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View Full Version : Part 2 - Chapter One - Doc Randall's Revenge



docsavage
07-29-03, 05:18 PM
He was intent on making a good first impression. Several of the medical school faculty were at OSU primarily to do medical research. Educating medical students was a necessary evil, which went with the job. Their egos led them to believe that they could ad lib through most of the classes they taught. Unfortunately, for the students in particular and the medical profession in general, this was not the case. Teaching at the same level one learns at required substantial out of class activities. Will concentrated his efforts on the first day's lecture to hopefully set the tone and establish an appropriate standard to strive for as his course unfolded. After today, a sense of panic and ill preparedness would accompany each new lecture topic. However, since he had been doing this for so long he felt that he was up to the challenge. History had indeed supported his approach. He had always been a student favorite and on several occasions won the Golden Apple Award. First-year students awarded this to the faculty member whom they felt was the superior basic science instructor in the year one medical school curriculum.

Will's class met for fifty minutes, three times a week for the duration of the semester. Today's lecture would consist of roughly twenty minutes of administrative garbage and thirty minutes of course introductory material. The administrative issues included attendance, textbook, course requirements, and expectations of the student by the professor, grades and Dr. Randall's office hours. Before he moved into the introductory material, Will asked the class if there were questions on the administrative components and received none. He assured them that there would be opportunities to ask or seek clarification on these items as the semester evolved. Will moved into the substantive portion of the first lecture.

Even though he began the day in dread of this first day's lecture, it was clear from his delivery and content that Will possessed a passion for the material that constituted the backbone of this course. During the final thirty minutes of the period, Will touched briefly on the material that this course would cover. This included a philosophy of medical education, how to think like an M.D., how it was time to stop memorizing material for the purpose of test taking and to start learning material for applications sake. Additionally, information related to the field of medical research played a predominant role in Will's course content. How this information was developed, hypothesis testing, how it was applied, and medical statistics were all important, interrelated topics. The politics and economics of this information and the research conducted in support of these goals were also important considerations. Will could tell that he captured the imagination and attention of several of the students. He closed the lecture with a call for questions dealing with anything that he had discussed during the fifty-minute time frame. Additionally, he invited anyone to visit with him after class in the area adjacent to his podium. Since his class occupied the 11:00 to 11:50 a.m. slot, he did not have to worry about hurrying out of the classroom, but he did have to concern himself with the grumbling stomachs of young medical students. At his signal, more than one hundred members of the class of 2001 headed for the exits and whatever they had scheduled for their one-hour respite from the rigors of medical school. This left about twenty students who made their way to Wills' designated discussion area for a few minutes with the professor who taught "Experimental Theory in Medicine."

A few of the students were there simply for clarification of some of the points that Will had brought up in class. Answering the question about whether the text was optional or mandatory reduced his following by twelve. A few additional clarifications reduced the group to five, four of whom were there to kiss up. Will detested this and did everything he could to squash it in its infancy. These four students quickly came to the realization that Will was on to them and departed. One student remained. She had lingered in the background while all the other students made their cases, and asked their questions, seemingly content to be the last one. When she and Will were finally alone, she walked up to him and extended her small hand as a means of introducing herself. Will was struck by her appearance. There was something strangely familiar about her, but Will could not put his finger on it. She was about five-feet-five inches tall with beautiful, olive skin and striking black hair. She was not particularly attractive and was in fact, a bit on the chubby side. However, she had great features, which just missed the mark. Will had often noted that there were plenty of women that required just some minor correction that would make them attractive, perhaps even stunningly beautiful. Will reached for her outstretched hand as she announced that her name was Caitlyn Curtis. Will was listening intently while attempting to identify somewhere in the recesses of his brain a clue that would help him identify this young woman.

"I think that you know my parents," she continued, "More specifically, my mother, Carol Lynn Curtis."
Will was still drawing blanks, but just as Caitlyn began to further elaborate on her mother, a wave of trembling consumed him. He watched her mouth move, but he did not need to hear what she was saying. His response, which was sublimbic, had informed him prior to her actual verbalization, what his body had known. "Her maiden name was Frederick." Caitlyn completed the moment.

Fate had thrown Will another cruel curve. Caitlyn had figured before in the course of Will's life and now, it appeared that she would contribute to the equation once again. Caitlyn Curtis was the daughter of Carol Lynn and Dr. Christopher Curtis. Carol Lynn had been Will's high school sweetheart, the woman he had intended to marry and indeed had been engaged to.

Of course, Will was painfully aware of the maiden name of this woman. He had never made the connection between the student roster and the couple that had traumatized his young life twenty-seven years ago. After all, Curtis was a fairly common name. Will began to feel lightheaded and no longer in control of his faculties. He squeezed his eyes shut in the hope of reorienting himself.