un: Bachelor | text

[thantagonist]

Attention Fellow People of Etraya,

I am Doctor Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine. As I understand it, few of you have seen a doctor lately. That simply won’t do! Please, don’t wait to get sick to establish care. I am situated in the hospital, ready to take consent forms and make updated medical histories. At least a few of you have unaddressed concerns, I just know it. The average person comes to see the doctor when it’s too late! Though we cannot die here, there is no reason to suffer unduly.

And if you are otherwise healthy, perhaps think of it as helping me out. In the event of an outbreak, it is far more helpful to have complete clinical pictures of the inhabitants. Especially, as I understand it, there are many biological differences in this population.

Please come visit me during my clinic hours, every day from 10am to 6pm.


[What Daniil really wants is to meet more of the unusual inhabitants of Etraya more quickly as well as conduct casual interviews of the sort of people who are slated to save the universe. But he can’t just say that completely outright.]

Comments

un: credfield

[letmelive]

I'm guessing you're gonna want me to come in to follow up on the cut on my back?

[thantagonist]

If I could have a single compliant patient today, I would be incredibly grateful. Please, come in. I’ll make sure reception has fresh tea. Or would you prefer a hot chocolate?

[letmelive]

I think it's a universal truth that people just don't like doctors that much. I'll stop by, but I'm pretty sure it's fine, now. Itchy means it's healing, right?

[thantagonist]

Itchy is normal as long as it’s not painful or discolored or inflamed. I’d like to check your other injuries as well. I have much better equipment at my disposal.

[Which can all be hand waived unless you wanna play sticking Claire into an MRI.]

I will have some questions and favors to ask as well. But those are best left for in person.

[letmelive]

Oh yeah I bet, this place is crazy hi-tech. I didn't look around much when I was there, but it looked like a medical staff would be well stocked.

[ She might take some convincing to get into an MRI but she'll probably do it. ]

Sure thing. I'll stop by in a bit.

→action;

[thantagonist]

[Daniil waits back in a hospital office, waiting for a bot to bring Claire back to him. He sips a coffee and reviews her chart.]

Miss Redfield, welcome. How are you feeling? You may step behind the curtain and disrobe.

[He says it so casually. There’s no hospital gown.]

I’ll check on all your cuts and bruises and ensure everything is healing well.

[His practices may be out of date but he doesn’t seem particularly unprofessional or anything. But that doesn’t mean she has to go along with it at all.]

[letmelive]

[ Claire cocks her head to the side at that request, frankly baffled at it. She realizes that Daniil is a doctor, but she also immediately clocks that there's nothing by way of modesty shield here. ]

Uh... yeah, I'm not doing that. I'll let you check my injuries, but my clothes stay on.

[thantagonist]

Are all of your injuries outside your clothes?

[Daniil folds his hands. People didn’t usually object to this, at least.]

[letmelive]

Pretty much, yeah. I can pull my strap down on my tank top so you can get at my back. I was wearing a leather jacket and jeans most of the night which were surprisingly pretty good protection.

[ She demonstrates the movement of the tank top she's wearing. She might have some bruises and bumps elsewhere on her body, but those are things she knows she can monitor herself. The cut on her lip has also mostly healed over and the accompanying bruise is more yellow than purple, now. ]

[thantagonist]

Very well. Still, it can be important to allow a doctor to see things you might not ordinarily be able to. You would not believe the number of times I brought up some bite or bruise or infected abscess with a patient that wasn’t aware of it at all. It’s meant life or death before.

[Those bruises and bumps are exactly what he means. He leans in a bit to look at her lip. It’s mending well, and he makes a note of such.]

[How’s the slash lookin’?]

[letmelive]

[ That does make Claire hesitate a moment, considering, but she's also a 19-year-old girl who thinks she knows herself pretty well. ]

If I start feeling worse, I promise I'll strip next time.

[ The wound on her back is healing over, still a little ugly but that probably has more to do with how long it was exposed to the elements than anything else. ]

[thantagonist]

Good. All I ask is for you to be reasonable.

[Everyone here is so modest. Like they’ve never gone to the bathhouse.]

[He frowns at it.]

Is it painful? Numb? Move your arm for me? Any reduced range of motion?

[letmelive]

Reasonable, 'course.

[ Reasonable is not always Claire's strong suit. At his question she shakes her head, before lifting her arm. She winces a little at the movement, more from the tightness of the skin pulling, but it does ache a little too. ]

It's not the worst injury I've ever had. It's a little achey, and like I said, itchy.

