Typical Day
Today should be a fairly predictable day for Dr. Ursula T. Ingram, which is a good thing. Having not been awoken by any urological emergencies, she's up at 7:30AM with the regular working crowd. She starts her day with some work on her research projects.
Dr. Ingram gets on a conference call promptly at 8:00AM, ready to discuss recently collected data for her study on prostate cancer prevention and management. It's mostly quantitative data right now, so after sharing numbers on how many low-risk men are getting tested for prostate cancer, they've done about all they can on the call.
The small talk becomes awkward, the parties realize they have nothing more to say to each other, and they plan for their next conference so they can get off the phone.
She feels as though she's forgotten something...but no matter.
By 9:00AM, Dr. Ingram is at the research lab, taking notes on the latest round of prostate cancer tests. She and her research team have been monitoring some cancer cells under different environments. She barely speaks to her team, opting instead to take notes and observe silently.
She gets so into the results that she loses track of time, realizing with only fifteen minutes to spare that she needs to get to her 12:00PM appointment at the clinic.
Her first patient is Mrs. Priscilla Hertz, who has come in with what she believes is a serious urinary tract infection.
"All the cranberry juice in the world will not cure me of this pain, Doctor. Please help me."
Dr. Ingram has Priscilla take a dipstick test and the results are positive, so the doctor prescribes some strong antibiotics.
"The symptoms should start clearing up after the second pill, but be sure to finish the entire prescription, okay?"
"You got it, Doc. I'm not taking any chances with this beast."
Dr. Ingram's next patient is Kenny Stone, who is coming in for a follow-up appointment after he passed his kidney stones a couple weeks ago. She sent the stones he passed to be inspected for metabolic risk factors, and it turns out he's in the clear. But Kenny still has a bunch of questions.
"Listen, Dr. Ingram, that was the worst pain I've felt in my entire life. What can I do to avoid it happening again?"
"It's pretty simple, Ken," She tells him, "Drink more water and avoid too much salt and meat. Think you can handle it?"
"It'll be a breeze compared to what I had to do two weeks ago!"
Her next patient is an old woman, Joan, who was sent from her primary care physician because they found small traces of blood in her urine. Dr. Ingram has to give her a cystoscopy (which means inserting a camera into Joan's bladder) to look for any abnormalities. Joan is a smoker and there are no tumors, fortunately, but Dr. Ingram reminds her that smoking can cause bladder cancer and she should really try to quit.
Dr. Ingram sees a couple more patients but is able to finish up by around 6:30PM. That's early by her standards. She's about to run off to double check all of her notes for tomorrow's meeting while heating and eating a frozen dinner, but Dr. Keith drops in before she has a chance to leave.
Why does he always have that dopey grin on his face?
"Everyone in immunology is going out for drinks tonight. You gotta come with us, Urse."
"Thanks, but I've got a lot of prep work to—"
"What? Are you allergic to fun?"
There it was. He worked in his pun. Delightful. She puts her head down on the desk.
"Aw cheer up," he says and she hears the door creak open, "did you actually think we forgot?"
"Forgot what?" she thinks to herself and picks her head up to see a crowd of people standing in her office.
"Happy Birthday!" screams a horde of her co-workers.
Whoa. They hadn't forgotten, but she certainly had. Dr. Ingram breaks into a smile.
"Alright, fine. I suppose work'll have to wait then, won't it?"