“
I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...
"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?
”
”
Neil Gaiman
“
Captain! To your left there’s a Lunar guard and on your right is a doctor who’s running tests on Lunars and I’m being held by one of Levana’s wolf hybrids and please be careful!”
Thorne took a step back into the hallway a gun from his waistband. He spent a moment swiveling the barrel of the gun in each direction, but nobody moved to attack him.
With some surprise, Cress realized that the operative’s grip had weakened.
“Er…” Thorne furrowed his brow, aiming the gun somewhere near the window. “Could you describe all those threats again because I feel like I missed something.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
River Song: Use the stabilisers!
The Doctor: It doesn't have stabilisers!
River Song: The blue switches!
The Doctor: The blue ones don't do anything, they're just... blue!
River Song: Yes they're blue: they're the blue stabilisers! [presses the button and the TARDIS indeed stabilises] See?
The Doctor: Yeah? Well, it's boring now, isn't it? They're boring-ers! They're blue... boring-ers!
Amy: Doctor, how come she can fly the TARDIS?
The Doctor: You call that flying the TARDIS? [scoffs] Ha!
River Song: Okay, I've mapped the probability vectors, done a foldback on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination and... [presses a button, the cloister bell clangs] parked us right alongside.
The Doctor: Parked us? But we haven't landed!
River Song: Of course we've landed; I just landed her.
The Doctor: But it didn't make the noise.
River Song: What noise?
The Doctor: You know, the... [does an impression of the TARDIS materialisation sound]
River Song: It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on.
The Doctor: Yes, well, it's a brilliant noise. I love that noise.
”
”
Steven Moffat
“
An algorithm that expedites care to a stroke patient in a chaotic emergency room (ER) has a good chance of adoption. An algorithm that reads a routine scan and provides some quantification of what the physicians can already estimate won’t be in as much demand. There are good reasons for algorithms to parse patient records to look for signs of rare diseases, but there are fewer good reasons for using them to evaluate clinical symptoms. It’s cool that AI tools can make diagnoses from scratch, but for most clinical encounters doctors are already pretty good at it.
”
”
Ronald M. Razmi (AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare - A Guide for Users, Buyers, Builders, and Investors)
“
My name...my name is Mary. I'm here with a friend.'
Rhage stopped breathing. His heart skipped a beat and then slowed. "Say that again,' he whispered.
'Ah, my name is Mary Luce. I'm a friend of Bella's...We came here with a boy, with John Matthew. We were invited.'
Rhage shivered, a balmy rush blooming out all over his skin. The musical lilt of her voice, the rhythm of her speech, the sound of her words, it all spread through him, calming him, comforting him. Chaining him sweetly.
He closed his eyes. 'Say something else.'
'What?' she asked, baffled.
'Talk. Talk to me. I want to hear your voice.'
She was silent, and he was about to demand that she speak when she said, 'You don't look well. Do you need a doctor?'
He found himself swaying. The words didn't matter. It was her sound: low, soft, a quiet brushing in his ears. He felt as if here being stroked on the inside of his skin.
'More,' he said, twisting his palm around to the front of her neck so he could feel the vibrations in her throat better.
'Could you... could you please let go of me?'
'No.' He brought his other arm up. She was wearing some kind of fleece, and he moved the collar aside, putting his hand on her shoulder so she couldn't get away from him. 'Talk.'
She started to struggle. 'You're crowding me.'
'I know. Talk.'
'Oh for God's sake, what do you want me to say?'
Even exasperated, her voice was beautiful. 'Anything.'
'Fine. Get your hand off my throat and let me go or I'm going to knee you where it counts.'
He laughed. Then sank his lower body into her, trapping her with his thighs and hips. She stiffened against him, but he got an ample feel of her. She was built lean, though there was no doubt she was female. Her breasts hit his chest, her hips cushioned his, her stomach was soft.
'Keep talking,' he said in her ear. God, she smelled good. Clean. Fresh. Like lemon.
When she pushed against him, he leaned his full weight into her. Her breath came out in a rush.
'Please,' he murmured.
Her chest moved against his as if she were inhaling. 'I... er, I have nothing to say. Except get off of me.'
He smiled, careful to keep his mouth closed. There was no sense showing off his fangs, especially if she didn't know what he was. 'So say that.'
'What?'
'Nothing. Say nothing. Over and over and over again. Do it.'
She bristled, the scent of fear replaced by a sharp spice, like fresh, pungent mint from a garden. She was annoyed now. 'Say it.'
"Fine. Nothing. Nothing.' Abruptly she laughed, and the sound shot right through to his spine, burning him. 'Nothing, nothing. No-thing. No-thing. Noooooothing. There, is that good enought for you? Will you let me go now?
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #2))
“
Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error … Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen
“
I could hop into an ER carrying my severed leg and squirting blood from the stump and the doctor would congratulate me on having dropped all that leg weight and tell me to keep up the good work.
”
”
T. Kingfisher (A House with Good Bones)
“
I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself—I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist.
