Obie Hardy, a medical student at the Medical College of Virginia, struggles to translate textbook training into live patient care. In the 1980s, this small town boy is challenged by Richmond's city life and the incessant competiveness of his classmates while seeking competency as a physician. One student succumbs to the stress as Obie finds strength in his girlfriend, Priscilla, and a few close classmates. His part time research project involving a controversial cancer drug questions his integrity and allienates Priscilla. As Obie's life crumbles, he stumbles upon a pivotable lab discovery. Testimonial It has been a number of years since I read as exciting a book as this. The book is magnetizing and full of interesting history and a description of some of the events that took place at a historical Virginian teaching institution. The book is so thrilling that makes the reader, once he/she starts reading, unable to stop reading till the finish. The book is an impressive historical resume of MCV and a diary of some very important research as well as some other important events that took place in this edifice called MCV, "The Medical College of Virginia". Making it A MUST READ BOOK. Ali Hossaini, Sr, Ph.D., Assitant Professor of Clinical Pathology, MCV
M-81
Emerging DoctorsBy Willoughby S. Hundley IIIiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Willoughby S. Hundley III, MD
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4620-0466-9 Chapter One
Ward 63–BS
At six forty-five a.m., the air was already warming. Virginia's summers are usually uncomfortably hot, sticky, and humid, especially in the city. This July Monday in Richmond was no exception. Obie Hardy crossed the intersection as the light turned green and turned into the McGuire Veterans Hospital entrance. He drove slower than the other vehicles entering the hospital complex because he was searching for the parking area designated for medical students. The frequent speed bumps were welcomed, helping conceal his unfamiliarity by forcing him to slow down. After three-quarters of a lap around the complex, he found what he believed to be the appropriate lot and parked his gray-blue Chevette. He gathered his equipment that he had assembled, trying to anticipate any possible need that could arise, since this was to be his first experience at taking care of patients. He donned his white jacket—essentially a short-sleeved, snapup, smock-like garment he felt was more fitting for a dentist than a physician. Most medical students wore this type of jacket, probably because they were the cheapest and lightweight, and all their pocket references and medical instruments could be carried easily. Obie liked these jackets because they were cool cotton and unpretentious, not wishing to create an image he could not live up to. Outfitted in his jacket, pockets full of paraphernalia, and black bag in hand, he walked up the sidewalk to the Veterans Hospital, Ward 63, Psychiatry.
The McGuire Veterans Administration Hospital, VAH, was typical of the 1940's style government buildings. It could easily have been a post office or high school by appearance; only its overall size implied a greater function. The complex was largely one-story passages connecting two story wards, sometimes fifty yards apart. The buildings spanned lengths of up to half a mile. The ward entrances had cement steps and stoops with waist-high brick walls. The brick exterior had symmetrically positioned, multi-paned windows, wood-framed, with no screens. The institution spread out over about a hundred and fifty acres, including grounds and parking lots.
Obie turned right upon entering and saw John Morgan, a classmate, standing down the hall—a familiar face that might sedate the butterflies in his stomach. John was short, about five feet, seven inches, with short brown hair and a thick mustache. His white jacket was standard medical student uniform. He stood in an almost bowlegged stance, shifting weight from one foot to the other repeatedly.
"Hardy!" he chirped out. "This is the place!" Obie smiled and walked toward him. The floor was white tile with a waxy shine, the walls pale yellow. "Are you on this rotation or here as a patient?"
"I'm not sure," answered Obie. "This is quite a maze of buildings!"
"Yeah. They spread it out like this so that one bomb couldn't take out the entire hospital," John explained. His Blue Ridge Mountain accent gave his explanation a common sense, simple, earthy flavor. He was anxious to get to know Obie. They had been in the same classrooms for two years with 166 other medical students. Since John sat up front and Obie in the back, they hadn't become much more than acquaintances. Different study groups and social patterns had kept them distant. "Put your stuff in the lecture room here," he offered.
The third student, Cheryl Wright, was waiting in the lecture room already. There were a dozen metal, table-like desks with Formica tops in the room, each with a matching chair. A slate blackboard and bulletin board completed the classroom image. Classrooms were familiar to medical students after four years of college and two years of medical science lectures. But now, this was merely a briefing room for them; the real learning was to take place on the wards with real patients. Live human beings would replace the textbook concepts, lecture descriptions, color-slide pathophysiologic images, and therapeutics that comprised their medical education so far.
The attending ward psychiatrist arrived shortly to orient and brief the students. She was a middle-aged woman with graying, dirty blonde hair and a pleasant face, calm and unwrinkled. A motherly radiance emanated from Dr. Andrea Blanton. She outlined the schedule for the six-week rotation, including the drug detoxification unit, outpatient clinic, emergency night call, and the inpatient ward. "Feel free to come by my office and talk any time, especially if you have any problems during this rotation. Now I'd like to introduce Dr. Carl Anderson, our second year resident. He'll work closely with you on Ward 63." She beamed at Dr. Anderson and the students, and then faded out of the room, rarely to be seen again during the rotation.
Dr. Anderson was a tall, average-built young man in his late twenties. He had straight, sandy hair and somewhat retracted lower teeth, so that it seemed saliva would drool from the corners of his mouth if he wasn't careful when speaking. With himself, he was fairly secure, but in charge of instructing medical students in psychiatry, he was somewhat unsettled. Each student would take turns doing admission histories and physicals, dictations, and writing orders on the veterans admitted to Ward 63. He would supervise the process and be in charge of morning rounds each day. Since it was Monday (they soon discovered psychiatrists don't work weekends), there were already admissions waiting. He wrote three names and bed numbers on the blackboard and scampered off.
So that's it? thought Obie. No swimming lessons, life jackets, or kickboards? Jump in and sink or swim! He tried to picture Dr. Anderson seated on a lifeguard stand with sunglasses, a whistle, and zinc oxide on his nose. No way. He picked up his black bag, wrote down "Leroy King - 20B" on his clipboard, and walked out to the nurses' station to review his patient's chart. The admission sheet supplied the demographics: age, fifty-seven years; race, black; address, Greenville, SC; diagnosis-________. "What? No diagnosis?" He quickly flipped through the pages of the rest of the chart, all blank.
He walked down the hallway to the ward area, a large open room like a warehouse. There was a wide passage down the center with a four foot-high partitioning walls running left and right to meet the exterior walls, dividing the ward into four sections on each side, each with six beds. The second section to the right, second bed, was 20B. Mr. King's bed was empty, but Mr. King had spotted Obie from the lounge area at the end of the ward and came walking up behind him.
"Mr. King?" Obie inquired.
"Why sure, doctor. Why sure," he answered. He was a short, black man with droopy eyelids and a large grin.
"I'm the medical student who will be working with you. My name is Hardy."
"Why sure. I'm Leroy King."
"I need to talk with you and do a complete physical exam. Can you tell me why you're here?"
"Why sure. I'm depressed." He smiled cooperatively. "It happens to me a lot, 'specially after I been drinking."
"How does it bother you?"
"Voices. I hear voices. They says I'm no good ... oughta be dead."
The questioning continued for thirty minutes with little further information exchanged. Mr. King didn't know if his family had any health problems. Possibly he had a reactive skin test for tuberculosis, TB,...
