On the busy ones, we didn’t have time to pee, while on slow shifts the medics fought boredom by staging scorpion-versus-camel-spider fights, or by watching slasher movies that drew belly laughs for the fake blood splashing across the screen. A few of the females, and even a couple of males, had taken up knitting and crochet. Instead of war souvenirs, they’d bring home scarves and blankets. You also needed to look both ways before crossing the ER to avoid being run over by the NASCAR-like wheelchair races. By mid-July, business was on the upswing, with a steady flow of patients and even a few periods where our operating rooms had been open around the clock. I had been designated the official “shit magnet” for the weeks before, the term for the doctor who had the highest number of trauma cases when on duty. It was better than being designated “007”—as in licensed to kill. Make a mistake and you were called Dr. Bond until someone else fouled up and stole the title. Fortunately, our mistakes seemed few and minor—and no patients had suffered from our work.
