Storytelling Week 3: The Doctor and His Nurse

November 16th was a stormy night in Dallas, Texas. Sam had the late shift at the hospital again, but at leas he had it with all his fellow surgeon friends. He knew it would be a bad night with the storm. People in Dallas are the worst drivers when it comes to any kind of bad weather; snow, rain, even wind sometimes. When he got to work that night everyone already seemed to be in a state of panic, great. It could only get worse from here, he thought. On the way to change into his scrubs he saw his friend Clair. She told him there had been a 5-car pile up on the highway because of a huge semi truck. After hearing this, Sam hurried to change and get to work.

Dallas Storm
From Flick

When Sam got to his station, he looked at the board to see what surgeries were already scheduled, and what his plan looked like for the night. There were 7 surgeries in the next 7 hours! He looked around for the little red headed nurse named Kayla he was accustomed to being paired with, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He went to ask the head nurse on duty to see where she was. When he asked her, she said they were extremely short staffed tonight because of the storm. He asked again where his nurse was, but was not expecting to hear what the head nurse had to say.



Kayla had been one of the people in the pile up, and was in the ICU. 

Hospital Bed
From Pixabay

What now? Sam decided that not having that many nurses weren’t a huge deal. In his mind they didn’t really do that much anyways, so everything would go on as it usually did. The head nurse told Sam that the nurses that were here were rotating among all the surgeons getting people prepped for the surgeries they needed, but that may take a little longer than usual. Sam went to go prep for his upcoming surgery that was scheduled within the next hour. He waited three hours instead of one though. Finally his patient was ready, but they had lost so much valuable time. This went on all night with all of his surgeries.



After his shift was over, Sam went to see Kayla to check up on her, and see if she needed anything. Before he got there though he decided to get her some flowers and a card as a thanks for everything she does. He had never quite realized what a valuable part of his team she was, until she was no longer there. After this experience, Sam started being a lot nicer to the nurses on his team, and doing nice little things for them every once in a while. He realized that everyone has an important role, even if they don’t seem like it. The hospital is a cohesive team, and every part is needed to make it work properly.




Author’s Note: This story was adapted from the story of the body parts in Aesop’s Fables by Jacobs. For this story I thought about a place where every person would be crucial for success, and came up with a hospital (probably because I am obsessed with Grey’s Anatomy right now). I think most work places are like this though. Everyone has a crucial role to play, and without them things are harder, but sometimes it takes them being missing to fully realize this. This is the goal of this Aesop’s fable. It shows that although someone may not seem like they are contributing as much as someone else, what they are doing is still valuable work, and work that is needed.


Bibliography: “The Belly and the Members” by Jacobs. From Aesop’s Fables: Nature and Inanimate Objects.