Typical Day
Dr. Bunsen Beaker is the chief microbiologist at a large metropolitan hospital. He's been employed here for a little over three years, after transferring in from a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. His work there involved developing antibiotics and antiviral medications. It was pretty rewarding work and the pay was great, but after a few years he started to feel he'd gotten away from the roots of his profession. He hadn't seen anything particularly disgusting in a petri dish since his internship days in a clinic in downtown L.A., and darn it, he'd come to miss it.
Not that he's particularly interested in swabbing patients and developing cultures himself. No, as chief microbiologist in a large hospital, he's still occasionally a player in research and development, experimentation, etc., but he's also responsible for the entire microbiology lab. All the lab techs work for him, which means he can go see urine, blood, poo, and any other gross bodily substance anytime he fancies. Generally, he does not fancy. He put in his time doing the grunt work. Now the grunts answer to him. This means he spends equal amounts of time behind a microscope and in meetings.
Anyway, Bunsen is up and out the door by 6am today, because he has an early morning meeting with the hospital administrator. There's been a minor outbreak of a resistant pathogen in the city and it's causing some concern among the citizens, the city council, and the mayor, not necessarily in that order. Bunsen's team has been examining samples taken from all the known victims, trying to conclusively identify the strand and an effective medication. The team has run through all the standard options; Ebola, e. coli, malaria, influenza, pink eye, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" reruns, etc. No luck so far.
Bunsen's meeting is troublesome. For starters, he has to answer a lot of questions posed by politicians whose medical and scientific education comes entirely from episodes of Dr. Oz and the list of potential side effects the announcer says really fast at the end of Viagra commercials.
Mayor: So, Dr. Beaker, how close are we to identifying the disease?
Bunsen: It's difficult to say, Mr. Mayor. We’re working as diligently as we can. It appears so far to be a variant of a not uncommon bacteriological pathogen. But we aren't sure why it's resistant to antibiotics.
Councilman 1: Do you have enough scientists working on it?
Bunsen: Yes.
Councilman 2: How can you be sure?
Bunsen: Well, all our microscopes are occupied, so I wouldn’t even know where to put more guys if I had them.
Councilman 1: Was that supposed to be a joke?
Bunsen: Uh…
Hospital Administrator: Dr. Beaker simply meant his lab is acting at full capacity.
Mayor: We don't want the CDC jumping in on this, Dr. Beaker. I hope we see some progress soon.
Bunsen: Mr. Mayor, the disease has only affected 11 people since the first patient was identified over six weeks ago. This barely qualifies as an outbreak and doesn't come anywhere near the threshold of epidemic. It isn't lethal. Is this really the kind of thing the CDC cares about?
Mayor: You don't watch much TV, do you?
Bunsen: No.
Councilman 1: But you follow Twitter, right?
Bunsen: Twitter?
Councilman 2: Instagram?
Bunsen: Instawhat?
Hospital Administrator: Well, we better get Dr. Beaker back to his lab. That disease isn't going to identify itself, is it, Bunsen? We'll keep you gentlemen up to date, of course.