her medical boards. She’d been accepted into the surgical residency program.
Hannah lifted her chin stubbornly. She’d made it this far, and she was bound and determined to make it through the grueling five years before her, too.
Nothing and no one was going to stand in her way.
* * *
Hannah was sharply disappointed to discover the entire first two days of being a new intern meant being stuck in new-employee orientation training for hours on end. Granted, the information was obviously important, and full of rules she tried hard to commit to memory, but sitting in the large lecture hall had been extremely anticlimactic.
Being with her fellow interns wasn’t too bad. She bonded a little bit with one of the few female residents, a strikingly beautiful caramel-skinned young woman by the name of Andrea Barkley. It was a little disturbing to know that the odds were, in fact, stacked against them. The surgical residency program was brutal, one of the reasons many women rarely got in. Or, if they did get in, they didn’t make it all the way through the program.
Or so she’d heard from her former boyfriend, Alec, who had been an intern when she’d been a junior medical student. No wonder their brief relationship hadn’t lasted very long.
The jerk hadn’t been the least bit supportive of her dream to become a surgeon. In fact, she’d had the sense he was threatened by her knowledge and determination. As if they were in some sort of competition or something. He never hesitated to make her feel stupid. And he wasn’t supportive of her family issues, either. Or of her need to work two jobs.
She was much better off without him.
For a moment the image of Jake’s laughing face filled her mind. She ruthlessly shoved it aside.
She didn’t have time for men. Even one as sexy and charming as Jake. There was no point in wondering if Jake would be supportive of her chosen career. Or supportive of her messed-up family.
Jake would be nothing more than a distraction she couldn’t afford.
Hannah met up with Andrea in the female surgical-residency locker room on the third day, relieved to discover they had been assigned to the same rotation, trauma surgery, for the month of July. Today was their first day taking care of real, live patients.
Hannah proudly donned her knee-length lab coat over her scrubs. The medical students were forced to wear short lab coats so that it was clear to the hospital staff that they were only students.
Now it would be clear to the hospital staff that she was a doctor. A surgical resident responsible for treating patients. She tucked her stethoscope into her pocket and took a deep breath.
She could do this. She’d studied hard and trained for this.
“Are you nervous?” Hannah whispered to Andrea as they walked down to the busy arena, the heart of activity in any emergency department. There were patients everywhere. Patients that were counting on them as residents to have a clue as to what might be wrong with them.
She quickly squelched the sliver of self-doubt.
“No.” Andrea glanced at her for a long moment and then shrugged. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
They walked up and introduced themselves to the senior resident on Trauma, Dr. Richard Reynolds.
He didn’t look thrilled to be saddled with two new residents. Did he have a grudge against females being in the program? Hannah wasn’t sure, but remained determined to prove him wrong, no matter what his assumptions were.
“There are a couple of trauma patients on the way in from a motor-vehicle crash,” Richard said. “I want each of you to take one of the patients. The attending on call today is Dr. Holt and both of us will be here if you need help. Any questions?”
Traumas? On their first day caring for patients? The look on the senior resident’s face was almost sneering, as if he expected them to balk at the responsibility. So Hannah straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “No questions.”
His gaze narrowed a bit, but then he nodded. “Good.”
Just then the doors from the ambulance bay burst open and two gurneys were wheeled in. For a moment panic stole her breath, but then a sense of calm came over her, as she took control of the first patient.
“James Turkow is a twenty-five-year-old restrained driver T-boned by another vehicle,” the paramedic announced. “Vitals were stable, and he was alert and oriented on the scene, but during transport became less responsive.”
Probable head injury, Hannah decided. But the bluish tint to his lips was concerning, so she pulled her stethoscope from her pocket and quickly listened to his lungs. Definitely not good. From what she could tell, he wasn’t moving nearly enough air to sustain life.
“Get me the intubation tray,” she ordered, pulling the oxygen mask and ambu-bag off the regulator on the wall to begin bagging him. With a flick of her wrist she turned the oxygen up to one hundred percent. “This guy needs an airway.”
The nurse quickly pulled out the emergency airway kit, handing over a laryngoscope and blade. “What size tube?”
“Eight.” Hannah quickly pulled on gloves and then took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. While the nurse placed the stylet into the endotracheal tube, she gently inserted the blade into her patient’s mouth and pulled upward—the way she had been taught—to search for his vocal cords.
Except she didn’t see them.
For a moment panic surged, and she frantically glanced around for Richard, the senior resident. Where in the heck was he? Didn’t he know she might need help? But Richard wasn’t readily available, so she tried again, tipping the young man’s head back farther and looking once again, down the back of his throat. Her left hand wielded the laryngoscope and she pulled upward, keeping away from his teeth to avoid damaging them.
“Easy, now, you’re doing fine,” a deep male voice said near her ear. Just knowing she wasn’t alone was enough to calm her frayed nerves. “Pull up just a little more. There, see the cords?”
Amazingly, she did see them. Trying to hold her left hand steady, she used her right hand to thread the ETT down through the patient’s vocal cords.
“Excellent,” the voice murmured. “Now remove the stylet and begin bagging. I’ll take a listen to make sure you’re in the right spot.”
She nodded, taking care to keep the tube firmly in place as she did as he requested. She kept her gaze trained on the patient’s chest, noticing with satisfaction that the chest rose and fell with every breath she gave with the ambu-bag.
“Good job. Looks like the tube is in place.” His low voice was reassuring. Almost mesmerizing. Relief made her knees feel weak, but she stiffened them with an effort. Her job was only partially done. “You’ll need to get a chest X-ray to confirm placement.”
“Will do,” she said, as she handed over the task of securing the tube to the nurse standing beside her. Once she was free to move aside, she glanced up at her rescuer.
And froze, when his glittering green gaze slammed