”
”
Alice Jamieson (Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind)
“
And then just as suddenly, I felt absolutely nothing. It was like a door quickly opened, showing me what horrible feelings I had inside, and then slammed shut again so I wouldn't have to actually face them. In many ways I felt I was living the life of a doctor in the ER. I was learning to block out all emotions in order to deal with the situation.
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors)
“
Of course, I'm not a doctor; I just watch a lot of ER and House.
”
”
Tucker Max (Hilarity Ensues (Tucker Max, #3))
“
Aber für ihn war Musik - Musik, wenn es eben nur welche war, und gegen das Wort von Goethe: 'Die Kunst beschäftigt sich mit dem Schweren und Guten' fand er einzuwenden, daß das Leichte auch schwer ist, wenn es gut ist, was es ebensowohl sein kann wie das Schwere. Davon ist etwas bei mir hängengeblieben, ich habe es von ihm. Allerdings habe ich ihn immer dahin verstanden, daß man sehr sattelfest sein muß im Schweren und Guten, um es so mit dem Leichten aufzunehmen.
”
”
Thomas Mann (Doctor Faustus)
“
Matt hit the floor with a wheeze, and then it was Ty's turn to be smug. "Gotcha."
Hell, no. They'd been at it for thirty minutes, and Matt was exhausted to the bone, but the last one down had to buy breakfast. Kicking out, he knocked Ty's feet from beneath him. Then it was Ty's turn to land with a satisfying thud.
"Jesus," Josh muttered from the weight bench.
Josh was also a good friend, but he didn't know much about having fun. He was a doctor, which left his taste for occasional recreational violence greatly diminished.
"You keep going at each other like that," Josh said, "and you'll end up in my ER."
Breathless, Matt rolled to his back. "Sorry, I only play doctor with the ladies.
”
”
Jill Shalvis (At Last (Lucky Harbor, #5))
“
There’s a terrible dark joy when the only person who knows all your secrets is finally dead. Your parents. Your doctor. Your therapist. Your caseworker. The sun’s outside the bathroom window trying to show us we’re all being stupid. All you have to do is look around.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)
“
Call it a hunch,” Charlie murmured. “But I think you and I are going to have a really good time losing sleep together.
”
”
Kimberly Kincaid (Back to You (Remington Medical, #1))
“
Working with Parker today had left her almost as hot as she’d been bothered.
”
”
Kimberly Kincaid (Back to You (Remington Medical, #1))
“
Men kjære betenk, De har Fordel af Sagen
Jeg skal faa Dem aabnet og lagt for Dagen
Hvad jeg navnlig vil søge er Sædet for Drømmene
og forresten gå Dem kritisk efter i Sømmene
”
”
Henrik Ibsen (Peer Gynt)
“
The doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst us—boys of a sort unknown in the last generation—the outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.
Der Arzt sagte, solche Kinder kämen jetzt manchmal vor – Kinder, wie sie die vorige Generation nicht gekannt habe -, das Ergebnis neuer Anschauungen vom Leben. Es ist, als sähen diese Kinder alle seine Schrecknisse, ehe sie alt genug sind, die nötige Widerstandskraft dagegen aufzubringen. Er sagt, es wäre der Anfang des kommenden allgemeinen Wunsches, nicht zu leben.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (Jude: The Shooting Script (Shooting Scripts))
“
Scarlett doesn’t want to go to the hospital. Not surprising, really, since we have to come up with an elaborate story about how we all got so severely wounded.
“Dogfight. We broke one up,” my sister answers for us as a horrified emergency room receptionist looks at Scarlett’s raw, bleeding shoulders.
“Dogs dislike us.” Silas shrugs, clutching the wound on his chest. He glances down at the burn wounds on my legs. I think they might scar, but it’s hard to say. The receptionist speaks into a walkie-talkie, then lets her eyes travel from the fresh wounds to the ancient scars on Scarlett’s body.
“Dogs pretty much hate me,” Scarlett says testily. The poor receptionist looks relieved when the ER doctors appear and usher us down the hall.
”
”
Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings, #1))
“
Books do not perish like humankind. Of course we commonly see them broken in the haberdasher's shop when only a few months before they lay bound on the stationer's stall; these are not true works, but mere trash and newfangleness for the vulgar. There are thousands of such gewgaws and toys which people have in their chambers, or which they keep upon their shelves, believing that they are precious things, when they are the mere passing follies of the passing time and of no more value than papers gathered up from some dunghill or raked by chance out of the kennel. True books are filled with the power of the understanding which is the inheritance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eternity.
”
”
Peter Ackroyd (The House of Doctor Dee)
“
be…would put you—” “Am I going to die?” Stewart asked
”
”
Robert D. Lesslie (Angels in the ER: Inspiring True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
“
Demonisk er bare noe sludder jeg fant for å berge livet i ham. Hadde jeg ikke så gjort, hadde det stakkars svinet bukket under i selvforakt og fortvilelse for mange herrens år siden.
