes. Sorry, I'll take the transcripts." Luke stumbled into his bag, looking through the notebooks for the grade transcripts. He had not even brought the booklet with him since there was so little hope of passing the exam.

The professor absent-mindedly drew a twenty-four and a signature in cuneiform spelling.

The cold light of the Pentaled surgical light-head outlined the instruments neatly aligned as efficient soldiers ready to execute his orders. It was almost pleasant to the watchful eyes of Dr. Luke Richards, a promising cardio-surgeon and head of the famous Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea, London.

"Doctor, we have verified that a serious heart attack is going on. The frequency is 207 bpm. We administered 50 mg of protamine sulfate, the patient did not react. Furthermore, his wife informed us of a complication deriving from senile cardiac amyloidosis."

"A very normal case that could be safely entrusted to the Mako-bot" Dr. Richards determined instantly by glancing quickly at the operating table, automated and managed by the hospital central A.I.
He snorted slightly. Evidently the patient had enough influence not only to obtain a human operation, but also to have the Chief Cardiac Surgeon out of bed at three o'clock in the night.

"Who do we have here, doctor?"

"This is a certain Prof. Daniel Angelus".

First part written by @f3nix

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How many times has he fantasized about confronting the eminent Prof. Daniel Angelus who at one point of his life held so much sway.

He recalled that meeting long ago that almost sealed his fate and where he had to let go of his pride and bow down to this man. He was a student and he was the dean so what could he do.

Luke remembers the smirk that professor had as he saw him falter beneath his gaze and retract on the very thing that he was fighting for. He realizes that people are not interested in the truth and what is right. All they cared for was being seen by their superiors on a positive note.

Pride is a bitter pill to swallow and as he verbatim said the words that the professor had written down on his book and not what he knew was a better procedure for the heart.

He remembers weeping outside the hall, clutching his transcript. He passed and was listed as the lowest in their class. He passed by going back on his beliefs. He passed because he kowtowed to the system.

He had to work harder after that. Every action of his scrutinized. His superiors always bringing up that incident as if slapping him on the face. "Just follow what we say" was the unspoken mandate they gave him.

How he toiled under such stress and ridicule for years and yet he persevered. To reach that moment that he would be one of those that people listened to.

He remembers going through different medical conferences, hoping to see the professor once again and show him that amidst what he has done to him that day many years ago that he is still here in this field.

How often he looked at the list of attendees and yet he eluded him at every turn.

How ironic that he is scrubbing for an operation that would do the very thing that he was asked that day. How ironic that he would be doing it on the very person that made him change his answer.

He took over from the Mako-bot and proceeded to do the operation. He checked the vitals and everything was proceeding normally. He was at that point that either he follows what the professor wrote down which he knows procedurally is correct but halves the success rate or do what he discovered to be a better way which he had written on and presented in a lot of conferences.

Remembering his Hippocratic Oath he proceeds to do his procedure. As he finishes the stitches, he whispers to the professor "You were wrong." and he smiled that he finally said it all these years to his face.

He would wake up and live knowing that he was wrong.


I like medical shows. Watching shows like E.R., House, The Good Doctor, Scrubs and season one of Grey's Anatomy (sorry to fans but I could only bear watch one season of that)

There is simply a fascination to watch medical shows and see them humanize doctors who hold such power in life and death situations and how they cope in losing a patient or go through their stress and daily lives.

This story made by @f3nix could go through different treatments and was a good way for me to write a medical inspired short story ending.

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This post was submitted for curation by: @theironfelix
This post was given a rating of: 0.7769020889982291
This post was voted: 86.73%

As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!

Irony is inescapable in life, and so it was for the professor. I think I would like it more if the young doctor had been less tormented by the humbling he suffered at the hands of the professor. Over the years, as he achieved success, he might have recognized the smallness of the professor's character. But the decision to perform a correct operation showed maturity. And that is what we look for in a character--growth and transformation. It was an interesting twist you devised. The truth denied years ago saved the professor.

Yes I could have gotten the person to move on and feel less tormented by that fact yet the way I wrote the character was with some of my experience of being in that situation where I got kicked around and boy I did not think that I was the better p[erson and just forget and move on.

I wanted to rpove the person wrong, to feel the satisfaction of having the last word. Not very mature nor forgiving lol

I've had more time than you to "move on".... many years I nursed wounds and that didn't help at all:) Yours was a good conclusion. You wrote it the way you saw it.

A story that humours the time in between in the flash back between the incriminating scene to now. Bouts of humiliation even after passing a test, endless torment and now the center stage of a final test. While I may have done it with dialouge and made explicit their relationship, the act to simply do his job implied a good ole complicated one. I just await for “the day after” of what the prof says after the operation. Certainly an interesting scene to witness now, aye? Upvot’d and resteem’d.
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I was supposed to make it a dialogue between the two, give more voice to the protagonist but somehow I wanted a simple telling of the tale.

I was thinking of how the prof would react on that day after and several ideas from juvenile to downright mean ways haha

Really great ending!

To reach that moment that he would be one of those that people listened to.

This really resonated with me. I think everyone wants to secretly reach a point where people who were once superiors look at us as equals.

" he whispers to the professor "You were wrong." and he smiled that he finally said it all these years to his face."

Very fine kicker. You closed it with elegance after a well built moment of existential musings. I like the contrast between the professor, stuck in his academic world made of abuses, and Luke who evolved in time - not without sacrifices and a submission to the status quo - showing compassion and the capability to break the vicious circle of power.

Public banana-service announcement: results are moved tomorrow and edition #32 will be out on Thursday. Good luck brave storyteller!

Week #32 is served, proud storyteller! Deadline: Wednesday 24rd October, 12:00 PM - noon GMT+.

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