Calm before the madness

Posted on Sat May 4th, 2019 @ 3:49am by Lieutenant Commander Carolyn Corrigan MD
Edited on on Sun May 5th, 2019 @ 7:04am

1,012 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 98 - A Raid on Peace
Location: USS Mercy, Surgical Suites
Timeline: MD1, 1115hrs

Designed to be a hospital ship, one benifit of the Olympic class of ships was that they were effectively bringing the capabilities of a starbase with them. Rather than being confined by the usual facilities found aboard a starship, aboard the Mercy they could operate with better resources than most starship physicians could hope for. That included surgical suites.

While they were in the dark about what they would encounter, the planning (which admittedly been plagerised out of the starfleet manual) had included all of the suites to be prepped and designated teams assigned to each one. Although that was stretching them in terms of people. Nurses they had in abundence, doctors were fewer in numbers and of those not all had been in an OR recently. It had been a headache trying to ensure they had enough people with the right skills.

Keeping the lights on a low setting to keep the worst of said headache at bay, Doctor Corrigan moved through Suite 1 as she methodically checked the equipment. In the adjacent suite, Dr McLintock was doing a similiar inspection as was Dr Thomas.

As she input a command to initiate a calibration sequence, she heard the door behind her open. "Hi," she offered with a warm smile, looking over her shoulder to find the newest addition to the department walking in. "How is the first day going so far?"

"Well, after the meeting with Commander Hades and realizing how true it was about the Nurses, I realized that I have my work cut out for me. Besides that and a mild headache, I think I'm doing very well. How about yourself Doctor?" Franklin said, helping Corrigan work on some of the calibration of the equipment.

“I would be better if this would calibrate properly,” she told him, inputting another series of commands. It was not exactly essential but it formed part of the sensor suite around the operating table and it was an extra, normally infallible tool. Glancing over at Franklin she frowned, “the nurses are being nice to you I hope.”

"Yeah, things are going as smoothly as they can be. I've already meet Nurse Ashley and she helped me get accustomed to the layout of your main sickbay, as well as gave me some tips on how everything runs around here. Did you need some help with that, by the way?" I said, offering my expertise and help.

Franklin walked over and helped Corrigan to calibrate the various instruments and make sure the senors were fine tuned for the mission.

“Thanks,” Carolyn said, letting him work his magic. “Ashley is an excellent nurse, definitely not one to worry about.”

“Yeah, I’ve met some of the troubled ones as well. But, it is definitely something I can work on and get into tip top shape,” Franklin said, finishing up the calibration rather quickly.

“Lynn is still on the station, but I’m not entirely sure when Dr Hades will let her back,” Carolyn admitted. “Okay, I think we are done. Next... before you got aboard I had already worked with Ashley to assign the nurses. I’d like OR nurses to stay as is if you can but if you do want to shuffle people around, this is our last chance.”

"Well, I'd like to keep at least three OR Nurses on call at any given point, but it looks like you and Ashley did pretty well about doing just that, plus some. I'd also like to assign a nurse or two to the counseling department, just in case someone needs medication or if they need to be sedated. Lord only knows after what has happened to them," Franklin says, picking up a PADD and checking the data on the nurses from it.

“Rol will be overseeing the counselling side,” Carolyn assured him. “So I would’ve worry about that unless he tells us his department can not cope. For now, let’s assume we need everyone dealing with the injured. So long as we can in theory operate our ORs and have at least one team on site then go with what you think best.

"If we do need teams on the ground, the EMH programmes can be utilised where needed. The ORs included. So far we’ve been able to run four simultaneously in different areas of sickbay without issues but after that they get too irritating.”

"Don't we have an LMH installed onboard as well? I thought I read that in the specs for the ship, but I might've been wrong," Nate said, pulling the information up on his PADD.

"But, the main thing that I want to make sure we do is take care of the sick and wounded. That should always be the main priority. I just want to make sure that my first mission here is as successful as it can be," Franklin said, letting his nervousness show.

“Don’t worry you are gonna do just fine. And try not to worry too much, we can never come up with enough contingency plans to cover every scenario. Just remember you earned this spot on the team, and if we work as a team, we’ll be fine,” she told him.

"Yeah, very true. Plus, I'm currently working on my MD, so I do have a little bit of extra knowledge beyond the regular nurses. So, if you ever need any extra help with surgeries or the sick, just let me know," Franklin said, with a smile on his face, as anyone could see the tension melt away from his body.

Carolyn smiled. “I will. For now, I need an extra strong coffee and then we can see if an engineer can help us get some more EMHs online. I hate them but in situations like this they may just about be worth the attitude.”

"Well, how about on the way to Engineering, we get some Klingon coffee? I know that stuff is potent and will help keep us awake for the mission," Franklin said, offering the door for the fine doctor.

OFF

RSS Feed

Comments (1)