”
”
Henrik Ibsen (The Wild Duck)
“
Here in Bosnia I had already seen several cases of rheumatic fever and a case we thought was miliary tuberculosis, diseases now rare in America. It was sobering to think that the mundane process of vaccinating these children might ultimately save more lives than any UN-brokered peace treaty.
”
”
Pamela Grim (Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER)
“
Dr. Mark Crisplin, a Portland, Oregon, ER doctor, reviewed the original EEG readings of a number of patients claimed by the scientists as being flatlined or “dead” and discovered that this was not at all the case. “What they showed was slowing, attenuation, and other changes, but only a minority of patients had a flat line, and it [dying] took longer than 10 seconds. The curious thing was that even a little blood flow in some patients was enough to keep EEGs normal.” In fact, most cardiac patients were given CPR, which by definition delivers some oxygen to the brain (that’s the whole point of doing it). Crisplin concluded: “By the definitions presented in the Lancet paper, nobody experienced clinical death. No doctor would ever declare a patient in the middle of a code 99 dead, much less brain dead. Having your heart stop for 2 to 10 minutes and being promptly resuscitated doesn’t make you ‘clinically dead.’ It only means your heart isn’t beating and you may not be conscious.”31 Again, since our normal experience is of stimuli coming into the brain from the outside, when one part of the brain abnormally generates these illusions, another part of the brain—quite possibly the left-hemisphere interpreter described by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga—interprets them as external events. Hence, the abnormal is interpreted as supernormal or paranormal.
”
”
Michael Shermer (The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths)
“
Er, well, um - there's one which is that a patient wakes up after having, well, that is, he's been to, er, to surgery, and he wakes up and, it's not very good, but anyway, he's been to surgery and he says to the doctor when he wakes up, 'Doctor, doctor, what's wrong with me, I can't feel my legs.' And the doctor says, `Yes, I'm afraid we've had to amputate both your arms.' And that's it really. Er, that's why he couldn't feel his legs, you see.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2))
“
Yes. This gradual walk toward not taking human suffering seriously anymore is something we experience in context-dependent ways already, and when you think of the global implications it’s scary to consider how malleable our experience might be. I’m thinking of a few local cases, like how surgeons and ER doctors need to inure themselves to the constant evidence of other people’s suffering, because otherwise they can’t get the job done. And every parent knows what it’s like to understand that the suffering of one’s three-year-old who bursts into tears over a lost toy is not something that needs to concern you as much as an adult bursting into tears over something else, and yet that suffering is no less vivid for the child. You can imagine that kind of immunity to the evident pain of other, seemingly conscious systems, growing over time. Life could seem more and more like a video game where everyone else becomes a prop.
”
”
Sam Harris (Making Sense)
“
Without direction, the respiratory technician goes to the head of the bed. She takes the tubing, attaches it to the oxygen, and turns it on as high as it will go. She provides a seal with her hand cupped over the plastic mask, over the nose and mouth of the toddler, and methodically provides oxygenated air. Doyle’s tiny chest rises and falls while I listen with my stethoscope. I am reaching for another breathing tube.
“Fib!” Dr. Pedras feels for a pulse while another places gelled pads on her chest.
”
”
Ruth McLeod-Kearns (Love, Loss, Trauma (A Compilation of Stories))
“
The doctor looked shifty. “He’s still breathing,” he said. “Look, his pulse is nearly humming and he’s got a temperature you could fry eggs on.” He hesitated, aware that this was probably too straightforward and easily understood; medicine was a new art on the Disc, and wasn’t going to get anywhere if people could understand it. “Pyrocerebrum ouerf culinaire,” he said, after working it out in his head. “Well, what can you do about it?” said Arthur. “Nothing. He’s dead. All the medical tests prove it. So, er…bury him, keep him nice and cool, and tell him to come and see me next week. In daylight, for preference."
"But he’s still breathing!” “These are just reflex actions that might easily confuse the layman,” said the doctor airily. Chidder sighed. He suspected that the Guild, who after all had an unrivalled experience of sharp knives and complex organic compounds, was much better at elementary diagnostics than were the doctors. The Guild might kill people, but at least it didn’t expect them to be grateful for it.
”
”
Terry Pratchett
“
Like the nomads, millions of Americans are being forced to change their lives, even if the transformations are less outwardly radical. There are many ways to parse the challenge of survival. This month, will you skip meals? Go to the ER instead of your doctor? Postpone the credit card bills, hoping they won’t go to collections? Put off paying electric and gas charges, hoping the light and heat will stay on? Let the interest accumulate on student and car loans, hoping someday you’ll find a way to catch up? These indignities underscore a larger question: When do impossible choices start to tear people—a society—apart?
”
”
Jessica Bruder (Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century)
“
Every day," I said, "every day I go to work and I see my granddad. I see the drunks and the addicts, the people who have fallen right off the edge of the earth. I see people who have made every bad move anyone could make, made every major mistake there was to be made, and by the time I see them, they are paying for it, sometimes with their lives. That's why they came to the ER.
