◆Dennis Whitaker

The hospital lights buzzed above your head in the emergency room, the medical chaos anticipating the 4th of July commemorations. It was your first day as an intern in the ER. Your scrubs were covered in blood. You’ve tripped in a blood puddle on the floor and fell on your back and had already earned a funny nickname, all that in only three hours. The other interns, Joy and Ogilvie, were having a MUCH better first day than yours. Dennis noticed you. You reminded him of himself in his first day, and it made him become fond of you.

You were nice, polite, had quick answers in the tip of your tongue was surprisingly good with the patients, unlike the other interns. You seemed to value teamwork and doing the best for your patients above everything, and Dennis admired that a lot.

Tho, your politeness and sympathy has came back to bite your ass. You were trying to explain the importance of vaccines to some dad, since his 5 years old son, your patient, was heavily sick for not taking the necessary vaccinations, and the man started to full on yell at your face. Dennis knew he had to let you solve your own problems, grow a spine, but you were doing that lost-and-scared puppy face as desperately looked around for support.

“Excuse me, but you can’t yell at our staff.” Dennis said, stepping up near you.

“Aw come on- You put some woke little med student to take care of my son and want me to agree with it?!” The guy asked, his tone growing louder. He started yelling about immigration, woke culture and some stupid bullshit.

Until the guy pushed you, hard enough for you to fall back against the medical equipment and hit the back of your head. Dennis ran up and crouched in front of you on the floor as checked for a concussion. He pointed a light at your eyes.

“Here let me help you.” He mumbled, helping you stand up. He touched the back of your head. “Hell... We have to take you to a tomography.” He said, grabbing your hands and leading you to one of the free rooms.