Invisible String

Chapter 2: The Very First Page

"Uhm, conditions like cardiac valve replacement surgery, mitral valve prolapse and congenital heart diseases are all risk factors for bacterial endocarditis, and because of that risk most dentists rather not perform invasive procedures on those patients..."

Dr. Montgomery's page started to bip insistently. She kept talking, waving her hands very energetically while explaining to Elizabeth her way around the hospital's system. Then, the pager was replaced by her phone's loud ringtone.

"I need to check on something. You can go on and update Mrs. Feldman's charts and schedule Mr. Jonas for a periodontal treatment this afternoon. I'll be right back."

Elizabeth looked at the tablet in her hands. Electronic charting was something she was not totally familiar with yet, so she would need to be more attentive to avoid mistakes. She didn't want to be that girl, the one who messes everything already on her first day.

Focused on updating the charts correctly and taking notes, Elizabeth didn't really notice where she was going until her body collided with someone else. The tablet almost fell on the ground, while her notepad actually did.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." she pleaded, putting the tablet down. "It's my first day and I'm already knocking people over." she muttered under her breath.

"It 's fine." the stranger reassured me. The first thing she noticed was the deep voice and the black scrubs, then the fact he was reaching for her notepad that had fallen. He got up again and handed her the notepad. Their eyes met for a moment, a dark tone of blue staring back at her.

"I swear, I don't usually walk around without looking where I'm going." taking her notepad back, she offered her hand, and he promptly took it. "It's my first day here. I'm Elizabeth.

"Nice to meet you, Elizabeth. I'm Connor."

"Oh." she finally read the name tag and realized. "You're Doctor Rhodes, the cardiothoracic surgeon."

"I am, yes. Have we met before?"

"No, no. I just... heard a lot about you." Elizabeth faltered. Between Will's stories and all those times she was watching the news and she had heard about a brilliant surgeon that was treating a panda or a guy that fell down a building, she realized too late that admitting to knowing him already could pass off as a little weird.

He frowned a little at her words, as she was expecting. Connor's eyes went down from her face, and she noticed he was trying to read her own name tag. When he actually did, his frown became even bigger.

"Which part is it?" She took a guess, her lips dancing around in a timid smile. Elizabeth had figured this would happen a lot around here, since everyone knew Will and also not everyone knew about a dentistry department in the hospital. "Is it the last name, or the department?"

Connor smirked at her. "Both, actually."

"I'm Will's sister." she confirmed. "But I guess you could tell this already because of the ridiculous red hair or the obvious last name."

He puts his hands in the pockets of his scrubs, waiting for her to speak more.

"As for the department, well, studies have shown that having oral care protocols in a hospital environment significantly decreases the rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia. That is, just to name one reason." Elizabeth stated, having that speech ready for every smart-ass doctor who would try to brush off the importance of dentists in a multidisciplinary team.

See, a lot of physicians had that God complex, and that included the notion that everyone in the health field that was not a medical doctor wanted to be one, but chose another area as a consolation prize, because they couldn't get into medical school. She had met a few during college, but she hoped she wouldn't meet a lot of them here at Med. And that Dr. Rhodes wasn't one of them.