"When you work in emergency medicine, you are seeing patients who are the least common denominator as far as human beings go; people who are heartbreakingly stupid and ditty and drunk and high and obnoxious--unbelievably obnoxious. These people have all flowed out of the darkest side of life. And when you are finished with them, that's mostly where they'll return. So each of you who is thinking you want to go into emergency medicine will have to ask yourself, 'Do I really want to do this?'" I tapped my chest. "I know the answer for myself--every day I work I'm taking care of someone who is just like my grandfather, someone just like my mother. But everyone in this room needs to ask himself or herself, 'Do I want to spend the rest of my life with addicts and idiots and drunks and psychotics? Is this what will make me happy?'"
I peered at all of them over the top of the microphone. "Very few sane people answer yes.
”
”
Pamela Grim (Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER)
“
I asked once before, do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where’er you go?” She flushed. So word of her run-in with Hero McClary had reached the doctor as well. Her face grew pinker, not from his mention of the feud but from his intense scrutiny. She managed as calmly as she could, “As I told Colonel Barr, the matter is settled.” His eyes sparked. “Nae, no’ settled. Nothing is ever settled with a clan like the McClarys. It matters no’ that you’re a woman. It matters greatly that you live alone.” She swallowed, not taking her eyes from his, and saw the warning and concern in their blueness. Wearily, elbows on the table, she rested her face in her hands. Gently but firmly his fingers encircled her wrists like iron bands and brought them back down. “Look at me, Lael, and say that you’ll come tae the fort, just for the winter.” Lael. Lay-elle. In his Highland brogue, it sounded like no name she had ever heard, yet she bristled at his familiarity. Her resistance to the notion of forting up doubled. “Nay,” was all she said as she looked away. Releasing her, he looked down at the bowl of food Ma Horn had set before him. Did he find turnips and greens disagreeable fare? Or was he regretting saying her given name? In a few days’ time, “Miss Click” had changed to “Lael.” “I’d best be going,” she said but made no move to do so. “Nae . . . stay.
”
”
Laura Frantz (The Frontiersman's Daughter)
“
And he was introduced to Loki, the family’s hairless cat.
“The kids wanted another pet,” Becky explained as Felix stared in horror at the creature beside him. “But with Polly’s allergies . . .”
“You are lying to me. You borrowed this creature from a zoo to play a prank on me. This isn’t even really a cat, is it? This is some sort of rat and opossum hybrid. This is a lifelike Japanese robot that can dance to disco music.”
“Funny. They’re called sphinx cats. Come on, feel her skin. Like peach fuzz, right? Isn’t she sweet? Give her a good rub. She’s very affectionate.”
“Ah-ha, yes, isn’t that just . . . er, what is coating my hands?”
“It’s . . . it’s like a body wax. I should’ve bathed her before you came. The hairless cats, they ooze this waxy stuff to protect their skin. ’Cause they don’t have hair. To protect them. So the waxy ooze helps. You see.”
Felix stared at her for several seconds, his hands held up like a doctor about to perform surgery.
“I’m going to wash my hands now. And I’m going to try very hard not to run out of this house screaming.
”
”
Shannon Hale (The Actor and the Housewife)
“
What I have been doing lately from my WIP "In Hiding" is available on my website. *Strong language warning*
Wayne sat in the hygienic emergency room trying to ignore the bitch of a headache that began radiating at the back of his skull. His worn jeans, a blood-stained t-shirt, and his makeshift bandage sat on a nearby chair. The hysteria created by his appearance in the small hospital ward had died down. A local cop greeted him as soon as he was escorted to the examination room. The conversation was brief, once he revealed he was a bail enforcer the topic changed from investigation to shooting the bull. The experienced officer shook his hand before leaving then joked he hoped this would be their only encounter.
The ER doc was a woman about his age. Already the years of long hours, rotating shifts and the rarity of a personal life showed on her face. Her eyelids were pink-rimmed, her complexion sallow; all were earmarks of the effect of long-term exhaustion. Wayne knew it all too well as he rubbed his knuckle against his own grainy eyes. Despite this, she attended to him with an upbeat demeanor and even slid in some ribbing at his expense. He was defenseless, once the adrenaline dropped off Wayne felt drained. He accepted her volleys without a response. All he mustered was a smile and occasional nod as she stitched him up.
Across the room, his cell toned, after the brief display of the number a woman’s image filled the screen.
Under his breath, he mumbled, “Shit.”
He intends for his exclamation to remain ignored, having caught it the doctor glanced his direction with a smile. Without invitation, she retrieved his phone handing it to him without comment. Wayne noted the raised eyebrow she failed to hide. The phone toned again as he glanced at the flat image on the device. The woman’s likeness was smiling brightly, her blue eyes dancing. Just looking at her eased the pain in his head.
He swiped the screen and connected the call as the doctor finished taping his injury. Using his free uninjured arm, he held the phone away from him slightly, utilizing the speaker option.
“Hey Baby.”
“What the hell, Wayne!”
Her voice filled the small area, in his peripheral vision he saw the doc smirk. Turning his head, he addressed the caller.
“Babe, I was getting ready to call.” The excuse sounded lame, even to him.
