Chapter Four.

Scrubbing in!

..

Okay, calm down, Hana, just calm down.

Hana was pacing back and forth in the on-call room, she had almost half an hour left to scrub in for the surgery and assist Dr. Zhang. Somehow, she refused to believe there were no tricks involved, there had to be something. Why would he ask her to assist him out of the blue, when all this while the only thing he thought she was suitable for was getting coffee?

Dr. Zhang was indeed a puzzling individual. She went through the chapter about Nephrectomy in her textbook for about a hundredth time, she just had to make sure she didn't mess up this golden opportunity. And even if he did humiliate her, it wouldn't be because she wasn't well-prepared. She doubted if she had ever done anything so diligently; it may have been the strong urge she had to prove to Dr. Zhang that she too was quite as adept as the other interns and he should stop discriminating among them.

"Hey Hana, I heard Dr. Zhang asked you to scrub in on that Nerphrectomy. Congrats!" Kyungsoo beamed at her cheerfully giving her a thumbs-up.

Hana laughed at his dorkiness, he was one of the main reasons why she could find her internship at the hospital at least tolerable. She got along fairly well with the big-eyed guy; he was quite amiable, which made it quite difficult to not like him.

People were right when they said that a hospital was just like high -school, there were all sorts of people. Sara and Jessica definitely had to be the "mean-girls" in that case. And Dr. Zhang would certainly be the bully who picked on the weakest person in class. Hana had wanted nothing more but to not be the weakest kid. 

"Well, it's nothing compared to the Whipple I assisted him on," Sara scoffed, being the typical mean-girl, interrupting their conversation.

"Yeah, Dr. Zhang probably thinks you're capable only for silly procedures like these." Jessica, her side-kick, added, while Sara laughed mocking Hana.

"Don't listen to them Hana. And do well on your surgery." Kyungsoo patted the girl lightly on her back, hoping to give her some moral support.

She smiled at Kyungsoo earnestly but she couldn't deny that she was nervous. Boy, wasn't she nervous? After all, it was Dr. Zhang that she had to assist and she didn't really have a good feeling about this.

After what seemed like forever, she finally scrubbed in and entered the OR. She went ahead to stand at the opposite side of where Dr. Zhang was standing, so that she could assist. He was probably going to ask her to retract and watch, she thought. Unless he had something else in mind, which she hoped that he didn't; Dr. Zhang was quite an odd person as far as she knew.

"Come over to this side, Dr.Song."

The OR had a gallery on top, from where the surgery could be seen by the others. She could see her fellow interns sitting there from the corner of her eyes. Great! They were probably here to make fun of her, because almost everybody was sure that Dr. Zhang would find ways to humiliate her. And they found this rather entertaining.

Uncertain of why he had asked her to stand next to him, she hesitantly made her way across the table on which the patient who was already anesthetized laid.

"Scalpel." Yixing drew out his gloved hand to the nurse, so she would hand him the scalpel.

Hana eyes wandered from the nurse to Yixing, who held the scalpel now. 

Why isn't he cutting?

And the next thing she knew, Yixing handed the blade over to her.

"You'll make the first cut Dr. Song," he said to an extremely nervous and bewildered Hana.

Did she hear that right? She had to cut? This wasn't supposed to be happening. She was just supposed to watch and probably retract, that's what the other interns did. 

"We don't have enough time, Dr. Song." Yixing let out an impatient sigh.

Meanwhile, in the gallery the rest of them were equally puzzled, he never let her in on any surgery and now that he let her in, she had to make the first cut?

Sara sniggered when she saw Hana's hand shaking as she took the blade towards the patient's abdomen.

"I bet she'll chicken out and he'll throw her out," she laughed as the rest joined her, except Kyungsoo of course.

Hana took the scalpel in her trembling hand and she moved to place it over the abdomen.

Okay Hana. This is your only chance. You have to do this. You can do this.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Cut fast and deep, so that you don't have to do it again.

Make a clean cut.

Apply enough pressure, but not too much.

She recited the rules in her mind repeatedly as her hand glided smoothly along the marked area.