[thantagonist]

Alright. Keep moving it every day, even though it hurts. I’m going to give you a cream that should help.

[He writes a prescription in incredibly neat handwriting.]

How have you been sleeping?

[letmelive]

Cream sounds good.

[ She adjusts her strap back into place, wrinkling her nose at his question. ]

Oh, great when I'm not waking myself up screaming. Bet my neighbors love me.

[thantagonist]

Is that right? I may be able to do something about that. You’re otherwise healthy… Here, let me take your blood pressure. Your arm, please.

[He pulls out a blood pressure cuff in good shape, but it would look very antique to Claire. He pulls her arm in against his body and feels for her pulse point. It’s clear that he’s even a bit thinner than he looks with her arm held firmly against his body, with the doctor’s coat that hangs from his broad shoulders masking this fact.]

[Though she might not notice anything different in the method that he takes her blood pressure, as a gal from the 90s. He inflates the cuff, then presses the diaphragm of his stethoscope to the crook of her arm and takes the measurements.]

[She would seem ordinary in this way, wouldn’t she? ]

[letmelive]

Is there a medical procedure to get rid of nightmares? Because sign me up if so.

[ Claire has some rudimentary medical knowledge, but not enough to really clock how old the blood pressure cuff looks.

He blood pressure is perfectly normal, despite the trauma she's been through she is a healthy 19-year-old girl. ]

[thantagonist]

Sounds good… [He checks the numbers he’s filled in and frees her arm from the cuff as well as his own grip.]

No, not a surgery. Well, none that should be performed on an otherwise functional person. Lobotomies leave much to be desired.

[Daniil opens a cabinet and plucks out a medical journal from a year neither of them have ever seen. Don’t worry about why he has a collection of medical journals stashed here about nightmares and the like.]

There is a medication formulated for blood pressure that just so happens to help with this, too. It shouldn’t be dangerous for you to try, and you can reach out to me anytime.

[letmelive]

[ Claire absently rubs her bicep where the cuff was, encouraging the ache from the constriction to subside. She grimaces at the mention of lobotomies. ]

Yeah I'll pass on the lobotomy, I've seen that movie.

[ She's spoken to people from a variety of different years, and it's obvious this place is decades if not centuries ahead of the Earth Claire knows goes. That there's a medication that could help with nightmares that isn't a sedative... well, it piques her interest. ]

Really, a blood pressure med? It won't knock me out?

[thantagonist]

Was the movie any good? [Sounds like sort of an exciting film. It would have to be about doctors, wouldn’t it?]

[This paper is from over a hundred years in the future from Daniil’s point of view. Almost magic in its precision.]

Oh, it will. You’ll take it at bedtime.

[letmelive]

It was good up until the lobotomy. The guy became a vegetable.

[ It absolutely was not a movie about doctors.

She hesitates at the thought of the medication knocking her out, chewing on the inside of her lip. ]

I don't know in that case. Sleep would be good, but I've taken sleeping pills before, after my parents died. I still had the nightmares but it was like I couldn't get away from them.

[thantagonist]

That is a distinct risk when you jam an ice pick into someone’s brain.

[He regards her with sympathy, as best he can. He can never seem to get every scrap of smugness off his face.]

It’s up to you. You can read the paper if you like, but…

Nightmares are unpleasant, but they won’t kill you. Not until you’re unable to sleep at all, at least. You can come back and change your mind when you’re feeling more desperate. [Not said unkindly, but matter of factly.]

[letmelive]

[ Claire scrunches her lips to the side as she thinks, eyeing the literature before holding out her hand. ]

I'll read it and I'll... try the medication. If it helps I'm probably not the only one around here having nightmares, so maybe it could help more people.

[thantagonist]

That’s likely a fair assessment.

[He hands her his copy, marked up in his handwriting.]

You can keep this, I’ve memorized the pertinent information and taken note of the chemical structure.

[Daniil loves sketching a good chemical compound.]

[He sits on his perch of a chair and folds his hands.] I’m not normally one to make myself so available nor my schedule so known, but I will make an exception for you while you get used to your medication. I tend to stay up and work until two in the morning. If you have any concerns after you go to bed… there is a good chance you can catch me awake.

Please don’t tell anyone this.

[letmelive]

Thanks.

[ She takes the journal, intent on reading it before she takes the medication. She's a college student, she's used to dense reading material. At his offer she smiles a little, tilting her head. ]

Two AM, huh? Maybe you need this stuff too.