“Why the hell do I have to hear about this secondhand?”
Wayne placed the phone to his chest, loudly he exclaimed; “F***!”
The ER doc touched his arm, “I will give you privacy.”
Wayne gave her a grateful nod. With a snatch, she grabbed the corner of the thin curtain suspended from the ceiling and pulled it close. Alone again, he refocused on the call. The woman on the other end had continued in her tirade without him. When he rejoined the call mid-rant, she was issuing him a heartfelt ass-chewing.
“...bullshit Wayne that I have to hear about this from my cousin. We’ve talked about this!”
“Honey...”
She interrupts him before he can explain himself. “So what the hell happened?”
Wisely he waited for silence to indicate it was his turn to speak.
“Lou, Honey first I am sorry. You know I never meant to upset you. I am alright; it is just a flesh wound.” As he speaks, a sharp pain radiates across his side. Gritting his teeth, Wayne vows to continue without having the radiating pain affect his voice. “I didn’t want you to worry Honey; you know calling Cooper first is just business.”
Silence.
The woman miles away grits her teeth as she angrily brushes away her tears. Seated at the simple dining table, she takes a napkin from the center and dabs at her eyes. Mentally she reminds herself of her promise that she was done crying over this man. She takes an unsteady breath as she returns her attention to the call.
“Lou, you still there?”
There is something in his voice, the tender desperation he allows only her to see. Furrowing her brow she closes her eyes, an errant tear coursed down her cheek.
”
”
Caroline Walken
“
To Kevin’s surprise, Cassandra was able to make the right gesture to cue a display of data about the squirrels in question. “Just as I thought,” she said. “Non-native. The Eleventh Duke of Bedfordshire was responsible for introducing them from America in 1890. Since then they’ve all but wiped out the native red squirrel in England and Wales. Do you know, I never did think much of the Bedfordshires,” she said. “I knew the Sixth Duke. A ne’er-do-well, in my view. He was a Bonapartist, and he was opposed to the Peninsular War.
”
”
Mark Speed (Doctor How and the Dragons: Book 4)
“
I soon discovered that watching back to back episodes of ER and Doctor House and other medical TV dramas will not qualify you to take out someone’s appendix.
”
”
Nina Harrington (Keep Your Pants On!: How to Outline a Romance Novel When You Are an Intuitive Writer)
“
Every July first is New Year's Day for medical students -- the first day of the new academic year. Recently graduated medical students become "doctors", and second-year medical students become the most anticipated "third years", when the clinical rotation begins.
”
”
Julie Holland (Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.)
Brent Rock Russell (Miracles and Mayhem in the ER: Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
“
We do not like our doctors to be that human. We need to think they are secretly in touch with God. He
”
”
E.R. Mason (Fatal Boarding (Adrian Tarn Book 1))
“
[H]er spare strange beauty was not that of a woman, nor even of a statue, but that of the Platonic absolute of which all beauty is but a shadow in a cave, cast by the Fire beyond fire.
”
”
James Blish (Doctor Mirabilis (After Such Knowledge, #1))
“
If a patient arrives via ambulance and is seriously injured or really sick or has a heart attack, a doctor checks him out and sends him to the nearest real emergency department connected to a hospital with facilities like operating rooms and a cardiac laboratory. Aside from the risk of delays in treatment, the sequence results in bills for two separate high-level ER visits and a charge for emergency transport.
”
”
Elisabeth Rosenthal (An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back)
“
The fresher the corpse, the better the pay. This led to burking—the murderous practice of clapping a pitch plaster over a victim’s nose and mouth, ensuring a speedy death that left few or no signs of the violence responsible. It also produced the freshest corpse possible. Burking was named for William Burke, an Irish ne’er-do-well who, between 1827 and 1828, with his accomplice William Hare, murdered 16 people in Scotland and sold their bodies to an esteemed Edinburgh anatomist, Dr. Robert Knox. The doctor escaped prosecution, Hare turned King’s evidence, and Burke was hanged for the crimes in 1829. In a pitiless twist of lex talionis, Burke’s body was then dissected at the University of Edinburgh, and his skin was made into pocket-books and other macabre trophies. His skeleton still hangs in the college’s medical school today. Horrors
”
”
Mark Collins Jenkins (Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend)
“
So, what will I be doing?” I ask as he pulls into the driveway. “I watched a doctor on ER perform a tracheotomy using only a ballpoint pen and a kitchen knife. I feel like I could pull it off
”
”
Elizabeth O'Roark (A Deal with the Devil (The Grumpy Devils, #1))
“
Most of the people who call 911, even the Unusuals, don’t need to go to the ER. They just need someone to tell them whether their emergency is really an emergency or if it can wait until they see their doctor the next day.
”
”
Jamie Davis (Extreme Medical Services (Extreme Medical Services #1))
Robert D. Lesslie (Angels to the Rescue: Inspirational Real-Life Stories from an ER Doctor)
“
More often, medical trainees can be likened to frogs in slowly boiling water. We see sickness and death constantly, and if we are not careful, the doctor we had hoped to become will burn out. Out of necessity we create shells that protect and isolate us; sometimes it hurts too much to repeatedly feel another’s pain. We laugh at things that are not funny. We discuss people in a dehumanized, detached way.
”
”
Brent Rock Russell (Miracles and Mayhem in the ER: Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
“
Forgive me, Sophia. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just coming over to apologize for hurting you during the, er, ceremony.” “It’s all right.” She looked down at the ground, feeling awkward all over again when she remembered the strange sensations that had flooded her body during the Luck Kiss. “No, it’s not. I drew your blood and for that I must beg your forgiveness.” He sounded formal again, just as he had when he was talking to the priestess. “The gift of blood must be freely given—never taken or forced.” “The…the gift of blood?” She looked up at him uncertainly. “Is that some kind of Kindred ceremony?” He looked uncomfortable. “It is part of the mating ritual of the Blood Kindred. And since you have made it abundantly clear you have no wish to be called as a bride, I shouldn’t have taken your blood.” “So if you did call a bride that would be part of it—of your relationship, I mean? You’d always be…biting her?” She couldn’t help looking at his fangs again and feeling glad they were still small. “Only when we made love,” Sylvan assured her as though that made it all right. Sophie felt her stomach do a slow forward flip but she tried not to show her dismay. “That’s…uh interesting.” “And off the point.” Sylvan frowned, as though irritated with himself. “What I’m trying to say is, please accept my apologies and my best wishes for your health and happiness. I truly did not mean to bite you.” “It’s…I know it was an accident but…” She wanted to ask him more. Wanted to know why his fangs had grown when he kissed her. It wasn’t just his fangs that grew, whispered a little voice in her head and a wave of embarrassment swept over her. “Yes?” Sylvan looked at her earnestly but she shook her head. “It’s okay,” she mumbled, not meeting his eyes. “Seriously, I’m fine. Let’s just…leave it at that.” “I appreciate your willingness to put the incident behind us but I need to examine the wound.” “Why?” Sophie asked. “I know you’re a doctor…er medic but—” “I need to know how serious the injury I inflicted was.” He looked so stern that she tilted her chin up to allow the examination. “It’s not bad at all. See?” she pointed at her bottom lip which, to tell the truth, was still pretty sore. Sylvan cupped her cheek in one hand and leaned forward, studying her hurt lip. For some reason Sophie’s face got hot at the gentle touch and she had to close her eyes. What is he looking for? What’s taking so long? She wished he would hurry up and finish the examination. His hand was so warm and the feel of his skin on hers made her nervous. “Is…is everything all right?” she asked at last. “It appears to be.” He sounded cautiously relieved. “I nicked you pretty badly but I don’t think you got any of my essence.” “Your what?” She opened her eyes to see him looking at her intently. Blushing, she looked quickly away. “My essence. It’s…never mind. You should recover normally.” His voice dropped. “I would offer to heal it for you but I don’t think you’d care for my method of healing.” “What do you mean?
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Evangeline Anderson (Hunted (Brides of the Kindred, #2))
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Min Herres behagelige Sendebrev af 27de Dag udi Glugmaanet, (a) haver jeg den anden Dag af Blidemaaned (b) bekommet. Min Herre forlanger at vide hvordan Tilstanden nu omstunder er ved Academiet, om man tilkommende Sommer kand vente, at see nogen, at blive ophøyed paa Doctor-Trappen, (c) enten udi den Guddommelige Kundskab (d), udi de verdslige Love, (e) eller udi Lægekunsten (f). Min Herre ønsker ogsaa at vide, hvor mange Mestere af Verdens Viisdom (g) i Fior bleve skabte (h), hvor mange Laurbærkronede Personer (i), Item, hvo dette Aar er Rector og Decanus, det er den høye Skoles Forstander og den verdslige Viisdoms Høvidsmand, iligemaade, hvad Nyt som ellers er forefaldet udi den lærde Fristad (k).
(a) Januario.(b) Februario.(c) Doctor-Graden.(d) Theologien.(e) Injure.(f) Medicinen.(g) Magistri Philosophiae.(h) Creerede.(i) Baccalaurei.(k) Republica literaria.
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Ludvig Holberg (Epistler)
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The Doctor’s Diet is way more than just an eating plan—it’s a blueprint for a longer, healthier, happier life. It’s everything you need to know to keep yourself OUT of the ER.
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Travis Stork (The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health)
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eat the foods you love, but to eat them in a healthy way that will add vibrancy to your life and help keep you out of the ER.
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Travis Stork (The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health)
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the biggest emergency in ERs across the United States is the food we willingly, knowingly, happily choose to eat.
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Travis Stork (The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health)
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Isis is an aspiring horror novelist, with plenty of ink and pink-streaked hair. Jason was my teammate. We ruled the pitch together for a few years, as left and right strikers, but he graduated a year ahead of me. Now he’s in his second year of med school at UCLA, on path to becoming an ER doctor. They seem like this really normal couple on the surface. Then you hear them talking about viscera and bodily fluids with true unbridled passion, and you realize they’re made for each other
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Noelle August (Boomerang (Boomerang, #1))
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I’d been allowed to stay with Brennan once we’d arrived in the ER, but when the doctors had told him they needed to examine him for damage from the rape, he’d sent me a tormented look and I’d asked him if he wanted me to stay or go. He’d asked me to go. And I’d wanted to die. Ronan
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Sloane Kennedy (Vengeance (The Protectors, #5))
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Hep´-er-in.” The very first mast cell mediator to be discovered (in the 1930s!), heparin’s principal function is to inhibit blood clotting. As a result, in some mast cell disease patients, a flare of their mast cell disease can result in a micro-flood of heparin being released by their abnormal mast cells into the surrounding tissues, causing bleeding which often seems quite mysterious to the doctor (and patient!) because all of the usual tests for bleeding disorders don’t show anything wrong with the coagulation system. This is because these tests look for systemic bleeding disorders, whereas mast-cell-heparin-related bleeding usually is just a local bleeding disorder confined to the particular tissue in which the abnormally activated mast cells are abnormally making and releasing heparin – so there truly isn’t anything wrong with the coagulation system
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Lawrence B. Afrin (Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity)
J.D. Remy (Ballad of a Sober Man: An ER Doctor's Journey of Recovery)
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Lisa recalled dissociating when she was a little girl, but things got worse after puberty: “I started waking up with cuts, and people at school would know me by different names. I couldn’t have a steady boyfriend because I would date other guys when I was dissociated and then not remember. I was blacking out a lot and opening my eyes into some pretty strange situations.” Like many severely traumatized people, Lisa could not recognize herself in a mirror.7 I had never heard anyone describe so articulately what it was like to lack a continuous sense of self. There was no one to confirm her reality. “When I was seventeen and living in the group home for severely disturbed adolescents, I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself—I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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believe the ER doctor filed the report with animal control, as required, but I suspect he might have added some exculpatory comments. We never received a call from the authorities,
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Dean Koontz (A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog)
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Well, you know, Claire, it was six years. And we saw each other only three times, and only just for the day that last time. It wouldn’t be unusual if … I mean, everyone knows doctors and nurses are under tremendous stress during emergencies, and … well, I … it’s just that … well, I’d understand, you know, if anything, er, of a spontaneous nature
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Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
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But still, I was mourning those years lost to doctor visits and shed hair and Mom, the do-er, lying sick on the couch.
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Emily Henry (Beach Read)
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There is a saying in the ER, “When the patient sweats, the doctor sweats.” Sweating unrelated to exercise, being hot, or infection is a sign of the release of adrenaline in the body, which in turn is a response to some internal stress.
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Paul Seward (Patient Care: Death and Life in the Emergency Room)
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On my next book tour the theme was monkeys, and on the latest one it was items men shove inside themselves and later have to go to the emergency room to have extracted. This started when an ER nurse told me about a patient she’d seen earlier in the week who had pushed a dildo too far up his ass. The door had shut behind it, so he’d tried fishing it out with a coat hanger. When that proved the wrong tool for the job, he’d snipped it with wire cutters, then gone after both the dildo and the cut-off hanger with a sturdier, fresh hanger. You hear this from doctors and nurses all the time: their patients shove light bulbs inside themselves, shampoo bottles, pool balls…and they always concoct some incredible story to explain their predicament. “I tripped” is a big one. And, OK, I’m pretty clumsy. I trip all the time, but never have I gotten back on my feet with a pepper grinder up my ass, not even a little bit. I’m pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Building—naked, with a greased-up rolling pin in each hand and a box of candles around my neck—and still end up in the lobby with an empty rectum. Another common excuse is “I accidentally sat on it.” Implied is that you were naked at the time and this can of air freshener that just happened to be coated with Vaseline went all the way up inside
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David Sedaris (Happy-Go-Lucky)
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Good night," she called out.
He waved over his shoulder, not daring to turn around and be tempted to join her in a drink. Or another kiss. Because she might be a good swimmer, but he was in danger of drowning.
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Robin Bielman (The Wedding Crasher and the Cowboy (Windsong, 1))
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Who did this to you?” He scanned the fist-sized bruise, all shades of blue, purple, and even green and yellow. “Was it your ex? Cliff said you had an argument on the phone.” His jaw flexed powerfully, and he released my face. “If he so much as laid a finger on you, I swear, I’ll—” I pressed a hand to Gage’s chest, broad and muscled under his suit. His pecs heaved with the force of his breaths, his anger. Where was this coming from? “I’m okay,” I said gently. “I got hit by a foul ball at my son’s baseball game. Like winning the lottery, but less fun. The ER doctor said I avoided a concussion. I’m just going to look ugly for a few weeks while it heals.” His voice was almost a whisper as he said, “Ugly? You? Those two words don’t belong in the same sentence.
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Kelsie Hoss (Hello Billionaire (Hello, #4))
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But “prison” hardly does Justicia. . . er, justice.’ She tittered briefly at her little joke. ‘I prefer to think of it more as a testing centre.
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Stephen Cole (Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside)
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not like doctor’s stuff you can go on taking for ever and never notice the difference except when the bill comes in.
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E.R. Punshon (Diabolic Candelabra (Bobby Owen Mystery #17))
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I was addicted to him, too. And I was lost in him. And, even better, found in him.
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Max Monroe (Dr. ER (The Doctor Is In, #2))
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I drove fast and carefully while Sloan made calls. I scanned the road and went twenty over the speed limit on the freeway. I zipped around cars using my blinker and hand waves. When we got to the hospital, I dropped her off at the emergency room entrance and parked, then ran with her bag to meet her at the front desk.
“He’s in surgery,” she said tearfully when I jogged in through the automatic doors of the ER, my shoes squeaking on the white shiny floors.
I looked at the woman behind the check-in desk, like a robot gathering data. I could see everything. The age spots on her forehead, the gray wisps along her hairline. The sterile, white countertop and the shimmer in the petals of pink roses in a vase behind the desk. “Where can we wait? And can you inform the doctor that his family is here?”
We were sent to a private waiting area for the neurology department on the third floor. Brightly lit, plastic potted plants tucked in the corners of the room, serene blue walls, uniform gray tweed upholstered chairs, magazines and boxes of tissues on every end and coffee table.
Sloan scanned the room. Maybe it was the finality of it—the cessation of forward movement—but this was when she officially broke down. She buried her face in her hands and wept. “Why is this happening?”
I wrapped her sweater around her and put her in a chair. “I don’t know, Sloan. Why does anything happen?”
I knew what things had to be done, what I had to do to make her comfortable. But I couldn’t feel any of the panic or grief that I saw in Sloan. I felt like I was watching a movie with the sound off. I could see what was happening, but I couldn’t connect to the characters.
We waited. And waited. And waited.
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Abby Jimenez
“
The doctors at Hayden may have erred about the details of her condition. They need their labels, their certainties. What are depression and psychosis, after all, but lapses from realism? And what’s that? But the doctors were right about the general crisis. An insufficient God is better than no God at all.
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Martha Cooley (The Archivist)
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So now I am the doctor in charge of Bellevue’s psychiatric emergency room, also known as CPEP (pronounced “See-Pep,” the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program). I run two fifteen-hour overnight shifts on Saturday and Sunday nights. They call me “the weekend attending.” It feels just like rock-and-roll psychiatry to me. This is my Saturday night gig.
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Julie Holland (Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.)
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else is going on in your life—your personal baggage—stays outside the ER door. When you come in here, it’s like flipping a switch. Anything that does not contribute to you being an effective doctor, you shut it down, box it up, put it aside. If you can’t manage that while you’re in my department, you won’t last the month. I’ll show you the door myself.
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Miranda MacLeod (Hearts in Motion)
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According to the forensic psychiatrist Robert Simon, the author of Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream, the following statements are true: "Psychiatrists have long known that the most dangerous time is during the first visit with an unknown patient. According to an American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report, 40% of psychiatrists are assaulted during their careers. Nearly three-fourths of assaults against all physicians occurred during the first meeting of doctor and patient.
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Paul R. Linde (Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist)
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Mark Twain said it well, ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
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Brent Rock Russell (Miracles and Mayhem in the ER: Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
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Half the doctors on earth wouldn’t even bother looking at my chart, they’d just see a fat person and conclude that any and all medical maladies were my own fault for being lazy and overeating. Never mind that I could probably out-hike most of them and my blood pressure is exquisite. I could hop into an ER carrying my severed leg and squirting blood from the stump and the doctor would congratulate me on having dropped all that leg weight and tell me to keep up the good work.
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T. Kingfisher (A House With Good Bones)
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In a conventional support group setting, had an attendee spent the session suggesting suicide, there would be a home follow-up from the counsellors. To use Facebook for any purpose without guardrails seemed irresponsible. The administrators were not trained counsellors, either. In the real world, this would have been equivalent to a hospital run by unqualified doctors who had watched a few episodes of ER . That would never be acceptable.
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Nin Mok (Suddenly Silent and Still)
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She was a doctor, bound by the Hippocratic oath: First: Do no harm. That was her duty.
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Rada Jones (Poison (ER Crimes: The Steele Files #3))
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That’s how I learned. They don’t teach you how to kill people in nursing school. You learn that from the doctors. I learned from you.
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Rada Jones (Mercy (ER Crimes, The Steele Files #2))
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Dr. Arthur was in his midthirties and he was trim and fit, with thinning rust-colored hair. He’d come to Saddlestring from a critical care hospital in eastern Montana, and was the pride of the hospital foundation’s recruiting committee, who had issued a press release about how, prior to coming to Wyoming, Arthur had done stints in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Joe didn’t know him well, but he’d met him a couple of times in the last year at community events Marybeth had wanted to attend. He seemed competent and Joe hadn’t heard disparaging things about him—the last emergency room doctor had been accused of unnecessary pelvic exams on young women who’d arrived at the ER with broken arms or legs.
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C.J. Box (Long Range (Joe Pickett, #20))